2D games represent the single biggest games market, and these are the best game engines
for creating awesome 2D games that can compete on mobile, console, or desktop.
Whether you are distributing on iOS, Android, consoles, or Steam, these game engines have
the features and track record to deserve your consideration.
At the end of this video, you’ll know what engines to consider, what type of games these
engines have made in the past, and what genres of games they are best used for.
We are Ask GameDev, AKA TLC#, AKA Abbott and Code-stello, AKA The Pineapple DirectX-Press,
and this is our list of the best 2D game engines.
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Want to make a great 2D game?
If you pick from any of the engines from this video, you can’t go wrong as all of these
have great reputations.
All of the following engines have strong communities, and enough tutorials and resources online
to get you started making your games.
Lets start with Cocos 2D-x.
This is one of the most popular 2D game engines in world, As Cocos has powered a good portion
of the mobile games you see on iOS and Android.
Cocos is also the most popular game engine in Asia.
Cocos2D-x is open source and is cross platform including Android, iOS, Linux, OS X and more.
It has a lot of detailed documentation for developers and is supported by a vast community.
It has been used in development projects by major studios like Zynga, Glu, Big Fish Games,
Disney Mobile, and more.
In terms of languages, Cocos2D-x supports C++, Lua, and Javascript.
The best news about Cocos2d-x is that its under the MIT license and free for commercial
use.
No license costs, no royalties.
No cost.
FREE.
Past Cocos2d games include Hill Climb Racing, Flow Free, and Badland.
Next up is another hugely popular game engine - Unity.
No engine has seen more adoption in the last decade, as Unity has become a popular choice
for independent developers.
It has even started to gain acceptance with larger studios.
Unity is cross-platform and deploys on virtually any platform with ease, including Android,
iOS, and Windows.
It also supports Virtual Reality platforms.
It uses C# for its programming language.
Unity is free for personal use and paid plans start at $35 USD per month.
Unity has been used by countless indies, and industry giants like Electronic Arts, Ubisoft,
Square Enix, and more.
Popular Unity games include Pokémon GO, Super Mario Run, and Angry Birds 2.
The next 2D engine we recommend has been around for a long time and has helped countless indies
bring their game development projects to fruition.
We’re talking about Gamemaker studio - which is popular for its easy to pick up interface
and excellent toolset for game developers that are not coders.
GameMaker has a great drag & drop interface that allows you to create games without knowing
how to code.
But if you want to customize your development, you may want to brush up on Game Maker Language,
the engine’s custom programming language that you can use to modify, scripts, events,
and other code elements.
The latest version, GameMaker Studio 2, starts at $39 for a basic license, and goes all the
way up to $1500 for it’s “ultimate” edition.
A free trial is also available.
Great games made with GameMaker include: Spelunky, Hotline Miami, and Undertale.
Next up is Godot, a highly regarded open-source engine that is rapidly gaining in popularity.
We did a recent video on the best game engines, and we didn’t mention Godot, and we were
called out by Godot fans in the comments,.
You can check that video out by clicking the card above.
Godot is cross-platform engine that will publish on web, windows, mac, linux, as well as Android
and iOS on mobile.
GDScript is the main programming language on Godot, but C# is also supported.
In terms of pricing, as mentioned Godot is Open-source and 100% free to use for commercial
purposes.
No licenses or royalties need to be paid.
It was also featured in our best free game engines video.
If you’d like to see more free engines to choose from, you can check out that video
here
Some great games made with Godot include Unnamed, Spooky ghosts dot com, and Godotron.
Our featured Ask Gamedev community member game this week was also made with Godot.
Make sure you stick around until the end of the video to check it out.
Next on the list is Construct3.
With its simple interface, drag and drop features, and built-in libraries, Construct3 is a great
engine for rapidly prototyping your ideas.
One of the coolest and most unique things about this engine is that it runs completely
in your browser!
Everything from importing your assets, to creating your logic, to testing and playing
your game, all the way to exporting your game - it all happens in your browser.
How convenient is that?
With Construct3 you can quickly export games to the web in HTML5, and you can also publish
games for a number of platforms including iOS, Android, Steam, Facebook, and more.
Construct3 is also an excellent option for beginners as it does not use a coding language!
If you’d like to learn how to use this engine, you’re in luck: we’re currently working
on a tutorial series for Construct3.
Click the link above to check out our action platformer tutorial.
In terms of pricing, Construct 3 licenses start at $99 a year for a personal license.
They do however offer a pretty comprehensive free-trial.
You can head over to editor.construct.net to try it out.
If you want to try out games made in Construct 3, you can play a bunch over at the Scirra
Arcade
And last but not least on our list, an engine from the team that’s been making 2D engines
for 25 years - yes we are talking about Clickteam Fusion.
Back in the 90’s hobbyist game developers who didn’t know how to code still had great
options like Klik & Play, and Multimedia Fusion Express, thanks to the fine folks at Clickteam.
Fast forward to today, and they are still at it with Clickteam Fusion 2.5.
Just like their previous iterations, Clickteam Fusion 2.5 is designed for 2D titles and features
a drag and drop interface, and visual programming.
With it you can make games for platforms including Windows, Android, and iOS.
And just like Construct3, with Clickteam Fusion 2.5, there are no complex programming languages
to learn.
Some the most famous indie games have been created using Clickteam Fusion including Not
a Hero, Freedom Planet, and Five Nights at Freddy’s.
You can purchase Clickteam Fusion 2.5 on Steam for $99.
It’s currently rated Very Positive on Steam, with 90% of its 376 Steam reviews giving it
the thumbs up.
And now we’re giving our thumbs up, to this pretty cool looking arcade game, Moon Cheeser,
made by Ask GameDev community member, Pigdev Studio.
Moon Cheeser is an endless runner where you play as a mouse running around a moon made
of cheese.
We really dig the artstyle of this game - it reminds us of one of our favourite YouTube
channels, Kurzgesagt.
You can download and play Moon Cheeser on Itch.io.
You can also download the Developer’s bundle that includes its freshly authored game code
- in GDscript (which is Godot’s scripting language), and all of the game assets.
That’s it for this week.
Did we miss any of your favourite 2D game engines?
If so, let us know about them in the comments.
Thanks for watching! we are Ask Gamedev and we make game development videos on how to
elevate your games and inspire others.
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