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GameMaker vs Construct vs Fusion vs 001 Game Creator vs Godot vs Gdevelop.!

A topic by rcbasicfans created Jul 30, 2020 Views: 5,722 Replies: 19
Viewing posts 1 to 6

What are your comments on these game making programs? Thanks. 
They look really powerful for game development! 

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GameMaker - requires you to learn some coding, is very powerful, has lots of features - is expensive - has good documentation and tutorials - I struggled to get help in the forums, most - how do I do this - didn't get answered.  I eventually left because I just didn't know how to program stuff and couldn't get help and couldn't figure it out - I wrote a lot of games in it - it's just I wanted to do more advanced stuff and I was at a point where I'd have to go taking a course on programming or change to different software.

Construct - I've not used, but used a similar one - it's tedious to drag and drop instead of code stuff, but if you don't want to code, or don't know how to code - then this is much better.  It has a reputation for people churning out the same stuff over and over - so I don't know how versatile it is - just that a lot of people publishing in it - are making the same basic platform games.

001 Game Creator - never heard of it.

Godot - I've played around with it.  It's got some fantastic features and some horrible features - horrible features like they pack everything into the game and it makes a small game balloon up to 40mb - you can install python and scons to overcome this - but that's something else.  It's not well suited for "click" - because to click on something you have to create a 2D area - a sprite and a collision mask - write a signal to send the click - write a bit of code to receive the click - and in contrast GameMaker and Fusion - you just say - click.  (With the exception of interface elements - but then you can't move them or do anything else with them.) Godot has fairly okay documentation, some good tutorials and some that don't really work.  It's well suited to some kinds of games - like walk and collide with stuff.  It's strength is that it's really portable across devices with no extra input required - you can export to mobile / pc at at the same time.  It has an array that is amazing - it makes coding stuff really easy.   I did find it unstable, it crashed a lot and corrupted my data.  This is because I change my mind a lot on graphics I want to use etc. and Godot doesn't handle that well.  

GDevelop - I installed once, had a look at it, read their terms - uninstalled it.  I don't want software that will limit how many times I can compile something or charge me extra for it.  I never gave it a fair chance - because, well I don't want software that will limit how many times I can compile something - because something is going to go wrong or I'm going to reach that limit when they're not at work...

Clickteam Fusion - is what I use.  It takes a bit of getting used to, but is very easy to figure out once you get over the initial learning curve.  It's a visual language and what you need is in front of you - so you don't have to learn how to make something visible / invisible - you just click under the object and select that.  It's like a large spreadsheet interface.  It can become tedious programming like that - but the ease of use makes up for it. The forums are friendly and helpful but it might take a few hours or days to get an answer as there's not that many people there.   There are a lot of free tutorials - and also paid tutorials and education.   Their documentation is sketchy - tells you only the basics - but most of what you need to know you'll find by doing a search in the forums.  I'm biased now - because this is what I use - so uh - you should definitely use this one - it's the best :-)   

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Wow! Thank you very much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You are very familiar with game making softwares! Sure!
These reviews are in detail.  They are useful for me. Many members will also think that these reviews are excellent!

You really helped me a lot. Thanks again!!!!

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Made an account just to say  thank you, that was pretty informative. I've tried gamemaker and had the exact same experience, I wanted more, and then it hit me that their GML doesn't work for anything outside their software, which made me feel like I wasted so much time learning their language(and dropping so much money into it). While Unity, or Godot for example can use languages that you can use outside their software or for stuff other than games.

Wanted to try 001 Game creator specially since I'm seeing it on a Humble Bundle but it seems like I better spend my time somewhere else.

Hello,  your development experience is very valuable! Thanks! 
I learnt a lot from your post! 

(+8)

About GDevelop (disclaimer, I'm GDevelop main author :)) - seems like there was some misunderstanding on the export.
GDevelop does not limit you in the number of exports as long as you're doing them manually. You can export your game an unlimited number of times a day to HTML5 or any other format - but will have to manually install command line tools and other stuff if you want to build a native app for iOS/Android/Windows/macOS/Linux (which is the same as most game engines you would code with!).

We offer a way to do this in one click - a packaging that uses an online build service to export to Android/Windows/macOS/Linux without installing anything (it even works on the web version editor.gdevelop-app.com!). This service is limited to avoid overloading the servers and we make a subscription for people that want to help GDevelop development. This is optional though, and while it's shown as the first exporting options, you can use the advanced one if you're an indie studio that already has experience bundling games or hosting HTML5 games :)


I recommend people giving a fair chance to GDevelop. It's (from my biaised point of view ;)) the sweet spot between "real coding" and visual programming using an events system that does not limit you arbitrarily and is efficient to use (no slow and tedious "drag'n'drop") - you can even extend the conditions/actions and create new behaviors for your objects with the same events system.
The whole game engine is open-source and based only on open-source, proven, battle-tested technologies like Pixi.js. You can even drop at any point a JavaScript code block and code if you wish to. 

Happy to talk more about GDevelop, but I wanted to clarify these points :D

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Hello......

