Pros and cons of popular 2D game engines

Pros and cons of popular 2D game engines

 

     Author: Gazizulin Marat,   

             grade 10-2 student

                                                                                    

Supervisor: Kasimova N.G.,

                                                                                            English teacher 

 

 

Izhevsk

2019

The table of content

Introduction.........................................................................................................................3

Part 1.1. Different game engines........................................................................................5

Part 1.2. Pros and cons of popular 2D game engines.......................................................8

Part 2.1. Interviews with qualified game developers among all over the world........17

Part 2.2. Additional pros and cons...................................................................................18

Conclusion..........................................................................................................................26

References...........................................................................................................................27

Introduction.

Background information.

I have always been interested in games, especially in computer games. Now my interest has evolved into a hobby, so I am learning how to create computer games. I have a small team which contains a manager, a developer, an artist, a QA. If we want to create a 2D computer game, my first task, as a developer, will be to find a good tool to create this computer game. Nowadays, there are a lot of different tools to create games, known as game engines. Nevertheless, it is not so good because you cannot choose a needed one. Based on this problem, our research is aimed to reveal the pros and cons of different game engines, in context of which any team could make their choice.

The purposes of research.

The purposes what we set is to:

-Find popular 2D game engines.

-Analyze them: find general advantages and disadvantages.

-Ask professionals to reveal additional advantages and disadvantages.

The hypothesis of research.

For 2D games, the best game engine will be an engine with a helpful community, a big amount of tools, frequent updates, and low price.

Object:

Popular 2D game engines.

Subject:

Pros and cons of popular 2D game engines.

Scope:

Our methods of investigating will be an interview, analysis.

Definitions:

Game engine - a software-development environment designed for people to build video games.

Indie game - an independent video game, or an indie game, is a video game that is often created without the financial support of a publisher by individuals, small teams, or small independent companies.

Main parts.

Our work consists of two parts.

In the first part, we will find information about popular game engines and will reveal general pros and cons.

The second part deals with the analysis of the interview. We will take an interview with qualified game developers among all over the world to find additional advantages and disadvantages of each of them based on their professional experience. After that, we will analyze them.

Part 1.1.

Different game engines.

Nowadays, there is a lot of game engines. They all differ: starting with payment for them and ending with required skills. They can be used to create only 2D games, 3D games, or both. Our indie game development team is consists of a junior developer, a manager, an artist, a QA.

The question about choosing which game engine we should use is hard. To become a confident user of a computer program, you could spend even a couple of years. So, if your choice is incorrect, all your spent time will be wasted. Let's get closer to game engines.

There are about 170 different tools to choose among, and the number keeps increasing steadily as the game industry continues to grow. Choosing a game development engine can be a tough decision.

Each game developer has different goals and feature requirements. At first, we narrowed down the range of game development engines from 170 to five, based on popularity [1].

First game engine in our list will be Construct 2.

· Construct is an HTML5-based 2D game editor, developed by Scirra Ltd. It is aimed primarily at non-programmers, allowing quick creation of games in a drag-and-drop fashion using a visual editor and a behavior-based logic system.

The primary method of programming games and applications in Construct is through 'event sheets', which are similar to source files used in programming languages. Each event sheet has a list of events, which contain conditional statements or triggers. Once these are met, actions or functions can be carried out [2]. Event logic such as OR and AND, as well as sub-events (representing scope), allow for sophisticated systems to be programmed without learning a comparatively more difficult programming language [3]. Groups can be used to enable and disable multiple events at once, and to organize events [4].

Unlike many traditional development environments, Construct eschews selecting specific instances of objects when adding events, in favor of filtering through all instances of an object type on the screen. When adding events, the editor allows the user to specify conditions or checks that must be fulfilled by each object instance on the screen before the event will be added or run by it. Events can be chained together using sub-events, allowing for more complicated behaviors to be created [2].

Clickteam Fusion 2.5

· This tool used by many multimedia professionals, game creators, and creative people from all walks of life. With CF2.5’s event editor system you are able to quickly generate games or apps without mastering a traditional programming language [5].

GameMaker Studio

· GameMaker accommodates the creation of cross-platform and multi-genre video games using a custom drag-and-drop visual programming language or a scripting language known as Game Maker Language, which can be used to develop more advanced games that could not be created just by using the drag and drop features. GameMaker was originally designed to allow novice computer programmers to be able to make computer games without much programming knowledge by use of these actions. Recent versions of the software also focus on appealing to advanced developers [6].

