Hello folks! I’m looking for advice on which engine I should go with for a 2D game I want to make. The goal is to make a side-scrolling beat’em up/2D fighting game hybrid where the main levels are in beat’em up mode, but the boss battles are in 2D fighter mode. The combat controls (combos, special moves, etc) would be the same in both modes, and the game would include a tournament mode that is entirely in 2D fighter mode.

I have minimal game developing experience, and am essentially a noob. I am mostly familiar with RPGMaker, but have also experimented lightly with Unity. I have zero programming knowledge, and thus am partial to engines more accessible to complete beginners.

What engine(s) would be best suited to this kind of game? I am interested in both M.U.G.E.N and OpenBOR, but I don’t think either would allow the kind of genre-crossing I want to accomplish without significant programming skills that I don’t have.

Also - and I realize I’m thinking too far ahead - I would like to be able to release this game via HTML5 and just host it online somewhere if possible. Otherwise I am okay with it being PC only.

Thank you for your time and input!

-Autumn

Thanks for your advice! I’ve actually already looked into Stencyl and also decided it wasn’t for me. I kind of had the same experience with Unity, but that was for a different game idea, so I guess I should look into it further.

Thanks again!

I would recommend you the Godot engine (www.godotengine.org).

You still need to learn some programming, but it is very easy to use and feature rich.

There are tons of good tutorials and docs around. It is completely free!

I was able to port my old game (made with marmalade) in just a few days.

Thank you both for suggesting Godot! I’ve looked into it and at this point I think it will either be Godot or Construct 3. Godot is free and open source, which I really appreciate, and it also does 3D as well as 2D, which I also really appreciate because I may one day want to try 3D. The one major advantage that Construct 3 has is that the editor works on mobile, which I imagine will be very helpful when developing for mobile. I guess I just need to play around with both engines and see what fits best.

Thanks again!

Xenko (http://xenko.com/) is also another good option and has good 2D support. Might be worth a look.