2d game development platforms

It is well known that coding for games is one of the hardest things to learn in a lifetime. Thankfully, technology has made it possible even for a layman to design their own video games in shortest time possible. If you are interested to get into the know-how of the world of games, there are some sophisticated game development software using which you can make simple yet fun gaming platforms. If you are a gaming enthusiast who wants to turn into a game developer too, here is a list of free game making software for beginners to design games without coding.

Unity is one of the best game making software as it supports creation of games in 2D as well as 3D. Unity free game making software works on the component-entity model. This means that in a game there are certain objects and you can add certain components to these objects. These components then define the behaviour of objects present in the game. Unity has the biggest export support among top games developers. Game developers can access high definition models and settings while working with Unity Game Maker.

Unity Game Maker has an asset store where developers can access resources such as enhanced network entity and much more. Unity provides a unique experience of creating augmented reality-based and virtual reality-based games.

Unity game making software is suitable for students and beginners. Unity Game Maker free version with limited features and paid subscription plans, whose details are as follows:. Unity requires a functional knowledge of C , but the availability of tutorial videos makes it suitable for beginners. GameSalad software for game design is used for iOS as well Android platforms.

GameSalad has largely been used to create interactive games that teach fundamentals of programming language. GameSalad game making software stacks a large amount of data such as character action and items into tables and arrays which the user can read or write onto. Developers can utilize features such as in-app purchases and ads to generate money from their designed games. Games designed using GameSalad can be used for educational purposes especially for computer programming.

You can learn Event Driven Programming, which is often used in apps like graphic user interface applications and gaming apps. Once you have developed a game using GameSalad game making software for beginners, you have the full rights and ownership of the product. Level: GameSalad is suitable for beginners. The level keeps on increasing as the user keeps on learning new concepts. Types of Games you can create: Poker games, 3D games, 2D games, educational games, etc.

GameMaker Studio 2 software for game making allows developers with no coding knowledge to create games using its drag and drop feature. GML language of this game making software helps non-coders execute their ideas into reality in minutes.

After developers have created their game using GameMaker Android game making software, they can publish it across different platforms without the need for any modification. GameMaker free game making software keeps releasing upgraded versions of its software with add on utilities to make entertaining games. GameMaker provides features such as addition of in-app purchases, connectivity with third party apps and more. Using GameMaker, users can keep a real-time track of how many players are currently using their game.

GameMaker has some of the best editing tools as compared to other top games developers. These editing tools let you add funky images and animations to your games. Its Standard version is available for free. Other GameMaker versions are:. Level: Beginners can design simple games with GameMaker Studio 2.

For complex games, functional knowledge of C would be required. A potent game making software for beginners, RPG stands for role-playing games.

As the name suggests this video game making software is most useful for designing fantasy and action games. RPG game making software comes with preloaded characters, items, tile sets, etc. Users can even define their own graphics and add to the existing repository of characters and items. Users can sell their designed games either freely or commercially.

Making games is hard. The more you know about the process, the more miraculous it seems that games get made at all. As former PC Gamer writer Tom Francis described programming when he was making Gunpoint: "The most useful way I've found to think of it is this: Your game is fucking insane. It is a mental patient. It has completely lost its mind, and to make it behave in any kind of reasonable way, you have to be expecting every sensible instruction to be met with screaming, preposterous bullshit.

While it's easy to feel paralyzed by the thought of learning to design and program your own game, we asked quite a few indie devs for their advice and they all offered the same advice for beginners: just do it.

Jump in, no matter how scary it is. To help you take that first exhilarating and inevitably frustrating—but also, probably, rewarding! Paired with developer recommendations, hopefully this will serve as the push you need to get started. GameMaker Studio 2 is your one stop destination if you want to get into game development.

The platform allows creators to use the tool's easy-to-learn drag-and-drop interface, or work hands-on with the engine's own scripting language, GML. We talked to several developers who've made popular games in GameMaker, who shared their own experiences with the tool. Mark Essen, creator of Nidhogg and Nidhogg 2 , says GameMaker is great for beginners because scripting is pretty open-ended, and Yoyo Games has a wealth of tutorials and guides to help folks get set up quickly.

Download it here , install it and head over here to get started. The RPG Maker suite is very popular amongst beginner game makers. There are multiple versions you can choose from. You should look at some videos such at this one and this one before deciding which one is the best for you.

The older versions use Ruby. There is no official documentation. The RPG Maker forums are also very active. Older versions only support desktop. I debated including this one on the list. Unreal Engine is one of the if not the most powerful engine on the market. A lot of AAA games are built in it. From the official website:. Go to the official website and download Unreal Engine. Then head over there and follow the tutorial. Buildbox is a game engine designed for making mobile games.

It is incredibly beginner friendly which is both its strength and weakness. There are a lot of templates to start from. That means the games you will make with it are usually going to be very similar to others that are already on the market. There is a manual that serves as documentation and forums that are decently active. Definitely watch this video to get a better grasp on what Buildbox is before buying it. Each world has its own background art and physics like gravity. They can be played in order, or mixed and match to make endless games.

Buy it here and follow the official tutorials. Clickteam Fusion is designed to make very simple 2d games mobile or desktop. As such, it is beginner friendly. You add objects into a scene and modify their attributes with input boxes. There is some sort of documentation although very simple because of the lack of programming in the engine. The forums are decently active. Though to me it seems a bit expensive and the design of the website and of the software itself put me off — it has a very s vibe.

Download the free edition or buy the product and follow this tutorial. This game engine used to be sold but was then bought by King , the famous company that made Candy Crush. They made the core technology free and public to improve it and they use it themselves for some of their games. Defold has an asset portal where you can download things like sprite sets, extensions or code snippets. The game engine looks a bit more complex to learn than others such as Construct or Buildbox.

Totally free. Head over there to download it and follow this tutorial or this one if you prefer video. This minimalistic game engine is designed to make desktop or mobile games with complete freedom.

That also means there is no interface nor visual scripting functionalities. You have to code everything yourself in Lua. It comes with a wiki and moderately active forums.

You can build your games for desktop and mobile, aswell as browser with a tierce plugin. Check for yourself here. Download it here and follow this tutorial.

It focuses on delivering high-performance games by leveraging modern GPUs. You can use the IDE that you want aslong as it supports Haxe and you can build games for basically any platform that you want. The Heaps API has different modules for different usecases for instance: h2d for 2D games and user interfaces and h3d for rendering 3d models.

Development is driven largely by the two companies which use it. There is a small documentation and the forums are not very active.

Install it by following these instructions and go there to get started or here if you prefer video. Support for other platforms may be found in the source code. GameMaker: Studio caters to entry-level novices and seasoned game development professionals equally, allowing them to create cross-platform games in record time and at a fraction of the cost of conventional tools!

In addition to making game development 80 percent faster than coding for native languages, developers can create fully functional prototypes in just a few hours, and a full game in just a matter of weeks. It allows anyone to build games — no coding required! The Layout Editor provides a what-you-see-is-what-you-get visual interface to design your levels. You can drag, rotate and resize objects, visualize effects applied, and quickly change their settings to your liking in the Properties Bar.

Objects can be arranged on separate layers for enhanced organization, allowing advanced parallax and blending effects. Libgdx is a Java game development framework that provides a unified API that works across all supported platforms. The framework provides an environment for rapid prototyping and fast iterations. Desktop JVM features like code hot swapping reduce your iteration times considerably.

It does not force a specific design on you.