Unity can be termed as one of the best most complete platforms for curving out mobile games in the world. This particular tool allows the creation of mobile games for several platforms from a single development, including games for console (PlayStation, Xbox, and Wii), desktop (Linux, PC, and Mac), browser, smartphones and tablets (iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry).
We have analyzed the best alternatives to Unity to this wonderful tool that is open source and free. So, without wasting any time, here we go.
Quick Overivew
Unreal Engine
Unreal Engine, is one of the most popular and used game engines of the moment, belonging to the company Epic Games. It includes all the necessary tools to build a game or simulation, such as video editor, sound studio, code or animation rendering, among other features.
With Unreal Engine you can create landscapes, interactive environments or virtual reality; From 2D video games to fully immersive experiences, it all depends on your skill and imagination. Its applications, apart from video games, are so disparate that, for example, NASA is using this graphics engine to create environments in which to train future astronauts.
Other applications are: in the field of education through simulators, in architecture for renders and construction of completely real environments, in medicine, virtual reality visualization for operational trials, in cinema for animation films or special effects, in short, the editing options offered by this tool are almost endless.
- Website
- System supports: Windows and macOS
- File size: 42.0 MB
Godot Engine
This tool is an open-source game engine aimed at creating multiplatform 2D and 3D games. For those who are starting in the world of games and looking for a simpler option than elaborate engines like Unity and Unreal, Godot appears as one of the main options along with Game Maker, Construct, among others.
The Godot Engine is open source that means any sort of royalties are not charged and all rights to the game are the developer.
Typically, every object of this tool (Node, Resource, or anything) can export properties, which can be of many types (such as a string or string, integer or integer, Vector2 or 2-dimensional vector, etc.). And one of those guys can be a resource. This implies that both nodes and resources can contain resources as properties.
- Website
- System supports: Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows
- File size: 27.0 MB
CRYENGINE
CRYENGINE is one of the most affordable, powerful, and feature-packed all-in-one development solution that has been delivered to date. It has “Pay What You Want” business model, which gives developers around the world full access to this engine’s feature set and code for an amount of their choice, and with no obligation to pay royalties or additional charges.
The latest version of CRYENGINE also presents the launch of the CRYENGINE store as news. This Marketplace will allow developers to access particular materials from the Crytek library, as well as thousands of materials, sounds and 3D objects created by the CRYENGINE user community and other trusted developer.
In addition, CRYENGINE brings better support for the hardware that currently leads Virtual Reality technology.
- Website
- System supports: Windows
- File size: 68.6 MB
Game Maker Studio
Game Maker Studio is a powerful graphics engine to create 2D video games, which does not need programming. Thanks to the fact that it works completely through an event system, graphical and very easy to learn. You can import the characters, settings, and sounds you want and give them the qualities you prefer based on the type of game you want to create.
It allows us to develop good quality games in a matter of hours, thanks to its fast learning curve. It has excellent performance and allows you to maintain a good workflow; since each element that makes up a video game is very well separated by categories. Best of all, it is completely free and allows you to export to Windows, Mac and Windows 8 Apps.
There are several tutorial available on the web. And it has a Market Place where you can share your creations with the world. So, it is an excellent option to start your projects and enter the fantastic world of video game development.
- Website
- System supports: Windows and macOS
- File size: 183 MB
GDevelop
With GDevelop you cannot create games as complex as in Unity or Unreal Engine, however, it is a very good option to create platform, shooter or adventure games, also with this tool, you will not need to have the programming knowledge to use it.
Another advantage of keeping in mind is that it is an open-source platform, which allows a lot of flexibility when it comes to customizing. This software is a quite versatile option since it can be created from very simple games to more complex games.
It designs HTML5 games that can be exported to iOS and Android. It is cross-platform and has a web version that allows us to create from the same browser and that its programming is visual (if you want to avoid the term “no programming is necessary”). This tool lets you create events in JavaScript.
- Website
- System supports: Windows, macOS, Linux, and Web-based
- File size: 88.8 MB
Stencyl
Stencyl is a development environment from which, based on the “develop once, play it anywhere” philosophy, it offers us all the necessary tools to create flash mini-games for web and iOS in an easy, fast and comfortable way. It is not necessary that you have a high level of programming knowledge (although when you reach a certain level you do need it).
With Stencyl we will be able to create mini-games in a very simple and fast way, its mechanics of use are not complicated and neither is it necessary for us to have extensive training to develop quality mini-games.
Everything you want, Stencyl has a huge variety of libraries perfectly prepared to integrate them into your minigames, in addition its community does not stop growing and providing valuable resources that we can generally use completely free of charge.
- Website
- System supports: Windows 7 and later, macOS X 10.9 and later, Ubuntu 10.04 and later
- File size: 316 MB
libGDX
libGDX is a library developed in Java that allows us to build games that work both on desktop computers, as well as on mobile phones, and in current web browsers, so that our creation can reach the largest number of audiences possible.
To do this, libGDX offers game developers an API that allows you to do all kinds of things in the game, such as working with graphics, collecting user input from keys, mouse or your finger on a touch screen, and uploading files, among other things. In other words, the programmer who uses libGDX to make his game focuses on simply requesting a resource or drawing an image, without worrying about which platform he wants to do it on.
In order to run the game, libGDX has a series of backends. Each platform has its own backend, and it is the backend that knows how to do everything with each specific platform.
