Hi!

I'm looking for a 2D game engine that is easy to get started on. I have a good 4-5 year programming background (in Java, but I'm okay with any language as long as it doesn't involve pointers!) but I have very little idea about game development.

I'm not looking to create anything fancy - just bring to life a few of my ideas And I don't think I have the patience to learn 3D graphics right now - 2D is good enough for me!

Now for the tricky part - I am on a Linux machine, with no means to get a Windows system any time soon. I do have Windows running on VMWare though. The game engine should work on Windows on VMWare, if not on Linux.

I don't mind paying for it down the line, as long as it has a fully functional trial version. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Tapti.

[Edit - I went through some of the posts on this forum and elsewhere. I came across pygame and SDL bindings. Though those would suffice my requirement, I'd prefer something with an IDE and WYSISYG environment.]

hi tapti,

check out http://www.scirra.com/

here's a link to the free, personal and business versions... http://www.scirra.co...ore/construct-2

and here is an 'about construct 2' link... http://www.scirra.com/construct2

i use it with vmware on my macbook pro.

long story short...you'll be glad you did.

There's also Love2D. Written in C++ and uses Lua.

Not the most feature-complete engine, but still quite cool. I think it's already in the Ubuntu repository as well.

I have not been able to run GameMaker (or "Game Maker", as it used to be called) using VirtualBox on Ubuntu 12.04, since GameMaker uses DirectX and not OpenGL. Similar problems may occur for VMWare.

A game engine that is similar to GameMaker, but FOSS, is ENIGMA Development Environment: enigma-dev.org. It is licensed under the GPLv3, and it supports Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. It currently has problems with working on Ubuntu 12.04, but the developers are working to support it. I have personally run the enigma-jdi branch (see https://github.com/enigma-dev/enigma-dev) with little trouble on Ubuntu 12.04. ENIGMA has an IDE, a scripting language, an object editor, a room editor and many other things that makes it much easier to develop simple 2D games. It is not so good with 3D games (although it can be done in it), but since you are seeking a 2D game engine that should not be a problem. And I have not had any problems getting ENIGMA to run in Windows using VirtualBox, because ENIGMA uses OpenGL, so if you don't want to use the enigma-jdi branch, you can always use it on Windows on VMWare.

I'll be recommending http://sourceforge.net/projects/carnage-engine/ because it was designed for that exact purpose.
it is lightweight, open source, easy to modify, easy to compile, do not depend on more than SDL, do not need a 3D acceleration setup if you have issues with drivers and linux or virtual machines...
of course it is limited, does not have 100 iterations of refactoring (so not a perfect design) but it is not its purpose, its purpose is to give its users the will to expand it, or write their own 2d engine from the ideas within carnage engine. and launch oneself into the world of 2D games making