You explained in detail in these two posts! Thank you!

Your posts provided much userful information of GDevelop for game developers here. 

GDevelop is a very versatile game creation software. 

Thank you very much!!!!!

i tested and try all of these and:

Gamemaker - this program is only for platform design, other than that you need to code everything else. Very expensive to do anything, if you want something like IOS port you have to pay money. Famous games were made on it but everyone forgets they were made because it took lots of years to learn the fake code that Gamemaker makes everyone do. It was free but no longer free, highly not recommend.

Contruct 3 - it had everything but then become greedy. You need to buy it, older free version is gone for good. Games can't run on older web browsers because it uses WebAssembly like Unity (use or learn HTML5 its better and easyer). Forces you to learn JavaScript the most hated languages in coding. They lie about everything about their engine to get people to pay. The only good thing about it is the animation while other engines have problems with it.

Fusion - another paid engine, the free version doesnt do much it is just like any other engine. super old engine because it still allows users to export Windows Mobile a product Microsoft discontinue. Only has one famous games and it was from five nights at Freddy, i dont know any other games. Not worth it, very limited and old. I would not be shock if they just disconnected fusion the next day.

001 game creator - this program another paid product that was free. now you might be saying "but it has everything" Well yes but also no, it's a limited program and what you see is what you get. I havent tested the new one but the looks of the screenshots i bet you have to drag and click rules into each other, not fun, neither was the same thing on unity.

godot and gdevelop - both awful on the list, the developers dont make it better, godot is coding only, gdevelop cant do advance coding. export on each is limited meaning you have to do something to get the game ready unlike other paid programs that just give you the code/build. dont see many games build on it, even though godot is famous, no one has made a famous game on it.

i wont recommend any of them, they all ruin you in some way or another.

So what do you recommend then?

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if you want something like unity and dont want to learn anything new: Stride Game Engine

If you want to make rpg: RPG Game Maker (MV, MZ, VX, VX Ace)

Basic android games: Buildbox (you will need to pay or be ok with limited desktop option)

Basic android games (paid): GameSalad

3d platform: Google 3d game builder on steam store

3d games (shooter and more): CopperCube

Anything 2d: Love game engine

visual novels: visual novel maker or renpy

classic games maker: Arcade Game Studio

Wow! You mentioned some game making softwares which many developers might overlook! 

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You're wrong about Fusion.  It's constantly being updated - there was a new update this week.  They offer a variety of export options like Android, IOS, PC and when I've had games played by several hundred people that were made in Fusion there were no technical issues reported with the software at all - it's stable.  They released a major feature update not too long ago.  The only thing you got right is that it is paid and that the free version doesn't do much. There are a lot of people using it, a lot of games, more than that one game - more types of games.  They have a Windows Universal exporter that is mostly I think for XBox rather than windows mobile - but I'm not sure, in any event this is not a new or recent addition, it was released when windows mobile was still a thing.

I wrote about 15 games in GameMaker and not one of them was a platformer... but yes, you do have to learn their coding language.  GameMaker hasn't been free for donkey years - it's just that they kept doubling the prices to catch up to what other software was charging and then went overboard - but I believe they reduced the prices again, I haven't checked in a while.

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firecat

Hi, thank you very much!!!!!! 
You have a lot of experiences in using these game creation softwares. No doubt!
Your opinions about the softwares  are  so constructive. 
Thanks again!

Recent puzzle hit Baba Is You was made in Multimedia Fusion 2 (the predecessor to Clickteam Fusion) which certainly validates that it's possible to make a good game in it. I haven't used it in years though, so I wouldn't be able to say much else about it

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To clarify on GDevelop (I'm GDevelop main developer): you can totally do "real" JavaScript coding (which, while it has bad press because of its history, is a nice, JIT-compiled language, with static typing with TypeScript making it a very nice experience and safe language ;)) - though 99% of games are made without it.

Also exports give you in one click, and after a ~3 minutes wait, a ready-to-publish Android/Windows/macOS/Linux game - though you can go the manual export way if you want full control on what you do! :) 

This won't change your mind but I still wanted to make this clear :) 

(+1)
Game Maker Studio 2 is what I started on and I think it is the perfect engine for 2D games. You can use drag and drop code which is nice to visualize code if you're new to it but their game maker language is nice and easy to learn and there are countless tutorials on it.
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Ok! I have confidence in Game Maker Studio 2 now!

What programming language is used for Game Maker Studio 2?

They have their own programming language. It's the only language I know and it's been really easy to learn. I have a project I can send you that has some good code you can use. What is your email?

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If you don't want to code (or don't know how), and don't want to pay for the software, I really would recommend GDevelop. There is a steady stream of updates, and on Youtube/Itch.io etc there is more and more tutorial videos and templates. Remember that GDevelop 5 still is in beta, and is being updated all the time. It has it's limitations today, but that might change in the future. For someone who's new to game making, GDevelop is a great tool! It's like a free (but more limited, yet anyway) version of Construct 2/3.