Mobile games are liked by one and all. Thus looking at the broader range of user, mobile game development companies are trying their best to woo the players with the better mobile game apps. The recent success of gaming apps like PUBG is a clear example that gaming in the mobile technology arena holds a broad scope and can become a crucial asset in defining the success of the organization.
Gaming apps bring both competitiveness and nostalgia. The most premier example of mobile game development companies harnessing on nostalgia is the resounding success of PokemonGo. The famous cartoon series from the '90s brought back the childhood days of the millennials as the majority of the targeted customers were below 35 years of age.
Mobile game development companies should have a thorough knowledge of the platform on which they are planning to develop the game. Factors like having a large developer community, easy to code, working on both the OS platforms (Android and iOS) must be some of the key features that should be looked at. Moreover, the platform should be such that it should support native as well as cross platform mobile gaming apps.
Keeping all these in mind, we have prepared a full-throttle list of mobile game development platforms that are in trend and can help you in developing the best gaming product for the targeted audience.
Take a look at the Game Developers’ most preferred Platform & Engines
Unity
Unity is one of the top game development platform found around the globe and widely used by game development companies. It is a cross platform tool that helps the game developers to create a game using breathtaking 2D and 3D features. It also allows borrowing or import of 3D application, thus offers a wide range of 3D technologies to choose from.
Moreover, if you are just a beginner or a startup company trying their hands for the first time in game development, Unity offers you tutorials and materials that can guide you. It supports all the major platforms like Android and iOS. Some of the top games developed using Unity are Pokemon Go and Angry Birds.
Unreal Engine
Like Unity, Unreal Engine is a multipurpose platform that gives the game developers the opportunity to build their own mobile games. It also provides the facility of live-updating so that you can correct the mistakes as soon as you find one in the game. Moreover, it has many user-friendly and easy to understand features so that the mobile game developers do not need exceptional game developing skills to begin the mobile game development process.
The easy to work interface at Unreal Engine gives the possibility of testing the game inside the platform only. By this feature, even the minor mistakes or bugs or hiccups can be eradicated. The interactive 3D techniques give the mobile game app developers the liberty of designing mobile games that hook the customers for a more extended period of time. Games like Heart at attack and ABC Augmented reality have been developing using Unreal engines and are working great at the play store.
CocoonJS
CocoonJS helps the mobile game developers to build the app using CSS3, HTML5, and Javascript, unlike Objective-C, which only allows device-specific languages. This flexibility is essential as the game developers can bring in all their creativity and develop a more viable game that is user-friendly and durable in the mobile game market.
You can create HTML games with CocoonJS that are fully compatible with Cordova. In addition, Cocoon cloud in use, there is no need for the developers to install SDKs and their plugins. The cloud-based platform provides you all the plugins, thus saving the memory of the device. Classic mobile games like Solitaire Swift and Celsius heroes have been developed using CocoonJS.
BuildBox
With BuildBox, you can have a plethora of options that includes editing game-play, logic pieces, characters, and even several presets. Not only this, it is the fastest mobile game app development platform, thus helps in reducing the time taken to develop a product and get to the market. You need to assign the characters or objects a role and need not import or select images separately for them.
The platform gives you the facility to do real-time changes in the mobile app, and it is straightforward to understand. Thus for the first time coders and game developers, developing your game on Buildbox, could be the best thing to happen. The platform only supports iOS, and games like Timelight are built using BuildBox.
Corona SDK
This platform uses Lua scripting language and is a cross platform “2 D Game Engine”. The scripting language in the Corona SDK platform makes it easier for the game developers to go about their work. You can specially design high-end 2D games as Corona SDK is a good 2D game development platform. Corona has specific and clear documentation and supportive app developers’ community so that there is no dearth of advice or suggestions whenever you are in trouble during the game development process.
The real-time simulation feature will enable you to understand how the mobile game app will look after the changes are done. The core functionalities of Corona are free for the developers to use, and it works for Android as well as iOS. I Love Hue is the most prominent game that is developed using this platform.
AppGameKit
AppGameKit game development platform uses coding languages that is similar to C++ and is a perfect platform for both the beginners and game developing experts to showcase their skills. It is a cross platform game development platform so that the mobile app development companies can use it for multiple types of games and thus taking their product to a more extensive section of the audience.
Apart from iOS and Android, it also supports Windows and Blackberry as well. Hence with AppGameKit, you will have a sizable audience and therefore increase in the horizon of your business. Na4 and Bouncing Brendan are some of the top games that are developed using AppGameKit.
Cocos 2D-x
As the name itself suggest, Cocos 2D-X is a packaged 2D game development platform that is released by Facebook. The significant advantage of using this platform to develop your app is that you can create a game app of size as small as 1.5 MB. Not only the loading time of the app will be less, but as it takes low space, the customers would have no second thoughts in downloading the game in their device.
It has a large developers' community and comes with detailed documents, therefore easy to understand. Top-rated games like Angry Birds Fight, and Clash of Kings are developed using Cocos 2D-X, and their popularity is a clear example of how competent it is as a game development platform.
Closing Words
Each of the game development platforms mentioned above are great and high in their own right. The game development companies are milking millions on the App store and Play Store by developing the game on these platforms.
What becomes necessary for an organization to understand is they need to find out their targeted audience and their preference before choosing a platform.
Go through the merits and demerits of each before finalizing. Game development Industry and gaming apps are on the rise, and there is no chance of them getting slowed down in the near future.
Top comments (4)
I have experience with several of the listed mobile game platforms, and I agree with the author of the post - they are really great tools for game development. But each platform has its own peculiarities, so I recommend experimenting and choosing what suits your particular project best.
Great Content, If you are looking for a Mobile Game Development company. We are a leading game development company.
No love for SpriteKit? :(
I believe CocoonJS was discontinued last year. :(