Unity

· Unity gives users the ability to create games in both 2D and 3D, and the engine offers a primary scripting API in C#, for both the Unity editor in the form of plugins and games themselves, as well as drag and drop functionality. Prior to C# is the primary programming language used for the engine, it previously supported Boo, which was removed in the Unity 5 release, and a version of JavaScript called UnityScript, which was deprecated in August 2017 after the release of Unity 2017.1 in favor of C# [7].

Godot

· Godot is an advanced, feature packed, multi-platform 2D and 3D game engine. It provides a huge set of common tools, so you can just focus on making your game without reinventing the wheel. Godot is is completely Free and Open Source under the very permissive MIT License. It allows developers to create a game from scratch needing no other tools beyond those used for content creation (art assets, music etc.). The architecture is built around the concept of a tree of nested " scenes". All game resources, from scripts to graphical assets, are saved as part of the computer's file system (rather than in a database). This storage solution is intended to make it easier for game development teams to collaborate on script code using version control [8].

Part 1.2.

Pros:

Quick to pick up.

Construct 2 is fast to pick up, get into, and belt out some pretty impressive games in a relatively small amount of time. Seems to be built for people who don't have a lot of programming skills, but want to make great games.

Built-in physics system.

Thanks to the great power of Erin Catto's Box2D, Construct 2 is able to make physics games which are similar to Cut the Rope and Angry Birds.

Supportive community.

Construct 2 has a supportive community. Their forums have tens of thousands of topics with ten times more posts. The core maintainers are very helpful and friendly and often reply to questions or issues that may be discussed in the forums.

Active plugin ecosystem.

Construct 2 has an active plugin ecosystem providing behaviors and features that smooth the workflow for certain game types.

Cons:

The editor is Windows only.

Although Construct 2 is able to export projects to Windows, OS X, and Linux, the program itself currently only runs on Windows.

Clickteam Fusion 2.5

Pros:

GameMaker Studio

Pros:

Extremely easy to learn.

GameMaker: Studio is incredibly easy to learn. It requires almost no programming knowledge which means that those without the technical experience, such as designers or artists, can create their projects without the help of a programmer.

Destructive DRM.

In late 2012/early 2013, YoYo Games released a version of their new Studio IDE for cross-platform development that would import games and destroy all of the image type resources for some legitimate purchasers of the software by superimposing a pirate symbol on top of the image. This was due to a fault in their digital rights management software implementation which they use as a method of combating pirated copies of the software. Though the false positives bug is reported to be fixed, the DRM is still in place and may affect placeholder graphics, etc. YoYo Games publicly stated they would remove the DRM at a later point in time, but that other less-invasive DRM techniques would remain.

[11].

Unity

Pros:

Easy learning curve.

The way the editor is structured, by setting scripts on objects, and the use of a high-level language, C#, makes it easy to learn.

Very popular.

Unity is a proven game engine. It is used by a wide range of developers - from small indies to triple-A companies such as Microsoft, Paradox, Square Enix and Sega.

Cons:

Very bad terrain.

Native terrain creates a lot of draw calls which is bad for performance.

Weak memory management.

.Net libraries are slowing it down, memory safety is compromised, classes have to be implemented to manage objects in memory, like object pooling.

Godot

Pros:

Fully dedicated 2D engine.

Godot has a mature 2D engine with many features used by modern 2D games.

Built-in physics.

Add physics to 2D and 3D scenes, through rigid and static bodies, characters, raycasts, vehicles and more.

Very bad documentation.

The documentation is poorly written and has very few examples of real application and even fewer design guidelines about how to program a game in the engine.

Part 2.1.

Part 2.2.

Additional pros and cons.

Construct 2

Respondent 1.

Pros:

Wide opportunities.

Cross-platform.

Cons:

Respondent 2.

Pros:

Respondent 3.

Pros:

Built-in particles system.

Not powerful so you can create a much better system with events.

Layers and easy parallax.

WebGL shaders.

Clickteam Fusion 2.5

Respondent 1.

Pros:

Respondent 2.

Cons:

Is not stable.

It can suddenly lag, for example, an event can be broken and you will think about what is wrong.

Respondent 3.

Pros:

Respondent 4.

Pros:

Flexible interface options.

General restrictions.

Maximum animation frames: ~ 3000; maximum objects on the scene: ~ 20000; maximum sides in the object: 32; mathematical expression: 256 characters.

GameMaker Studio

Respondent 1.

Cons:

Respondent 2.

Pros:

Extensibility.

You can make, download, use DLLs. Almost all disadvantages can be solved with DLLs.

Respondent 3.

Cons:

Enumerations are bad.

Project hierarchy is poor.

You have to prefix things like " spr_" because how weird it works.

Unity

Respondent 1.

Pros:

Powerful analytics system.

Respondent 2.

