Select an appropriate engine for x86 Android * games, x86android

Select an appropriate engine for x86 Android * games, x86android
Summary

Game developers know that there are huge opportunities in Android. About half of the top 100 apps in the Google Play store are game applications (more than 100 of the top 90% most profitable Apps ). To enter the market, the development speed is critical. Some newly-started independent developers prefer to develop all their own code from scratch, but they do not need to spend years of development to achieve higher quality, others may choose an existing game engine. When selecting an engine, you can consider the following factors:

• Cost-how much do you plan to spend?
• Dimension-is your game two-dimensional or three-dimensional?
• Language-What programming languages do your developers know?
• Artist pipeline-how is it integrated with the content creation tool?
• Access all resources-do you need to access it to make deep changes to the engine?

Currently, there are many Android game engines available, but these engines differ greatly in these standards. As high-performance Android devices using Intel processors become more and more popular in the market, it is more important to choose an engine optimized for x86 Android devices. This article will help you select the engine suitable for your game to provide the best performance for your Android customers.

Best Choice

This article checks the optimal alternative engine in the following three aspects.

Since its first release in 1998, Epic Games's Unreal * Engine has long held an important position. It has contributed a lot of success stories in the computer, console, and mobile platform fields. Unreal Engine includes the following tools:

• Unreal Editor (3D Content Editor)
• Blueprint visual script editing (drag-and-drop editing)
• Persona animation tool
• Editor and tool for AI, light, and other effects

 

Project Anarchy * is an engine recently developed by Havok. It combines proven main game technologies of Havok with a custom engine for mobile development. Project Anarchy includes the following components:

• Havok Vision Editor (3D Content Editor)
• Havok Vision Engine Using Havok Physics
• Havok Animation Studio (drag and drop edit)
• Autodesk Scaleform * (UI tool)
• Editor and tool for AI, light, and other effects

 

Marmalade * is a cross-platform software development kit designed for fast creation and building of mobile games. Marmalade is newer than the first two technologies. It was just launched as a game in 2011. Marmalade includes the following elements:

• Marmalade C ++ SDK
• Marmalade Quick (Lua)
• Marmalade Juice (Obj-C)
• Web Marmalade (HTML5/JavaScript *)

 

 

Cost

Many engines offer a variety of prices based on the required features. The most common factors that determine the price are the target platform and the size of your team or company.

The Unreal Engine requires a registration fee of $19 per month and 5% of the total revenue from all projects developed based on its technology. This technology supports custom price structures, additional support, and console-oriented development options.

Project Anarchy is currently (and will continue in the future) free for teams of all sizes to use when developing mobile games. If you need to develop a PC or console for deep access and other tools, you can also purchase an advanced version. For basic development, Project Anarchy is undoubtedly the most economical option. It only requires joint promotion with your game.

At the time of writing this article, Marmalade was able to earn less than $500,000, and a team of less than three developers spent one year free of charge. This is a temporary promotion, and a tax of more than $149 is generally required to obtain a license. Higher prices can provide more target platform development and direct Developer support.

Dimension

The attractiveness of 3D games is indisputable, but for many simple games, 2D is a better choice, and it requires much less time and resource investment than 3D. Your game dimensions are closely related to the selected engine.

Marmalade does not support 3D graphics, but Unreal Engine and Project Anarchy can provide this support. These engines provide the best experience in 3D development and have made numerous improvements.

In short, the three engines can be used for 2D development, but the functions of Unreal Engine and Project Anarchy are not limited to this. Project Anarchy currently provides an alpha-level 2D tool set example, and Unreal Engine and Marmalade can also provide 2D sample code. A subset of the Marmalade tool designed for rapid development. Marmalade Quick is only for 2D.

All three engines can be used for 3D and 2D games, but Marmalade is more suitable for 2D games, and Project Anarchy and Unreal Engine are more suitable for 3D games.

Language

If the developers in your team are familiar with the programming language used in a certain engine (if better), the learning process will be significantly shortened.

In versions earlier than Unreal Engine 4, Unreal Engine's game programming is completed in UnrealScript. The latter is all the scripting languages of Epic, And it adopts the C-language-like syntax. With the release of Unreal Engine 4, C ++ has become the main development language.

