Top 5 Mobile Game Creator Engines

The mobile game market has exploded ever since the launch of the iPhone back in 2008. Smartphones have revolutionized gaming due the extreme convenience it provides during idle times. Whether you are on a train, plane, long car ride or in a waiting area, these devices have opened the door to new gamers who probably would have never touched a game if it weren’t immediately accessed at their finger tips. Here are 5 tools to help you jump into the mobile game industry.

Unity

Unity is a great engine for both 2D and 3D games: an industry standard for many businesses. Unity uses the common language C# and is therefore another great option for programmers. Because of it’s age, Unity’s community is one of the largest. This can be very helpful even for those prospective programmers because it means the community has most likely answered many of the questions you may have.

Unity’s has a version that is free for development and publishing, but revenue cannot exceed $100K. It’s highest paid version does has no revenue cap.

Unity’s mobile publishing platforms include iOS, Android, and FireOS.

Corona Labs

Corona is a free 2D game framework that extends the Lua programming language. Corona has numerous plugins available extend the core functionality. 

Corona is meant for programmers and has all of it’s code open-source except for the plugins which can be purchased in their marketplace as well as, graphics, templates, etc.

Corona is backed by a decade old community have plenty of resources available to help you get started as well as a real-time simulator giving you a preview of how your game will behave on actual devices.

Corona lets you publish to iOS, Android, and Amazon Fire and does not take any royalties.

Buildbox

Buildbox is arguably the fastest way to make a game and has launched many of the best mobile games. No programming is required to use this engine and therefore is perfect for a beginner, game designer or artist. Buildbox is primarily a 2D visual scripting editor with multiple project templates to start with. This helps get you started with a nearly complete game with only the need to tweak the areas you want to customize.

Buildbox also comes with over 20,000 content assets for you to choose from to add to your game. You can also add your own custom assets if you prefer. Buildbox has been used to develop many hyper-casual hit titles.

Buildbox is not free and has 3 subscription plans with the first 2 being very restricted for what you can build, but the Pro version is has no restrictions.

Buildbox’s mobile publishing options include iOS, Android, and Amazon mobile.

GameMaker Studio 2

GameMaker Studio 2 (GMS2) is a game perfect for beginners who either don’t want to code or want to get their feet wet with programming. GMS2 gives you the option to use their drag-and-drop (DnD) builder or develop with their proprietary language GML.

Any 2D game made with GML can also be done with their DnD builder. There is also a great feature that allows you to see the GML that is being generated as you use the DnD builder. This is a great way to study the code to understand what is happening under the hood.

GMS2 allows you to download their software free of charge to familiarize yourself with it for as long as you like and pay when you’re ready to publish. There are both 12-month and permanent licenses available. GMS2 publishing is available for all major platforms. Read about it here.

Using GMS2, you can publish your mobile game to iOS, Android, and Amazon Fire.

AppGameKit

AppGameKit is a two tiered game engine that lets you build 2D and 3D games as well as AR and VR. Tier 1 is a low-level C++ based version of AppGameKit while Tier 2 is a high-level AGKScript based version. AGKScript is a good starter language for beginners since it is based off of the BASIC programming language.

Currently, AppGameKit Studio is a version in development to be released in June and it is available at a discounted price the earlier you buy it. AppGameKit Classic is the version available to download at the current time and is available as a trial or one-time purchase.

There is also a free mobile download that lets you code, debug, and run the application on your mobile device.

AppGameKit’s mobile publishing platforms include iOS and Android.

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