#Unity vs buildbox free

You mention that Unity can modify variables at runtime for testing.But honestly when are you ever going to need that in a 2d game? On top of that it supports DLLs so if you need some specific algorithm to run faster than GML can manage, you write just that one function in C, or C++, or C# etc, and make a dll. I don't know if things can be added to the gui, but it can have Gamemaker libraries ('extensions') added and you should be doing everything in GML anyway. I don't know what your needs are, and I know Unity is MORE extendable than Gamemaker, but Gamemaker is as extendable as I need it to be.I have saved literally hours of work not having to do much work to restructure things when I have approached them from the wrong direction initially. C# is better in many ways, but GML is quite powerful and because Gamemaker isn't strictly object-oriented you can do some crazy rapid prototyping, figure out how something actually works, and then refactor, rather than needing to have some idea of structure before you start.As you said, gamemaker has some better 2d features.You can get very fast answers on r/gamemaker Gamemaker has a very large, very strong community.

I am going to make some specific counterpoints, and I want to emphasize that I am not attacking your position (I know it is hard to indicate tone in text and mean no conflict here!), I just want to give you my perspective on why I use Gamemaker for every single project, by comparing it to your points about Unity.: When it comes down to it, Gamemaker is so much faster and easier to use that I just don't see any reason to use Unity for a 2d game ever.

This isn't to say that Unity WOULD hold anyone back, I would say that Unity is at least as powerful as Gamemaker on all fronts, but that doesn't matter because if Gamemaker can do everything you need for a fully 2d game, then anything that can do more is simply overkill. I have been using Gamemaker for years and on the very rare occasions where I felt like it was holding me back I eventually realized I was doing things in a stupid way, and Gamemaker was totally find for the correct solution. I would never use Unity for a completely 2d game. It's not as versatile as Unity in terms of customization.ģ- I'm used to more structured C based languages and never felt at home with scripting ones like Lua but coding in GML seems faster since it needs less structure (this can be both good and bad).

#Unity vs buildbox free

They haven't released pricing model for GM and since Unity went almost free, it's probable to see at least a change in GM's but until then, Unity is free and now it includes all the export modules as well.ĩ- I haven't had serious debugging in GM but having Visual Studio as coding and debugging tool is fantastic rather than GM's editor from what I've seen.ġ1- I've heard that handling larger projects is easier in Unity but since we are a very small team, haven't faced this.Ģ- It's simple that you get faster to make your game rather than systems and editors and stuff. GM has one as well but from what I've seen, Unity's is superior both in terms of both content and quality.Ĩ- Pricing. And people with any C family language or even Java can pick up C# very fast.ħ- Asset store. AFAIK, you can't customize GM but it's fairly and relatively easy to do in Unity.ĥ- In game editor that lets you tweak variables whilst game is running.Ħ- Easier to find programmer companions as there are far more people with C# background than GML.

Such as tile editor.ģ- C# is far superior to GML in every way.Ĥ- 'Extendibility'. But they haven't caught up as fast as I thought they would back in 4.6 that they introduced 2D and if I want to make a platformer, I'll most likely to use 2-3 assets at least to make things 'normal'. Which happened in my case.Ģ- They still may be behind GM in 2D but they are catching up. I've made a similar comparison to Corona SDK here before but the bigger community behind an engine means that the support will be better, more tutorials, more assets and most importantly in my opinion: less likely to get abandoned. I've been teaching Game Maker for about 3 years now and been using Unity for past 4 years and released 4 games with it.Īs I'm researching for my next project, I was wondering what you guys think would fit better for 2D.Ĭurrently I want to switch to Game Maker since my next game will most likely be 2D and I think in 3D most people agree that Unity is the better choice, generally.ġ- The community is bigger.