Gdevelop... worth trying?

How do I...?
1

I know that this is a forum for Gdevelop and asking whether it is a good tool or not is such a stupid queestion. But, I really wanna get clear answer. So please don’t ignore me :frowning:

My question is this,

  1. I was a game maker user. I know that I can make all kinds of 2d stuff with this. But is it possible to make any kinds of 2d with Gdevelop?

  2. Actually I wanna make big project(like risk of rain) with Gdevelop if it can make all 2d stuff(no limits of genre). But, isn’t it too laggy? Can I control those lags and reduce them?

Thanks a lot :smiley:

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In fact you should try Gdevelop and do some Demo’s. I also used game maker a little bit quite a few years ago, back then I also supported the project with a payment. These days it’s become big and expensive and it’s difficult to even consider using anymore.

So, I can’t really compare with the newest version of Game Maker, but here’s from what I remember about functionality + the little I know about new version (price, and platform support).

In any case, Game Maker is hugely expensive (this is relative to the person considering it, but at least comparing with e.g. Gdevelop), Gdevelop is free.

As for extendability, you can do custom scripts in both, Gdevelop offers custom JavaScript, so you can do pretty much anything supported by JavaScript, but it can become complex, of course.

Game Maker probably has particles for both web android and native (old version I tried was native only, but had particles which worked pretty great, honestly). And Gdevelop does not have particles in HTML/Android. However, instead of real particles, I made some free effects you can use as animated objects with Gdevelop here.

You can export for Android in Gdevelop also, but it needs a little bit of manual conversion or custom compile on your side. But nothing too difficult, and there are instructions for it all. :slight_smile:

Speed wise, Gdevelop is also decent in native platform, but I never had any problems with game maker on quite old PCs. So, potentially Game Maker’s engine might be faster, but also might not, especially since the new engine is likely completely different. In HTML 5 games (webgl and android, although there’s an android native option also), you have to be really careful with Gdevelop. This is possibly true with Game Maker as well. HTML 5 gives some limitations. In any case, for browser/mobile games, you must be careful not to use too many actions that are resource intensive, or use them only when needed. This part is up to you as well, as a developer. I personally didn’t find performance of Gdevelop to be 100% perfect just yet (comparing to e.g. Unity), but it might be entirely adequate, depending on your optimization skills, and it’s the only Open Source among those I compared it with.

As for 2D, yes, you can definitely make 2D games with Gdevelop, and it’s the primary type of game you can make. Making a 3D game is not supported for the Web/Android platform and very limited at this point in native platform.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember much else about Game Maker to make a real comparison.

Conclusion? Gdevelop might be more limited (Game Maker probably has more features), but only one of them is completely free. Depending on your specific project, it may be 100% satisfactory or not, and unfortunately you might have to experiment a little, try/make some demo’s and so forth until you get your impression.

1 Like
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Thanks sooooo much!!!
I love you :slight_smile: for a good advice and hope you to accomplish your projects :slight_smile:

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Don’t worry about it, if you have any problems - feel free to ask on the forum, many people here have some experience with Gdevelop, might have run into the same issues, and can offer a quick fix if possible.

Thanks, and good luck with your projects as well.

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Short answer: Yes!

Gameplay wise, yes you can do pretty much anything but not all kind of 2d staff, there are limitations that you need to consider if you need them or not. For example lighting and shadow effects are pretty limited in GD in case you plan to use nice and polished lighting effects, you may find GD a bit “outdated”.
Also you won’t be able to make fluid and cloth simulation for example and online multiplayer game is a big question mark as the networking extension is obsolete but not a word about the future.
Also in case you plan to publish your game on mobile or Microsoft store and add in-app purchase, it is not possible at the moment so you won’t be able to. You can ad AdSense banner to your HTML5 game but people report problems all the time and I don’t think it worth it anyway. In case you want to make money your only real option is to sell your game.

Game Maker Studio is the most complete game development tool out there today. It got most features that people need and support most platform and it got a huge community with lot of tutorials and info. Of course it got it limitations and bugs but overall it a better engine, technically speaking there is nothing that GDevelop can offer over GMS. Personally I find the IDE and the content management of GD superior compared to most other tools out there but the actual engine under the hood sometime feels a bit outdated to be honest because of the above limitations but overall it is a solid engine that is capable to support a minimalistic and solid games but no fancy visual effects and pro features I’m afraid.

I haven’t played Risk of Rain but I did watch some gameplay on youtube and from what I can see it perfectly doable in GDevelop but in case you do have experience with GMS and you have no problems with limitations or scripting then you might need to consider to stick to GMS. Yes it is awful expensive but for that price you get a professional tool and support while GDevelop is more of a hobbyist tool with no support at all. So I don’t recommend to drop GMS only because of the price tag. Only last year it was on Humble Bundle at least twice that I know of and it is on sale every few months too . Also the price might drop when GMS 2 is out of beta.

Regarding “control over lag”, if you are having problems with performance and lag in GMS and that’s why you want to replace it, I don’t think you get more control and better performance with GDevelop. It might be a slightly faster and better in HTML5 and about the same on Windows and Linux but you definitely get more lag and trouble with GD on mobile devices.

The only way I can recommend GDevelop over GMS if you find GMS difficult to use or you just looking for a simple, easy and quick way to make 2D games.
But in case you want to replace GMS only because of the price tag or performance, I don’t think it worth it.

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