Top 7 Mobile Game Development Tools

Mobile game development has shown a remarkable upward growth trajectory in the past two years. With exciting new mobile technologies there is also a new generation of hardware and software technologies that have dramatically transformed the way we interact with machines and screens. From the launch of game consoles like Sony PS4 and Microsoft xBox to Apple’s iPad Air and latest smart phones, mobile game development is constantly evolving. Recent reports suggests mobile game development is reported to be the fastest growing category in mobile apps. 

According to a Gartner report  the video game marketplace driven by strong mobile gaming will reach $ 111 billion 2015 from just $ 93 billion in 2013. While every developer worth their salt would want to jump in the mobile game development gold rush, the arena presents many challenges. It is the survival of the fittest and the swiftest in the higly competitive and fragmented market. Big budget themselves do not assure a a big successful run in mobile game development, nor does a potent and skilled game developer workforce. With app discovery an equally crucial factor apart from app promotion, mobile game development has come to be perceived as a holistic approach that includes game design, development and promotion.

An entrepreneur or a prospective client has to overcome and manage around these following challenges in their quest for a formidable mobile game development. One that assures to replicate the stellar success of chart toppers like Angry birds, Candy crush, temple run and so forth. Apart from major challenges, it is the choice of mobile game development tools that are pivotal to a mobile game’s success. The following are the top mobile game development tools for 2D and 3D games that will boost your mobile game app development to drive more engagement and revenue. While it’s not that one size fits all, but spread across the crucial domains of game development are the following tools.

Engines and mobile development packages

UNITY:

Unity is a powerful game development ecosystem that developers use to make thousands of mobile video games for mobile devices, consoles and browsers. According to Wiki, “Unity is a cross platform game engine with built in IDE developed by Unity technologies. It is used to develop video games for web plug-ins, desktop, platforms, consoles and mobile devices.”

As a free game development tool, it is affordable and delivers high quality mobile app game development. Unlike other IDE, where it is a pain to import 3D models, Unity helps in the process of binding assets and codes instantly. Unity also offers easy GUI for editing along with high quality graphics. It is fully integrated with a complete set of intuitive tools and rapid work-flows to create interactive 2D and 3D content. 

Unity is unmatched in work-flow and productivity. Unity follows the principle that together people can do more , thus allows the workload to be carried by many. Unity offers great flexibility, multi-platform publishing along with thousands of quality, ready made assets in the assets store and a global knowledge sharing community.

Marmalade:

The Marmalade SDK is the most popular and easy tool to create multi-platform C++ games. It has specifically been designed as a versatile, flexible tool focused on making it as simple as possible to build and share brilliant C++ games. It’s underlying concept of write once and run anywhere is achieved by providing a C/C++ API which acts as an abstraction layer for the core API of each platform. Marmalade gives you the full power of C++ whether you are coding for one platform or many. Marmalade offers performance, openness, flexibility, and great low-level access of C++. Not only does Marmalade accelerate the development of cross platform C++ games. It is fastest way to build cross platform C++ games.

UNREAL ENGINE:

Unreal engine, developed by Epic Games is a top development tool used for today’s most advanced graphic applications. Unreal engine features a high degree of portability and used by many game developers today. Unreal Engine 4 is a professional suite of tools and technologies used for building high quality games across a range of platforms. Unreal Engine helps countless developers create stunning and memorable gaming experiences. Unreal Engine 4’s rendering architecture enables developers to achieve stunning visuals and also scale elegantly to lower-end systems. Unreal Engine technology powers several games as well as real time 3D films, training simulations, visualizations and more. Unreal technologies is integrated with leading technologies and operates across a range of 10 mobile platforms to offer a consist of high quality service.

Project Anarchy:

Project Anarchy is a complete end-to-end game engine and state of art toolset for mobile game development. It is the first specially made package for mobile game developers. Under the hood, Project Anarchy is a fully integrated suite collection of Havok’s powerful and versatile multi-platform game engine. The remarkably cohesive and powerful package is available completely free for mobile developers. The engine provides a clean C++ API and a suite of tools ranging from a WYSIWYG editor to lighting and audio tools. The suite includes Havok Physics, the fastest and most robust collision detection and physical simulation technology available. 

Havok Animation Studio, a state-of-art animation system built for high quality game character development. Finally the Havok AI, a fully featured pathfinding solution. Further, in addition to these core tools, project anarchy offers a growing list of third party game technology as Autodesk Scaleform for developing powerful UI and fmod for creation of playback and audio.

Corona SDK:

The highly popular Corona SDK is the most advanced cross- platform app development to seamlessly publish your mobile game apps across a range of mobile platforms. Based on the concept of write once, run anywhere, Corona SDK relatively runs (fps) frames per second with no lag and adjust seamlessly to different screen resolution. Not only does it offer a fast emulator that help expedite the mobile game development, it has a great emphasis on design. Available in three different versions, Corona SDK is leader for 2D apps and games.

Corona’s extensive API library enables everything from animation to networking with just a few lines of code which helps in faster app development. Corona SDK allows you to publish for iOS, Android and Windows Phone from a single code base. Further, Corona SDK also supports in-app purchases, a variety of ad networks and other monetization models. Corona SDK is thus a multifaceted tool, relevant for indie developers as also game studios.

Engagement and Monetization:

App.io:

App.io’s interactive ad units converts 3x more than regular mobile ads on incentivized networks. They are easy to setup and require no plugins. app.io today has more than 15000 developers using its desktop browser. Developers can create ad units that are basically functional copies of their mobile game app that consumers can play for a set amount of time, before having to download the native application.

Swrve: 

Swrve is a single, integrated platform for driving mobile engagement and monetization within mobile apps. From in-app campaigns and local-time push notifications to real-time responsive UX and A/B testing , Swerve enables you to control every aspect of  mobile experience and understand what engages users. Swerve is easy to integrate, requires less coding, is easy to use and delivering ROI for some of the world’s leading app developers and publishers.

Nextpeer:

Nextpeer is a free multiplayer social SDK for mobile games that enables you to create cross platform, multi-player game. Their unique in-gaming playing capabilities offer opportunity to make your game even more interesting. It offers developer to build a social network channel directly into the game that enables the game to go viral. It further gives your players a fresh gaming experience by playing against different people every time. Thus developers can increase player engagement and boost app discover-ability.

Using these major popular tools, You can accelerate mobile game development process. Finding top mobile game developers is however a major challenge in the highly fragmented developer marketplace. BDC, the leading software business marketplace, provides you the directory of game development companies where a game development company can add their profile and a user can find top mobile game developers for their game idea.