Android Game Makers List

In order to make a good Android game, you’ll need the right development tools, makers and game engines, and there’s plenty out there. But how do you choose, 100,000 yearly revenue. It’s been used to create some of the most popular games out there, including Monument Valley, and although it does not let you dig into the source code, you’ll probably never need to. Cons: Gets expensive with extra features and add-ons. No source code access unless you pay. 35 for basic plan. 3000/quarter, at which point 5% of royalties go to Unreal, though one-off payments without royalties can also be organised. Its community is also extremely active, and it has a large knowledge base available online, with tutorial videos and extensive documentation. Price: Free with a percentage taken from game sales. Marmalade was recently acquired by GMO and while it’s SDK still exists, the company will now focus on the output of its own games: the platform will be up for purchase until October 2017 only.

A high end solution, it markets itself as the quickest cross-platform development engine, and its low-level language does indeed make its apps run very fast - further to that, one of its major upsides is “write once, run anywhere”. The engine offers great physics support and can produce 3d games, but it does feature a lot of coding instead of visual scripting, so is perhaps best avoided by beginners. Example Games: Plants vs. 600 (one time payment). Made with Marmalade: Plants vs. Next up, something for people with a bit of experience under their belt but looking to step up their game. If you’ve already made a game or two and want to improve your skills, but don’t quite feel confident enough to go “professional”, these are for you. GameMaker Studio has been featured a number of times in the Humble Bundle, which alone is a testament to how good the tool is.

Released in 1999, it was used to create notable hits like Hotline Miami and Spelunky. Using the GML language, it creates games by using a library of pre-set “events” which then trigger in-game actions, making for an intuitive game-building experience. Also note that it only supports Android 2.3 onwards, and given the level of complexity if can offer, is best suited for junior developers (as opposed to total beginners). 99.99 for Basic plan. Free version: Only trial. GameBuilder Studio is a multi-layered editor that uses a drag and drop interface to build games, while also allowing experienced developers to add custom code to the project. The platform is well supported and recently integrated Spine Pro, which lets users create quite sophisticated 2D animated characters via procedural bone manipulation, as well as support for the Ouya Android console. Pros: Has just relaunched and has an extensive asset store on company’s site. Cons: Multiplayer support only comes with the highest price plan.

Appypie is a fairly new player to the game-making-platform business, but the entire company is geared towards providing tools for non-coders to make applications and games. With various price plans available, it offers a lot of flexibility for those starting out, as well as ready-made templates of games and a drag-and-drop user interface. The upside of having its own app marketplace is that publishing to it is extremely easy, but there is no support to publish to the App Store or Google Play - that’s up to you. Price: Euro 15/month for Basic plan. Free version: Only 24hr Trial. Moai‘s main advantage is there are no frills attached: it is free, open source and will create games for every platform under the sun, and works with Linux as well as Mac and Windows. Corona is the highly polished, extremely popular game development tool made by Corona Labs, and despite being so polished and with extensive API documentation, it comes with three price plans, starting at “Free”.