THE AUTHOR:
What is the finest game development software to employ for your project is the first thing you should think about when considering game creation.
Grand View Research, Inc. recently conducted an analysis that came out with such highlights: the worldwide mobile game engine market will reach USD 3.71 billion by 2030, and grow at an 18.1% CAGR from 2024 to 2030.
The growing popularity of smartphones and tablets posed the rise in demand for mobile games, which resulted in expantion of the market for mobile game engines.
AI is becoming essential in mobile game development, enhancing both creativity and player experiences through tools like ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion. Today 87% of developers use AI, and it’s expected to drive 50% of development within a decade.
In order to boost long-term engagement, the industry transitions from hypercasual to hybridcasual games which combine simple playability with sophisticated features.
This transition is being led by mobile game engines and development platforms; mobile game engines allow for more complex and engaging experiences. As more people switch from linear TV to connected TV (CTV), mobile game platforms have additional opportunities for user acquisition thanks to CTV advertising.
Important developments include the development of subscription business models and market expansion. Direct-to-consumer (DTC) channels are being used by publishers more frequently in an effort to improve player experience and keep more income.
The rapid rise of e-sports is also influencing the mobile game engine market. Events such as the Counterstrike: Global Offensive Major Championships and other competitive gaming tournaments have stimulated market demand for high-quality gaming experiences, making engines designed for multiplayer and competitive play increasingly valuable.
Thankfully, you can select a mobile game platform to get started on your thrilling game production journey right now. You may use this page to learn about the most widely used game engines and applications for mobile devices to develop your ideas.
14. APPGAMEKIT
AppGameKit promotes simplicity with its BASIC-like scripting language, making it accessible for new developers while also accommodating intermediate users through C++ libraries. It delivers good performance across multiple platforms with optimization features and support for both 2D and 3D graphics.
Noteworthy games developed using AppGameKit include Echoes III, an intense retro-style shoot-em-up game that showcases impressive 3D graphics and fast-paced gameplay. AppGameKit suits indie developers creating complex games across multiple platforms, including mobile and PC.
13. CONSTRUCT 3
Construct 3, while powerful for 2D game creation, runs primarily in a web browser, which may slightly affect performance on more complex projects compared to standalone engines. It provides a user-friendly, code-free environment that is perfect for educational purposes and hobbyist game developers.
One of the prominent games built with Construct 3 is Mighty Goose, a modern run-and-gun game inspired by 1980s classics, where players traverse various worlds to defeat evil enemies. Construct 3 is versatile, catering to both beginners and those with specific development needs.
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12. STARLING
Starling is a free mobile game development platform with open-source code and a cross-platform framework. All of Starling’s games, including Angry Birds, Drive Off, and Tiny Swipers, are built on Adobe’s AIR technology, giving them a competitive edge. Moreover, it adopts Adobe AIR/Flash technology for building game architecture that conforms with GPU.
Game developers are able to create accelerated hardware games employing the ActionScript 3 offered exceptionally by this unique game engine.
In contrast to other mobile game engines, Starling strives to conserve users’ device batteries. As a result, it caches and reuses unchanged elements of the display list in the subsequent frame.
Additionally, in cases of fully static scenes, the display buffer is reused. Starling is multiple screens friendly, and it is supported by Apple TV, Android, Browsers, and iOS.
11. TITANIUM
Titanium is considered one of the best mobile game engines. In addition, numerous extraordinary games, such as the Crash Trilogy, Prototype 1, and Prototype 2, have been developed using Titanium.
What’s more interesting, developers are provided with the assistance of API Builder, which is a powerful blend of a scalable cloud service and a framework that can effectively run applications.
Speaking about Titanium’s advantages, it enables developers to code in several lines, which speeds up the game development process.
There are also over 200,000 programmers community who are always ready to assist and advise. It is available for MacOS, Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS game development. The free version is available, while the Pro Version costs $199/Month.
10. RPG MAKER
If you are completely curious about programming, but you still want to make games, you should give a try to RPG Maker. It is a series of software designed to create tile-based role-playing games. RPG Maker was introduced in far 1992. It was originally released primarily in Japan but came out to the whole world with much later versions.
Hundreds of games, made with the engine, are released on Google Play and App Store every year. It supports many popular consoles, Android and iOS, Windows, Linux, and Mac. It is very simple to sort out how to use it, without any piece of coding or programming knowledge.
So this is one of the best game engines for beginners who want to build a 2D RPG. It is cheap and distributed on Steam. Its cost is only 80$.
9. SPRITEKIT
If you want to build a 2D game specifically for iOS or OS X, SpriteKit is an option for you. It was designed by Apple and for Apple products, making developing and publishing much faster and smoother than other engines.
SpriteKit was released along with iOS 7, and Apple provided decent compatibility with its features, supporting both Objective-C and Swift.
But programming scenes would be really a challenge if you are completely new to programming. Many mobile game engines support iOS too, so you might want to go along and check other iOS game engines.