- Website
- System supports: Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, BlackBerry and HTML5
- File size: It Varies
Corona SDK
It is a very effective platform to create applications for iPhone, iPad, Android, etc. Corona SDK has become very popular with the appearance of Google’s Android operating system. The developers have a lot of experience in developing applications in the software and know every bit of operation in it.
It is said to be very easy to use software where it consumes comparatively less time and effort. Corona SDK integrates Lua layered over C ++ / Open GL. The software runs on major operating systems like; Mac OS, Windows, Nook, Kindle Fire and Android.
The patented OpenGL-ES rendering engine enables full acceleration of graphics hardware, including sprites that animate at full GPU speed. The transition library allows interpolation of the position, rotation, alpha or any other property of Corona sprites. Corona-built applications start smaller than 400 KB.The subscription-based purchase model allows users to have new updates as soon as they are rolled out.
- Website
- System supports: iOS, Android, Kindle, Apple TV, Android TV, macOS, and Windows
- File size: 81.5 MB
Appcelerator Titanium
Appcelerator Titanium works in a development environment called Titanium Studio, which is based on Eclipse, from the company Aptana Studio, acquired by the Appcelerator platform in 2011. Titanium Studio is a very clear and intuitive interface for the construction, development and testing of native and cross-platform applications in an integrated environment that allows you to create and follow the entire process from the same screen.
Very well structured and intuitive interface and totally compact and integrated. It is cross-platform, so it can be installed on Windows, Mac and Linux. It allows working on the three main mobile operating systems: iOS, Android and Blackberry. The application can also be implemented as a web version.
The programming language used in this development environment is JavaScript. Interaction with many of the native features of the device, such as: social networks, e-mail, camera, voice recognition system or geolocation. There is the possibility of also working with HTML5 or CSS, so, although it is not necessary, people who have notions of programming will find it very easy to work in this environment.
- Website
- System supports: iOS, Android, Universal Windows Platform, Windows Phone
- File size: Unknown
Construct 3
Construct 3 is a hybrid 2D video game development engine in which various types of video games can be created, from platform games to RPGs. To create games in this engine does not require deep programming knowledge but at least have the logic (setting variables, conditionals, cycles, and arrangements).
The learning curve is quite large, so it will not take long to learn how to use the tool and it has several plugins that allow you to add functionalities depending on whether the project is going to be exported in html 5, android, IOS or as an application of desk.
Its graphical interface is designed to work by events and different types of objects can be added to the application (images, buttons, texts, arrays, lists, text input, Keyboard, Touch, etc …). It is a tool that has quite a large potential and can be used to create innovative applications for mobile devices that contribute to social or educational contexts.
- Website
- System supports: Windows, Linux, macOS, and Web-based
Cocos Creator
It’s a complete game development solution that includes a lightweight and efficient cross-platform game engine, and various UI tools that can help you develop games more quickly. It is a free and open-source framework, compatible with Swift and Objective-C. It supports iOS and OS X, and its code is written in Objective-C.
Its projects are created using SpriteBuilder, a graphical environment that you can use to quickly create prototypes and build games. It is not necessary to use SpriteBuilder to build your game, however, the creation of the project must be done through SpriteBuilder.
This tool uses OpenGL as its rendering engine. The physics mechanics used is Chipmunk.
- Website
- System supports: Web-based, iOS, Android, Windows, macOS
- File size: It Varies
Urho3d
This tool supports multiple players online. The player can select his character from 18 different types. It allows you to create ‘Deathmath’ video games or death tournaments, where players fight for resources and for their lives. Physics system allows you to create objects with different gravity, weight, and friction.
It has a Particle system that allows you to design all the visual effects of your video game and lets you create your own weapons. Define their effects, damage, projectiles, cadence, and blast wave. You can create the objects that the players will be able to collect and define their usefulness in the game scenario.
Event and response system allows you to define what happens when an object, projectile or player touches an element on the game stage. You can use your favorite 3D models to create the game scene, characters, objects or weapons. Supports 3D formats like fbx, blend, dae, obj, stl, smd.
- Website
- System supports: Windows, Linux, and macOS
Xenko Game Engine
Xenko is a universal game engine from Silicon Studio, designed to develop high-quality 3D and 2D games of any genre. The engine on the .NET / Mono platform, compatible with Visual Studio, has game scripting, a convenient UI. Previously called the Paradox Game Engine.
With it, you can build applications for popular platforms: Android, iOS (iPhone and iPad) via Xamarin, as well as for Windows Desktop, Windows Phone, and Windows Store, and even for PlayStation 4. The engine has an excellent render with all the necessary features for working with lighting, shadows, etc. Supported shaders on Xenko Shading Language like HLSL. There is an automatic rebuild to HLSL or GLSL / ES.
It’s Game Studio editor allows you to conveniently organize and create scenes and immediately test them. Work with 2D and 3D animation is supported, popular 3D graphics formats are supported, such as fbx, obj, blend, dae, 3ds, direct x, md2, md3, dxf, etc. Textures and sprites in image formats dds, gif, tiff, bmp, jpg, png. To organize 2D / 3D physics, the built-in Bullet Physics library is used.
- Website
- System supports: Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS
- File size: 11.4 MB
I hope, the above list of similar software to the Unity tool will help you to choose the best one. Do let me know which software you considered.
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