Hi everyone,
I want to ask a few question.
I’m looking for a 2D game engine and what I want is:
I only want to make game like Flappy Bird or Super Mario, that’s it. Arcade games only.
What do you prefer for me?
Have you considered Unity?
People say if you want to make Arcade games only, Unity is too much for you.
What do you think?
I think you should try for yourself and not listen to random people who may or may not know what they are talking about. It’s free with hundreds of tutorials on making arcade games.
Well, arcade games are usually focused on basic interactions. The majority are twitch/skill based. This focus on immediate game-play makes Unity a fairly appropriate choice. One of Unity’s greatest strengths is as a prototyping tool. It is easy to throw some gameplay together quick, and then refine it as needed. This is actually a big advantage when developing arcade-style games.
The bloat and extra overhead comes into play simply because there are so many features of Unity that you will likely not need. But it isn’t nearly as bad as some people make it out to be. I wouldn’t worry about it unless keeping your games incredibly lean on file size is a major factor.
Far more concerning to me is your mobile focus. What kind of hardware are you planning on running these games on? Mobile touch-screen platforms don’t tend to deal well with traditional arcade-style gameplay.
IPhone, LG G5 etc.
I recommend sitting down and running through the tutorials for both Unity and GameMaker before deciding on which engine you want to use. Unity’s free tier has access to all the non-console platforms but GameMaker is very affordable (normally it’s $150, it’s on sale now for $75). Both are excellent choices for someone just starting game development.
As someone who is effectively building the most simplistic humanly possible game for mobile in Unity, I don’t think there is such thing as “too much” game engine.
I like Unity because it’s can expand as far as you need it to to do whatever you want, and even if you are building something simple, it’s still practice in Unity for when you want to build something more complex later. Not to mention I firmly believe in always having tools that are overbuilt rather than underbuilt, that way you never invest a bunch of time into a project just to find out that one of your tools just can’t handle the job because it lacks some feature
It’s like the people I know who try to do as much work as they possibly can on an iPad, they always just end up having to turn on their computer anyway, when if they had just turned on their computer first, the job would have got done, and they wouldn’t have looked ridiculous fiddling with this silly toy instead of using a tool actually meant for doing work, and no ones time would have gotten wasted.
Unity is free, you just need to invest time learning it. What it can do just depends on it’s user, it can do anything you need it to do, as long as you know how to do it or can learn how.
You can even find it on sale for much less sometimes. I bought it for $10 through a Humble Bundle Developer Bundle that included GMS Pro plus the source code for several different (released) Indie games. Really need to look at that stuff some time.
There are currently plenty of engine options, Unity simply being one of many. So you are a bit spoiled for choice.
Another big advantage of Unity is the community surrounding it, and the extensive support and documentation that this provides. The knowledge surrounding Unity is extensive, and what you need to know about it can usually be found with little effort. This gives it a leg up on many engines when recommending it to newcomers.
I also dapple with the Godot engine. This engine is a good option for anyone looking for a more bare-bones alternative to Unity. It has most of the same multi-platform support, including mobile platforms. And it is open-source, giving more low-level developers the ability to alter it as needed.
But I’m still thinking that mobile platforms aren’t necessarily a good fit for traditional “arcade” games. If you just want to make a modern endless-runner or flappy-bird clone, that’s one thing. But those are a far cry from more traditional “arcade” fare. Most arcade-style games require some manner of buttons, or more immediate input device.
While I can see what you are saying in some ways, in terms of the experiences, I respectfully disagree with you here. I feel like in terms of gameplay some of the more successful mobile games do kind of capture some of the core elements of what makes a good traditional arcade experience.
Like, I can almost guarentee you that if Angry Birds was possible in the 80s, it would have been a huge hit as a stand up machine. And on the reverse, If Pac Man were invented today for mobile instead of as an 80s arcade machine, it probably would have probably blown up even bigger than it did in the 80s.
I feel like that might be part of why the mobile market has blown up the way it has and become such a big money thing, because (when it’s done correctly) it captures some similar modes of play that arcade games did/still do. That simplicity mixed with depth of play that makes them so addicting and competitive.
I mean Crossy Road basically just IS Frogger, which was an arcade machine, it just takes the game to a level that the original Frogger wasn’t capable of in it’s time, but the core gameplay is exactly the same.
Like, the player in me is right with you, thinking “You don’t have the same experience of the arcade without the flashing lights and the awesome feedback from arcade buttons and joysticks, and all the loud machines all around you making the atmosphere more immersive and exciting” but the game designer in me sees the mechanical similarities and says that from a design perspective, they do use almost exactly the same modes of play to achieve almost the exact same effects.
So, Unity is good for 2D arcade games, right? Is there a hidden cost?
Let’s say I made 10 games and want to put on Google Play, I have to pay $75 just once, right? No more $75?
You don’t have to pay anything to Unity if you don’t want to.
Look up “2d animation Unity 5” on Youtube, you’ll see how amazingly easy animating is in Unity 5’s 2D system. And yes. Unity 5 is free and has basically everything you would need.
Well, technically, you also have that one time $25 fee to make your Google Developer account to publish those games as well, so remember to factor that in
Are you referring to the Unity Pro subscription? Unity Pro comes in either a one-time $1,500 form or a $75/mo form (with a minimum of twelve months). That said you don’t need either until you start making more than $100,000.
I have heard Google deleted games with Unity splash screen. Is that true?
No.
No.
Yes and no. If a game is violating Google’s rules it will be removed. Undoubtedly this entire rumor started because some games that had Unity’s splash screen were removed for violations. It wasn’t the fault of the splash screen though.
I agree with everybody else here who has praised Unity for 2D arcade development.
Another option which hasnt been mentioned - that is marketed at people who are limited at coding is Construct2.
Particulars can be found here -
Although unlike Construct - Unity does not limit your ability to create any type of game. Construct is straight 2D.