Corona SDK free alternatives

Question

I tried corona sdk free edition, i really liked it. The problem is, that im not so good developer to use corona paid edition for my small project, i'm aware that i'll not earn my money back. Are there any free alternatives, like Corona? I'd prefer lua scripting, proper IDE and some other cookies.

Question two: Is there any way to publish app made with corona free edition on android market? Maybe there are some companies that provide publishing apps if i share my source with them.

Solution 1

Moai is open-source and uses Lua. I love Corona and put out an iPhone game I developed using it, but I'm planning to explore this new option for my next project.

Solution 2

We switched our studio from Corona to Moai last week. Corona is good for beginners learning Lua but has significant performance limitations that we could not overcome. It took me a week to port our Lua code over and write an extra management layer but overall we are much happier with an open source platform like Moai. I had a couple of questions on Moai which were answered promptly in their forums.

What finally pushed me over the edge was the Moai game Crimson Pirates which was #1 last week. See this video and download the game to see what I mean by performance in Moai. You couldn't write a game like that in Corona and get good performance.

Not sure if the Corona/Flash connection is a good thing. Flash may be popular but it's held in very low esteem by most game developers. When I challenged Walter on the performance issue, he didn't have any good answers. At least with Moai if I don't like the performance I can look at the code myself.

Solution 3

You may want to try Gideros Studio, which is free, and has an IDE. It includes some goodies like font creator and texture packer also.

If you send an email to the developers, I believe they'll also help you with your project.

Solution 4

There are Corona, Gideros, Moai, and LÖVE. Here is a review.

Solution 5

Moai is open source, and designed for pro game developers. It needs more work on documentation but if you are experienced you can generally find your way around it, and the forums are good at responding quickly.

Corona is aimed at beginners and is a closed source product. If you are a beginner, you are better off sticking with Corona or GameSalad. Bungie is using Moai. You don't see big studios using a closed source solution like Corona, mostly beginners and indie devs.

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Comments

[artouiros]

i have seen moai, but in my opinion it is in a very early beta stage, it doesnt have an IDE, documentation is very small.

[jhocking]

Corona doesn't have an IDE either (well I think there's a 3rd party one, but that's a separate purchase) and I actually prefer it that way. Writing code in a text editor is how I like it. But yeah moai is in beta; I haven't used it yet so I can't comment on how beta, if you know what I mean.

[jhocking]

"You don't see big studios using a closed source solution... mostly beginners and indie devs." Interesting; in my experience it's usually indies and hobbyists using open-source development tools.

[Matt Guest]

Moai as an sdk feels more complete and much faster than Corona. In my opinion they are putting the effort where it is really needed by game developers - into the sdk itself and making sure it is fast and extendable.

[Riccardo Bocci]

oh and i forgot. There's also RapaNui wrapper for MOAI, an high level MOAI API very clear and more similiar to corona as it handles things with very few code. you shuold check here: github.com/ymobe/rapanui

[CharlesS]

Note that Corona forces you to pay if you want to add 3rd party native libs; the amounts for that are high ($40k+). That's a good reason to run and never look back.

[walter]

Agree with jhocking. In fact, Corona is used by large studios, so not sure what facts are backing up the above claim. For example, Warner Bros Interactive used it for the Dolphin's Tale promo app. More recently, NBC/Universal used Corona to power their mobile campaign promoting the movie Lorax.

[walter]

Which challenge are you referring to? It's hard to respond without seeing some code.

[dilix]

CharlesS, some day ago i've asked developers about enterprise edition (to integrate 3rd party libs) - price was <1k$

[RozzA]

corona recently changed their prices (down, by a massive amount)

[mdikici]

When you download Gideros Studio Free, you need to upgrade it for any plugin or additional features. Not nice.

[PaulR]

It's not really free, they charge to remove the splash screen and charge to include adverts in mobile games.

[Sampath]

Learned it the hard way :) The simulator shows no splash screen. Had to test install on device to find out the claim of 'Completely Free' has a fine print :).