Top 5 Mobile Game Development Technologies

Who doesn't love video games? Most video games entrap us in a magical world where we might be a superhero, fighting ninja, fast racer, enchanting fairy, or a brilliant craftsman. A good game will make you an addict in seconds!! Even if someone is not a hard-core gamer, it is not easy to find a person who has not played a single game ever in his life! Games have the power to attract people irrespective of their age, be it a child below ten years or an adult above fifty.

The world of entertainment reached new heights, and the golden era of video games bloomed with the introduction of mobile games, no doubt. Now that smartphones are available to everyone, mobile games are becoming more and more popular. Can you guess the turnover of the global mobile gaming industry in the pandemic year 2020? It was an unbelievable $77.2 billion.

Do you now get why more investors and developers are paying attention in this area? Many top app development companies from Kerala are capable of developing games that are loved by gamers worldwide. A dedicated team of experts who has industry knowledge and experience in gaming is essential for developing a mobile game. Moreover, there are powerful tools that help in speeding up the development pipeline of mobile games. Let us analyze the top 5 mobile game development technologies adopted by mobile app development companies for game development.

Unity is one of the most powerful game engines developed by Unity Technologies. In 2005, Unity got introduced to the world as a Mac OS X-exclusive game engine. You will be amazed at the current capability of Unity. From the year 2018, this game engine can support more than 25 platforms which include mobile, desktop, consoles, and virtual reality. Unity is used to develop 2D, 3D, virtual reality, augmented reality games, and simulations now. As of now, Unity is the best mobile game development tool. Unity can give you an immersive gaming experience!

After the launch in 2005 for almost ten years, Unity was reaching its customers in paid versions. Since 2016 Unity follows the cloud model, the subscription model. Having said this, please don't think that Unity comes with a heavy price tag. It is free for personal use. Not only indie game developers benefit from this free licensing option, but also small companies. Those companies who have an annual turnover of less than 100K$ would also get Unity for free. The subscription plans depend on the revenue generated by the games developed using Unity.

Another remarkable feature of Unity is that, while creating a game in Unity, a developer does not have to worry about writing chunks of code to run his game. Unity does the job for him. The developer can focus on the gameplay using his Scripts. Isn't that a bit overwhelming?

Unity also has the facility to import assets from many 3D applications such as Maya or Blender. It is also possible to purchase a wide range of Assets directly from Unity's Asset store. It is a great advantage for developers who want to build their games fast. Developers can buy custom-built characters, animations, screen locations, etc. from the Asset store and use them in their games. Unity also handholds a developer with its extensive user guides and tutorials. Lara Croft Go, Angry Birds 2, Pokémon Go are some of the most downloaded games built on the back of Unity!!

Unreal Engine (UE) was developed by Epic Games for their FPS game 'Unreal' initially. It's not simply a game engine for mobiles, consoles, or PC, but it is a high-end tech widely accepted by developers worldwide.

Though the current stable version of Unreal Engine is UE4, the developers are awaiting the full launch of Unreal Engine5 by late 2021. UE5 would support next-gen consoles such as Xbox X and PS5. One of the lauded features of UE5 is 'Nanite' that imports high-detailed photographic source material into games.

The UE 5 helps developers in creating detailed game worlds without spending excessive time on new detailed assets. Nanite can import nearly any other pre-existing three-dimension representation of objects and environments to a game.

Another component of UE5 Lumen is a fully dynamic global illumination solution that immediately reacts to scene and light changes. Unreal now follows a visual scripting system called Blueprints. It is a rapid development of game logic without using code. So what are the far etched results? Well, Blueprints united technical artists, programmers, and designers to work as a team together and not as independent units.

Unreal does not cost you a single penny if your game revenue per quarter is less than $3000. If the game turnover exceeds this limit for the stipulated time frame, then 5% of the game's gross revenue becomes chargeable for the full-version engine. Unreal is the perfect choice for large-scale, high-quality graphical games.

Lumberyard is the reworked and extended version of CryEngine from Amazon. This free cross-platform engine is suitable for AAA games in Android, iOS, PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Some of its best features include the availability of C++ source code to end-users and feature-rich sound.

Lumberyard allows developers to host their games on Amazon servers for free, and thus the seamless integration with AWS Cloud is possible. Does it not sound exciting to know that lumberyard games get the support and opportunity for live Twitch streaming? Twitch is primarily a social media platform focused on live game streaming with over 100 million users per month. Lumberyard provides a Twitch JoinIn feature with which Twitch live streamers can invite their viewers to join them in the game with a single click on the Twitch channel. Even developers can engage with their fan community with the help of networking features such as Twitch ChatPlay, Twitch Meta stream, TwitchJoinIn. Cool!! Crucible, Star Citizen, New World, Breakaway, etc. are some of the top games from Lumberyard.

Many of you might not be familiar with the name Solar 2D. It is none other than the earlier Corona SDK from Corona Labs. The renaming happened in 2020 due to the closure of Corona labs and the ongoing Corona pandemic.

As the name implies, this software development kit is ideal for developing 2D games for iOS, Android, and Kindle. It can also create desktop applications for Windows, Linux, and macOS. Solar 2D also supports connected TV applications for Apple TV, Fire TV, and Android TV.

Solar 2D uses the lightweight, scripting language Lua on top of C++/OpenGL to build 2D or 3D games. The Solar2D Simulator and Solar 2D Native software are the two operational modes of Solar 2D. Games or 2D apps are built directly from the Solar 2D Simulator. Solar2D Native mode gives the facility to integrate Lua code and corresponding assets within an Xcode or Android Studio project to build your app. The Solar 2D editor uses Sublime Text and it makes coding/building apps easier by adding functionality to Sublime Text. This improves developer productivity to a great extent.

Solar 2D is completely free for its customers, no matter whether you are an indie developer or a large game studio. The complete source code and resources are available for users under the MIT license. Solar 2D also possesses a vibrant community of thousands of developers over forms and Discord servers. Designer City, Zip Zap, Gunman Taco Truck, I love Hue, etc. are some of the amazing games with Solar 2D.

Developers love to call BuildBox a 'No Coding' game development platform. Yes, no programming, no scripting!! This tool has the power to design, build, & publish 3D & 2D games in real-time without a single line of code!

Then how does this work? Select images (design elements), drag and drop them to your game, assign them a role (character, object, decoration, power-up). You can now start your game! It is also possible to make changes and validate them in real-time.

BuildBox helps in faster mobile game development. Popular games like Color Switch and The Line Zen took only a week in BuildBox. In addition to all these, it is a cross-platform tool that supports both iOS and Android platforms.

BuildBox offers three plans for pricing: 1) Free plan 2) Plus plan charges $19.99 monthly with a one-year commitment and 3) Pro plan charges $49.99 monthly with a one-year commitment. Whether to go for BuildBox or not depends on your needs. If you are a non-techie person, then this tool is the perfect pick for you.

There are different game development frameworks available in the market from which you can choose according to your requirement. But as mentioned at the beginning of this article, if you are not a developer but want to develop a game for your business needs, it is better to trust an efficient game development company like Zartek. We are creative. We have the required expertise and experience in the field with all the resources to make your dream game come true! If you are ready to get on to that interesting journey of game development, contact us today.