Need help picking game engine?

Hi,

I’m trying to create my first game. I have never developed games before but I am a programmer (at my day job) and would like to get into creating 2d games.

I am currently looking at Corona SDK and have played around with it a little bit. I like the simplicity of Lua; coming from Java it’s syntactically pleasant. However one of the things that I’ve been reading from users of Corona on their forums is the lack of features and/or the time that it takes for these things to get developed (i.e. GameCenter, iADs, etc…). However the cross-platform ability is nice, and is what initially lured me to Corona. However with that simplicity comes a price as you are pretty much at the liberty of what they choose to implement. In addition they don’t allow any extensions or customizations of the framework.

Does cocos2dx offer simplicity with the ability to get more in-depth if needed? and how is cross-platform support? Does it offer those features (Game Center, iAd, etc…) or should I program in cocos2d-iphone and port to Android/other platforms? How often does it get updated and/or new features are added? Also how is Box2d support?

sorry for the long block of text, but with the plethora of frameworks out there, I’m really having a hard time choosing the best one. Any assistance would be appreciated.

Thanks,

  1. cocos2dx offer simplicity with the ability to get more in-depth if needed.

  2. You may refer HelloWorld tests to see how cocos2d-x support cross-platform.
    All the logic codes are platform independent.

  3. Game Center, iAd can be easily added in cocos2d-x. You can search the implementation by google, some developers shared how to achieve it.

  4. The engine is updated in about tow months. Some time, one month.

  5. Box2d is supported.