Pros:

Sprite packing.

Good price.

You only have to pay anything after you have made over 200.000$ - and even then, in comparison to earnings, it is a very small amount.

Cons:

Respondent 3.

Pros:

Godot

Respondent 1.

Pros:

Extremely low weight.

Respondent 2.

Pros:

Signals.

Signals are Godot’s version of the observer pattern. They allow a node to send out a message that other nodes can listen for and respond to. For example, rather than continuously checking a button to see if it is being pressed, the button can emit a signal when it is pressed.

Respondent 3.

Pros:

Conclusion

In the end of the research, I can say that all game engines have their own advantages and disadvantages. They have slightly different goals, but to sum up I can say that they are worth their popularity. Some people prefer one engine, some people prefer another engine. Depending on the summarizing table you are able to make a correct choice. The hypothesis of our research is approved partially: the best instrument for creating an irregular game would be a self-made game engine with features you would need. So, if your team has an experienced game engine developer, you should make game engine by yourselves.

 

References

[1]. Yann Kronberg (2017, July 18). How to Choose a Game Engine [Blog Post]. LinkedIn. Retrieved from https: //www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-choose-game-engine-yann-kronberg

[2]. Scirra. How Events Work. (n.d.). Retrieved February 3, 2019 from Scirra Web Site: https: //www.scirra.com/manual/75/how-events-work

[3].  Gullen, A (2012, April 13). Guide to Construct 2's advanced event features. Retrieved February 3, 2019 from Scirra Web Site: https: //www.scirra.com/tutorials/292/guide-to-construct-2s-advanced-event-features

[4]. Scirra. Event Groups. (n.d.). Retrieved February 3, 2019 from Scirra Web Site: https: //www.scirra.com/manual/80/groups

[5]. Clickteam. Clickteam Fusion 2.5. (n.d.). Retrieved February 3, 2019 from Clickteam Web Site: https: //www.clickteam.com/clickteam-fusion-2-5

[6]. Vinciguerra, David; Howell, Andrew (16 October 2015). The GameMaker Standard. CRC Press. ISBN 978-1-317-51469-5.

[7].   Fine, Richard (2017, August 11). UnityScript’s long ride off into the sunset [Blog Post]. Unity Technologies Blog. Retrieved from https: //blogs.unity3d.com/ru/2017/08/11/unityscripts-long-ride-off-into-the-sunset/

[8]. Godot. Godot Documentation. (n.d.). Archived from the original on 6 February 2016. Retrieved February 3, 2019 from Godot Web Site: https: //web.archive.org/web/20160212102828/http: //www.godotengine.org/projects/godot-engine

[9].   Slant. Construct 2 Review. (n.d.). Retrieved February 3, 2019 from Slant Web Site: https: //www.slant.co/options/1058/~construct-2-review

[10].   Slant. Clickteam Fusion 2.5 Review. (n.d.). Retrieved February 3, 2019 from Slant Web Site: https: //www.slant.co/options/6626/~clickteam-fusion-2-5-review

[11].   Slant. GameMaker: Studio Review. (n.d.). Retrieved February 3, 2019 from Slant Web Site: https: //www.slant.co/options/1049/~gamemaker-studio-review

[12].   Slant. Unity Review. (n.d.). Retrieved February 3, 2019 from Slant Web Site: https: //www.slant.co/options/1047/~unity-review

[13].   Slant. Godot Review. (n.d.). Retrieved February 3, 2019 from Slant Web Site: https: //www.slant.co/options/1068/~godot-review

 

Pros and cons of popular 2D game engines

 

     Author: Gazizulin Marat,   

             grade 10-2 student

                                                                                    

Supervisor: Kasimova N.G.,

                                                                                            English teacher 

 

 

Izhevsk

2019

The table of content

Introduction.........................................................................................................................3

Part 1.1. Different game engines........................................................................................5

Part 1.2. Pros and cons of popular 2D game engines.......................................................8

Part 2.1. Interviews with qualified game developers among all over the world........17

Part 2.2. Additional pros and cons...................................................................................18

Conclusion..........................................................................................................................26

References...........................................................................................................................27

Introduction.

Background information.

I have always been interested in games, especially in computer games. Now my interest has evolved into a hobby, so I am learning how to create computer games. I have a small team which contains a manager, a developer, an artist, a QA. If we want to create a 2D computer game, my first task, as a developer, will be to find a good tool to create this computer game. Nowadays, there are a lot of different tools to create games, known as game engines. Nevertheless, it is not so good because you cannot choose a needed one. Based on this problem, our research is aimed to reveal the pros and cons of different game engines, in context of which any team could make their choice.

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