Best Software for 2D game

lamb

Hello,

Sorry if the title is retarded, but I'm really new into making games. After I attended a few presentations on indie game makers around here (Slovakia) I realized that the only difference between those guys and me is that unlike me, they actually started working on a game. I put together a pretty nice team who are willing to work evenings without pay which is brilliant.
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We are looking for something that could be described as a blend of these games:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1XEd5Q7E7Y]Sonic the Hedgehog[/ame]
- we are especially interested in the fast pace that we'd like to implement.
- the game will also be in 2D (with not even depth)
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaDztOgskYA]Bastion[/ame]
- I like how the sounds generate the impression that you are throwing punches. It is an overall well made game.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=outkdKuIdng]Any one of the Old Castlevania games[/ame]
- The weapon and spell mechanics as well as bosses (plus the soundtracks) are great in this one.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhPHRm-kJ5w]Castle Crashers[/ame]
- this is just so much fun. Our game probably won't be multiplayer or cooperative (at least not primarily) although there is room for pvp eventually.

The software we originally wanted to use are: Adobe Photoshop and Flash (we also considered Toon Boom and Illustrator)

What I'd like to ask you guys is, if according to my description, this soft is a viable solution. Do you have any recommendations what graphics software or programming software we could use instead?

Thank you a lot. Sorry for the long post, I hope it at least makes clear sense.

warby

my recommandations would be:

if you want it to look more like castlevania / sonic sprite pixel art:

a) photoshop + unity
b) photoshop + udk


or if you want it to be more vector-ish like: super meat boy, cstle crashers or the binding of isac

c) flash + unity
d) flash + udk

Snader

Honestly, flash + photoshop is a solid combination. I don't really see the point of using Unity or UDK for a 2D game. Perhaps Construct 2 is nicer for you guys, but I won't bet my life on it. I've given the program a quick spin this week and it comes with a bunch of nice built in features such as standard platforming mechanics, but to make something from scratch feels more clunky than using Actionscript.

renderhjs

One of many options:
Flash: Actionscript3: Starling Framework http://gamua.com/starling/
Starling is a hardware accelerated 2D framework to build games with, you get easily full 60 fps with under 10.000 triangles on screen.

A few month's ago I worked on a game "Gangster Squad: Though Justice"
http://labs.soapcreative.com/GangsterSquad/
On average I would say there were about 3k-5k sprites visible on screen at once. Needless to say that it never really sweat with hardware acceleration.


If you are familiar with AS3 starting with Starling is super easy as the whole event system and display model has been replicated.

To be fair, I think the same could be achieved also with Unity and a proper 2d framework or your own code for managing the sprites. With booth solutions you can export your game to tablet and mobile platforms as well as desktop environments. / browsers.

Shrike

Really superb art renderhjs

From what ive experienced does Unity work pretty well for sidescrolling games

lamb

Thank you all for the great advice. I'm seriously thinking about using the Unity engine. What troubles me though is the fact that it is not entirely meant for the design of 2D games. There should be no trouble in getting around to set the camera angle to suit our purposes, but I'm worried that it will be more effort to adjust things than to actually start in something simpler. Have you any experience with adjusting the physics inside the engine and whether it won't get unnecessarily confusing? It most certainly can be done, I'm just worried whether it is worth it.

There's a ton of issues to wrap my head around at the moment, but I won't bother you before proper googling. The game will focus on creatively conceived boss fights and a wide variety of levels (often including a total change in the mechanics), so that our engine will also need to be flexible.

There exist great plugins that could help us with issues as we get on, however, and many things have been already dealt with in the past which would make our work easier. That's why I'd actually prefer Unity at this moment.

Otherwise we'd probably go for ActionScript3 after all. Thanks for the Starling Framework renderhjs! It will come helpful.

Dataday

Honestly I would avoid action script. I know some use it for rapid prototyping but flash is on its way out. Better to learn and use something with a bit more long term value.

Unity is great, so is UDK.

I would like to note as well that the guys who made Torchlight used Ogre3d (free) for its rendering engine.

Richard Kain

If you need your game to be as open-source and budget-friendly as possible, I would advise developing it in Actionscript 3.0 with the Starling framework. You should be able to use AIR for cross-platform support. This route will allow for nearly-free development without any licensing fees. The access to the full source code will give you the greatest degree of flexibility.

If you aren't as concerned with open-source and hanging onto every dollar, Unity is also a good option. Taking advantage of Unity's full range of supported platforms WILL cost you money. While Unity's basic functionality and platform support is free, you have to pull out your wallet for support on mobile platforms, or if you want to take advantage of the engine's more robust features. You also won't have access to the engine's core source code. You can write your own custom scripts, but you can't re-program the engine itself.

I'm personally using Unity at the moment, but have worked with Actionscript 3.0 in the past. I've seen both sides of this, and both are actually good options. Since both options have their own free versions, I would strongly recommend downloading them and giving them a try first. It's great that these days we have so many solid choices, and that the question can come down to personal preference.