Project Anarchy is based on C ++ and uses Lua to write scripts. Many engines use lightweight scripting languages (such as Lua) as much as possible to reduce the risk of low-level tasks (such as memory management.

Marmalade consists of multiple tool sets, depending on the required language. The basic SDK uses C ++, Marmalade Juice uses Objective-C *, Marmalade Quick uses Lua, and Web Marmalade is specially designed for HTML5/JavaScript development.

In terms of the richness of language selection, Marmalade does have outstanding advantages. Your developers can better use some form of Marmalade based on their favorite development methods. This feature is closely related to the nature of the abstraction layer "writing once, and can be applied anywhere.

Artist Pipeline

In the past, only programmers were in the development team. Currently, Game Studios (regardless of their size) clearly define the responsibilities of programmers and artists. Engines that are closely integrated with content creation tools can take advantage of the competition.

Both the Unreal Engine and Project Anarchy contain 3D editors for layout, level design, and asset operations. These are especially useful to 3D artists because their interfaces are similar to many 3D art tools (they can also be used together with the engine's editor to create assets ).

Unreal * Editor (left) and Havok Vision Editor (right)

The Unreal Engine provides the "blueprint scripting" function, in which script components (such as actions) can be visualized as drag-and-drop elements.

Blueprint scripting in Unreal * Editor

Project Anarchy provides a similar state machine-based design tool for animation design.

Project Anarchy * hierarchical state machine animation tool

Although Marmalade has a large community for developing open-source plug-ins and tools to support development (most of which can be obtained from the site: http://github.com/marmalade ), however, the official Marmalade suite does not provide any resources for non-programmers. With a comprehensive tool suite, Project Anarchy and Unreal Engine have advantages in this aspect.

Access all resources

In terms of possibility, creating your own engine also has the advantage of being able to modify it. Because you can access all source code, you can modify any content or add your own support on other new target platforms.

Unreal Engine is the most generous in this regard; if you pay the Unreal Engine 4 registration fee, you will be able to access all resources.

Project Anarchy provides the source of some components. If you need all the sources, you must pay a higher fee. Users can access low-level resources at any time, but can only modify the free version.

Although Marmalade has a large number of open-source plug-ins, it is a closed source. You can access the top-level network, but cannot access other sources.

Most developers may not worry about this, but the more complicated the game engine design, the more you need to have higher control over every detail.

Feature comparison

		Marmalade	Project Anarchy	Unreal Engine
Lowest Cost		Free promotion/USD 149 + Vat	Free	$19/month + 5%
Dimension	3D	Implemented	Applicable	Applicable
	2D	Easiest	Alpha-level tool set	Implementation, Example
Language		C ++, Obj-C, Lua, HTML5	C ++ and Lua	C ++
Non-programmer Functions		Third Party	3D Editor, Animation Studio	3D Editor, Blueprint scripting
Full Source		No	Partially, but all at the highest level	Yes

 

Summary

Each engine compared here has its expertise and unique advantages. If you need to consider future costs, you can select Project Anarchy. Taking into account the skills and deep modification and expansion engine needs, Unreal is the lowest cost. Marmalade is the best choice for rapid development of 2D games. There are many other free and open-source engines on the market, which are comparable to the three engines compared in this article, but we choose these three engines instead of others, this is because the performance of these engines can help your game flourish on a variety of Android devices.

References

• Unreal Engine https://www.unrealengine.com/
• Http://www.projectanarchy.com/Project Anarchy/
• Marmalade https://www.madewithmarmalade.com/
• Google Play Store statistics http://www.appannie.com/apps/google-play/top/

About the author

Brad Hill is currently a software engineer in Intel Developer relations. Brad is responsible for investigating new technologies related to Intel hardware and sharing the best practices with software developers through the Intel Developer zone and at developer meetings. In addition, he is also the Engineering director of student hacker song, responsible for providing code Operation Support for excellent hacker song in colleges and universities across the United States.

Is there anyone who recommends suitable open-source engines and related technologies to develop games on Android?

Many well-known manufacturers have participated in a business model discussion and technical exchange in the mobile application development field of the Android platform.
I know a few of them, such as chengmai technology, quick Bi, and scoreloop.


What's better about the Android game production engine?

Unity 3d is powerful and is now free of charge. If it is 2d, cocos-2x can be used