Recommend any 2D Game Library or Engine?

[ChajusSaib]

What cross platform mobile 2D game development libraries or engine would ye recommend? Preferably using the MIT license or something similar.

I've tried SFML but support for android and iOS is said to be buggy. I've also got Unity but I like getting my hands a bit more dirtier.
Currently I'm going to be going with SDL because that seems to be my best option now.
Language does not matter. What game libs or engines gave you used and opinions?

I would like to mainly focus on developing for iOS and android, windows phone and web won't hurt either. Thanks!

[Z e r e o]

Since you are mainly developing for the mobile platform I would suggest checking out Cocos2d-x (The -x is important it denotes the C++ version of the framework). It is one of the leading frameworks for mobile development out there so the mobile support of the framework is top notch. It is also quite easy to use once you get the hang of how the framework does things. Plus there is plenty of learning materials out there (Including some decent books).

In my opinion if you are targeting the mobile market Cocos2d-x is leaps and bounds above SDL but again that is just my opinion.

http://www.cocos2d-x.org/

P.S. Personally I wouldn't even bother with the tool-set they have called "Cocos Creator". While it looks like they have updated it some since the last time I tried to use it, it still doesn't seem very helpful in my opinion so you are better off just ignoring it completely and using the Cocos2d-x libraries only and not their tools.

[ChajusSaib]

@Z e r e o

Thanks mate! This is exactly what I'm looking for. What books might you recommend? The documentation is great but I always prefer a book.

Thanks again!

[Z e r e o]

The one that I read was https://www.amazon.com/Cocos2d-x-Example-Beginners-Guide-Second/dp/1785288857/ref=pd_sim_sbs_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=51X64eIzhtL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR130%2C160_&refRID=FS570HAR32M5FHBG7PVW . Now will say off the bat that this isn't a book for everyone and is most definitely not a top quality book if you are looking for one to teach you game programming if you don't know anything about it.

Though with that said it did get the job done for me, personally I was just looking for a book to show me how things are done in the Cocos2d-x. Stuff like how the different parts are connected, how to do X and Y, etc. I already knew the basic structure of games and just needed to know more about the framework and this book did that for me.

It did that by going through making a few simple games from start to finish showing you what to do every step of the way, which helped me familiarize myself with how things are done in the framework and I could then figure everything else out from there with just the documentation.

[ChajusSaib]

Thank you, really appreciate it, sound bloke!

EDIT:

Hey lads, just wanted to add that I've found this[0] floating around reddit and it seems very useful. It's basically finding libraries for your needs, c++ libraries of course.

[0]https://cpp.libhunt.com/

[shadder]

is unity3D any good???

[ChajusSaib]

@programmer007

Much much easier to setup than cocos2d-x. Much.

__________________________________________

I cannot seem to setup cocos2d-x for android dev. I cannot set it up with Android Studio whatsoever, the compiler just throws everything at me.
I've followed many tutorials but they seem to be old and not working anymore. ADT is long gone...

Can someone lend a hand? I have the sdk and ndk setup and adt and ANT. I would just like it setup from the command line and use my text editor. I'd like to deploy to both iOS and android. Thanks!