Hi there,

in short: I'm not sure about the licenses

Q1: Am I allowed to use Xamarin+MonoGame for a commercial programm for free or do I need to pay something for it?
Q2: How about SDL, OpenTK, SharpDX, Mono?
Q3: You know another solution?
Q4: What do you recommend to make my game with? Optimize my WebGL code and use Electron, use C++ SDL, C#, Xamarin+MonoGame, something else?

more details:

I intend to make and release some kind of 2D tileset/sprite game at Steam. So far I have some experiences with some small graphic programs
in/with C++(SDL, OpenGL, OpenCL, Cuda, ..), Java, WebGL, (SVG, RPG Maker and some more).
I plan to release it for Linux and Windows at the Steam platform. If easy also for Mac as well and if successful mobile devices could
follow.

Initially I planed to develop it with WebGL to be as cross-platform as possible. It's easy to use and nearly every device has a browser. I
did a very basic engine for my game with it. The engine runs but it's kind of slow. No much space for implementing all features.
Furthermore I might need a server to run it and I'm not sure if a "web page" is allowed as a Steam game.Recently I found
https://github.com/atom/electron/ . That might solve the publish issue.
I want a game which runs fast and also work on older devices. The time for WebGL doesn't seem to be here now.

The best experience with speed I had with C++ (SDL,..) but the code is more complicated and it takes some time to code. Furthermore It's
not that easy to make some cross-platform programs (or? (no experience so far)).

So in short I want some language/framework which is easy and fast in coding and runs fast as well. Java wanted to be the solution. C#
could be the solution. I read C# is the next Java.
At this time I plan to learn C# and make my game with it. Furthermore I can't/want write all the code by myself and need to use some
existing code. After some research I found Xamarin with MonoGame which implements MS XNA.

I'm not sure about the licenses. Am I allowed to use it for free? As far as I know you need to pay to use the original XNA from MS and
Xamarin want (for some staff) also money.
Alternatives like Unity or CryEngine also want money. Does exist something good for free? ( Unity is slow as well, don't know any fast game with it)

http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/mobile-development/how-to-create-a-mobile-game-on-the-cheap-r4267

Might help you.

I think your impression of Unity is off. It's free until you manage to make $100k dollars from your Unity game. Which is not all that likely, and when you hit it you go and get a pro-license. It's speed is pretty good, it's more about how you script your game. Robocraft is in Unity, and runs quite well on my older PC. And my own 2d game runs 60 fps on every mobile device I've put it on, so far, and I've only done mild optimizations with it.

You might also try Unreal, it has a similar monetary limitation, and I'm not sure of its mobile capabilities.

Hi, thank you for you answer.

I want to focus on the desktop system first. I didn't write it properly but it should run fast in two ways.
1) as mentioned before on old devices
2) bye itself, e.g. fast movement
I don't know why but the common 2d unity game seem to run with slow movements.
In addition my game contains some uncommon features and won't use 99% of unity capabilities. So I need and want to program a huge part by myself.

All I need is a fast visualisation of a pixel array with fast access to a 2D rectangle of it, a way to simulate sound from certain direction/distance and a easy way to distribute on different platforms. Maybe some tweaks for lighting, user input, network, visual effects. Not more.

It will be a long time project and the aim is more than 100k players.

Don't think Unity (and others with Unity like license) is that what I'm searching for. But I will have a closer look on it.

How about the other options (MonoGame,..)?