What 2D game engine should I use?

Question

I am looking for some advice about what game engine I should use. I have prototyped a game in Flash (an engine I am very familiar with) and I want to take it further, my main problem with flash is it isn't quick enough - without access to the GPU I am pushing the limits without all the game play features complete.

Here is what I am looking for: -2D Game engine -Free or reasonable indie pricing -Javascript, c# or similar language -A decent community and documentation -Powerful - able to access GPU/Make full use of GPU -Able to publish to Mac/Windows - linux and consoles a bonus but not required -Decent IDE/Engine interface

I am just playing with Torque 2D now, I like it but the downside is TorqueScript is similar to C++ which I am not to familiar with. Also I am not sure how powerful it is.

I am also comfortable using Unity but this is a 2D game and I don't like making 2D games in a 3D engine.

Hopefully you guys have some good ideas?

Answer 1

I have no real experience with it, as I'm only starting to learn it now, but consider NME:

NME is a free, open-source framework that enables development for iOS, Android, webOS, BlackBerry, Windows, Mac, Linux and Flash Player from a single codebase.

[...]

The API for NME is very similar to the Flash API, making it possible to target both Flash Player and native targets using a common (and familiar) set of classes. NME applications written in haxe, an incredible cross-platform programming language.

Haxe looks a lot like ActionScript, I think, so you should be confortable with it.

Answer 2

You can take a look at V-Play (v-play.net). It's a cross platform game engine based on Qt/QML with many useful V-Play QML game components for handling multiple display resolutions & aspect ratios, animations, particles, physics, multi-touch, gestures, path finding and more (API reference). The engine core is written in native C++, combined with the custom renderer, the games reach a solid performance of 60fps across all devices.

V-Play provides you with several tutorials, demos, a detailed documentation and ready-to-use game templates for the most successful game genres like tower defense, platform games or puzzle games (V-Play examples & demos).

You can develop on any desktop OS with the awesome IDE Qt Creator.