8. GAMEMAKER STUDIO 2
GameMaker Studio is a game engine for making 2D games, released by Yo-Yo Games in 1999. GameMaker Studio 2 has its own visual scripting language, also known as GameMaker Language, and supports development with clean C++ and C#. GameMaker Studio supports all common mobile game platforms.
Since it was designed for 2D development purposes, it provides such useful mobile game development tools as Tilesets, a Spine-powerful 2D animation tool, and an in-engine image editor.
Undertale, Hotline Miami, and Risk of Rain have been developed with GameMaker Studio. Unfortunately, developing a 3D game maker does not support.
If you want to try it out for education purposes, you can buy a 1-month subscription for 10$, or only 30$ for one year.
7. GODOT ENGINE
If you are a beginner at game development, Godot engine is a good option for you. It is a completely free game engine that keeps 100% of your profit without any restrictions.
Engine’s developers also provide a huge library of tutorials and documentation for newcomers. Godot supports both 3D and 2D, but it’s mostly popular for making simple 2D games. It supports all common platforms, and it could run on Linux.
Godot has its dedicated language GDScript but also supports C++ and C#, that may be worked around with visual-scripting node-based workflows like Unreal Engine’s Blueprint and IDE that comes with the engine.
6. CORONASDK
One of the best ways to build your first game is to use CoronaSDK. It is a free, easy-to-learn, powerful, cross-platform tool. If you need some special features, Corona offers a wide range of plugins on the market.
One of the features of Corona is a real-time preview feature, that allows to make changes and instantly see how they affect your game, everything from advertising to analytics. It works with simple scripting language LUA supporting C, C++, Objective C, Java, and HTML5.
5. COCOS2D
A vast collection of official tutorials and materials are available for use with the Cocos2D frameworks, which are used to create cross-platform GUI-based interactive games and applications. It is well-known for having extensive support for several languages, including Python, C++, C#, JavaScript, and Swift.
The community has also integrated many independent editors such as SpriteSheet editor, Tilemaps, font editor and SpriteBuilder with CocoStudio. Famous mobile games Badland, Geometry Dash and Family Guy are made with Cocos2D-X.
4. BUILDBOX
Buildbox is a great solution for those who don’t like coding since it uses a visual programming interface. Game engines for mobile are one of the best ways to create casual mobile games quickly. Its store includes thousands of free assets and animations to build your game with.
Many developers are abusing Builbox’s ability to produce games very quickly. Builbox supports both 2D and 3D game development and has many pre-built systems that developers often include in their games. It costs from 99$ to 299$ per year, depending on your purposes.
3. LUMBERYARD
Based on CryEngine, Lumberyard is a brand-new, free, open-source gaming engine from Amazon. You might recall “Crysis,” a game whose innovative technologies and visuals completely revolutionized the video game industry. Imagine CryEngine now enhanced with several new features, such as an improved user interface and shaders.
The primary one is the connection with Amazon Web Services, which enables developers to host and construct their applications on cloud in order to significantly accelerate development. Lumberyard is used in the development of Star Citizen, one of the biggest and most complex games.
2. UNREAL ENGINE
Epic Games created the Unreal Engine, a gaming engine that is becoming more and more popular. In 1998, it was shown for the first time. It is named after the video game “Unreal,” for which the engine was created.
The Unreal Engine was used to create a number of well-known MMORPGs, including Mass Effect, Bioshock, and Borderlands, as well as single-player games like Lineage 2, Tera, and Blade & Soul. It provides a wide range of features and tools for PC as long as mobile 3D and 2D creation.
Unreal Engine 4 offers its ‘visual-scripting’ system called ‘Blueprint’ that is represented by the node-based interface, to make coding much easier to understand for newcomers.
Its store includes a huge library of quality assets and scripts to build your game with. It is already considered one of the best engines for Android game app development. It is completely free to use, but in case you’ve earned 3000$, you should pay 5% royalty.
1. UNITY
One of the greatest and most adaptable cross-platform game engines, both 3D and 2D, is Unity, along with Unreal Engine. It is the most widely used game engine for creating Android applications.
Hearthstone, The Forest, Cuphead, Pokémon GO, and VRChat are the most played games created with Unity.
Since its 2005 release, Unity has amassed a wide range of tools and capabilities that let game creators create any kind of game they desire.
The engine supports building to any platform developers might want to as well as AR and VR devices support, including phone VR.
Unity offers its Asset Store, where you can find almost any model or image to use, or even pre-written scripts. If you have ever worked with any Java game engine, Unity, which is working with C# would be really easy to understand for you.
Unity supports all common file formats to work with, so if somehow you haven’t found what you need, you can always refer to external content-sharing services. Unity GameMaker, as well as Unreal Engine 4, is one of the best game engines with which to start your game-developer deal.
We hope you’ve found a game engine to build your own game using tips from the article. Remember that your choice should depend on the game you’re developing, your programming knowledge, the developers’ team, and the visuals and functionality you want to achieve.
If your goal is to expand your expertise in mobile game engines and development platforms, feel free to contact Computools’s team of engineers via info@computools.com to learn more about the trends in video game design. They are willing to share their technical experience and collaborate on diverse game projects.
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