Hey there,
Sorry to be posting one of those recommendation requests, but I'm having a hard time here and would appreciate some information on my options here.
TL;DR;
I'm looking for tooling/coding suggestions for creating cross-platform games and apps
My needs...
I've been developing in AS2 then AS3 for a while now, and while I do still believe that there is space for this technology, I think it's time again to consider some other options going forward. I do have certain needs and wants for my next projects and would like to try something that can offer me something more than Flash has.
I've been using the Flash IDE with FlashDevelop, and it's worked very well for me. I create assets in Flash that have no code aside of 'stop();' and export into swc or swf depending on whether I'm creating runtime or compiled assets. Then in FD I build out all the code using proper coding practices (try to mostly).
Despite it working very well for me, there are some reasons that I"m looking to switch.
- Cross-platform deployment. AIR makes it very easy to compile for android or iOS, on paper that is. Once I started testing on different devices I started seeing weird visual issues, and found it incredibly difficult to debug, and ended up abandoning the project and ended up using CoronaSDK, which got me to a non buggy release within 2 weeks with 0 Lua/Corona experience. I believe the issue there with flash is that it relies on the AIR runtime on the devices, which adds bloat and runs interpreted code, whereas some other cross-platform frameworks/tools/libraries compile to native code and thus boast better performance.
- IDE not a level editor. The Flash IDE is one of the platforms biggest strengths. It has it's quirks, but for the most part it's a solid and intuitive program that allows someone that has no experience with it to be productive in almost no time. but.... I seem to have come up with some limits now that have become increasingly difficult to get around. As a level editor, I find it lacking; I often use it to generate maps with spacial and relational data. I would love to be able to place nodes on a map, and link them to generate paths. The problem is that while I can add nodes and add properties to them through the IDE, the ability to draw a line from one to the other and later have access on the relationship between them is not possible using the IDE. Doing this would require a custom tool, which is another step in the pipeline on top of having to create such a tool in the first place.
- Community & Adobe Dependence. Adobe hates Flash, they treat it like the black sheep of RIA that they're embarrassed of.The community has been withering, almost every AS3 developer that I followed moved on. There are a few holding out, but the writing is on the wall, it has been for a while.
What I've tried...
- Unity3D. I've tried several times to give it a go, but it just doesn't suit my way of developing. I don't like some of the imposed coding practices, having assets and code be too dependent, and find run-time asset loading complicated. I'm sure if I committed fully and learned more about unity, I could find a way to be more productive with it, but I'd rather see what else is out there, plus most of the stuff I do would use 2D or 2.5D, so a 3D first engine is an overkill.
- Corona SDK. I found it surprisingly easy to get going with, but it's limiting to me because it only does mobile, and I ended up using the Flash IDE for assets anyway, so it doesn't solve anything. But it is a handy, free, mobile-only solution that I'd use again, but only for a specific type of project.