@runewise You’re wrong. I completely agree with @schizoid2k
If you prefer to move away instead of wait and see what will happen to Corona, you have many options. To cite 3 that I like most:
Gideros Mobile. You code in Lua like you do in Corona. It’s very easy to learn and convert code from Corona to it.
Defold. You write code in Lua too, but it’s a bit different from Corona. It has an editor where you put objects and add scripts to control these objects. Much like creating a game in Flash.
Cocos Creator. You write code in either JavaScript or Typescript. It also is like creating a game in Flash.
What you’re going to do is up to you, but _ don’t _ defeat yourself. You can learn whatever you want.
Let me disagree. The most direct 2D conversion from Corona one will obtain using Gideros Mobile. It has the same philosophy as Corona and you develop in Lua too.
Game Make Studio is a great tool but you will have to learn its proprietary script and you have an editor to put game objects for which you add scripts to control how they behave, in a very similar way one do when developing games in to Flash.
Godot is also another nice option but it also won’t let a direct conversion of games made with Corona. It is very similar to Game Make Studio: you won’t use Lua and you have to use an editor to put game objects in screen.
For item “which tool allows most direct conversion of games made with Corona” Gideros wins.
For item “Which tool export to multiple platforms” All these 3 option export game to iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac and HTML. But HTML5 games generated by Gideros and Game Make Studio can be used on Facebook Instant Games. HTML5 games made with Godot don’t allow this because they only support WebGL and on Facebook Instant Games is mandatory they support canvas.
If you don’t plan to put your games on Facebook Instant Games then we have a tie (but who can despise such a huge market? I can not).
For item “Which tool is less expensive”, Gideros and Godot are the best possible option. They’re free. Game Make Studio will cost you a lot of money. The more platforms you want to export your game to the more you will expend.
So my ranking (considering what I expose above) is Gideros in 1st place, Godot in 2nd place and Game Make Studio in 3rd place.
You may wonder why Godot is in 2nd place if it has the same points as Game Make Studio. Simply because for me the cost has a high importance.
If you’d like a tool in the style of Game Make Studio / Godot but in Lua, my suggestion would be Defold. It’s also free and exports to multiple platforms. The only drawback is that code conversion wouldn’t be as direct as in Gideros.
I use Phaser for a long time (and I also contribute to it on Patreon).
It is amazing, simple to learn and use and as python it comes with batteries included. Almost everything you may need in a 2D engine it has. You can develop in either JavaScript or Typescript (my preference).
You can use Cordova in order to generate binaries for Android and iPhone. It’s very simple and has a good performance.
I think that it will face some hard time in the firs 6 or 12 months due people scared about Corona’s future that will migrate to other engines. But, after that, when people realize it won’t vanish its user base will grow again.
Thank you for the recommendation. I am still hoping I can stay with Corona, but if and when the time comes to move on it looks like I’ll need to take a hard look at all the options recommended here.
Yeah - i would expect it to happen a bit like plicatibu is saying but faster. Before march hits there will be panic (this thread is one) and confusion. March hits and people close their eyes as the meteor hits. Prolly mid march someone sets up patreon or sumthing and then it takes a few weeks to a month to pick up good steam. Then people realise that no meteor hit and eveything still works. Month or two after that there is prolly enough for at least one full time coder to work. Then people realize all is well.
One Question: I have just paid for Unity ads 199$… how will those year subscriptions be handled? (Just curious and willing to support Corona for the time to come!)
Bounties for development requests would definitely be one way of doing things. I know Apple might drop OpenGL but I actually use the HTML5 build right now, so that should be all good - right?
Even if there are only a very few devs financially reasonal successful it’d be more expensive than just doing a metal port of the rendering backend.
I only toyed around with the mesh stuff back when the sourced made available on github, so I have no deep idea about the actual complexity (as f.i. compared to StarCrunch) so dependencies might be very distributed over lots of sources and hard to manage. But the general rendering features Corona needs makes me think it can’t be a next to impossible task to just add native Metal support.
Love2d which is maintained primarily by sparetime devs has a more complex backend/featureset and will very probably get a Metal backend in the next version.
If anything besides native Metal support I’d say Corona’s rendering backend should be moved to a proven multiplatform rendering backend which may help to support new requirements and platforms in a more easy way.
Two of those coming to my mind. One is SDL, proven option for many years already, including support for consoles (like, Switch :)), and the other one is https://github.com/bkaradzic/bgfx which seems to be maintained very very well too.
I personaly don’t want to learn anything more than Corona sdk, because I love LUA and is super conveniant to learn.
I have read about others engines, but they take weeks to be confortable with them ( unity2D and the language C# ).
The others LUA based engine like LÖVE are not so clear and concise as Corona is.
For me I only want a tool that will build apps for IOS and Android/Amazon Store and that can manage In App Purchase, the advertise part is not so important.
I suggest to Corona Developer to add Ad-banner inside the simulator in-self, and a 4.99 dollars payement to remove an second ad that will show up every 2 hours (just like Sublime Text does).
And for the splash Screen you can add the link to Corona website inside the splash screen.
I have so many project to build with Corona, I don’t want to migrate to the an other engine like Unity2D. ( 2 months to learn C# and 2-3 months to well-know learned unity2D)
Oooh, Vulkan over Molten K sounds rad. I just dont know hard it’d be to impletent could we just unleash someone for a week and it’d be done or would it take 5 guys 12 weeks.
Yeah but that’s a completely different task then, the prefix of the name is all those two have in common. You’ll need a Vulkan backen then, i.e. a new rendering backend and it may (or may not, idk at the moment) be a better idea to add native Metal support instead.
That said, StarCrunch posted recently (I guess in Slack) he’s working on something Vulkan related already, so maybe given the new situation this may become the solution we need already.
Correct me if I’m wrong Rob + Vlad, but I believe there’s only one developer left at Corona (Vlad) and it’s been that way for a while. Vlad is the one who wants to go the Patreon route and I know Vlad has lots of positive plans for Corona. Just need the financial model to support him. An Open Source project will be more successful if there’s a full time, dedicated, and funded Developer and not just a team of volunteers.
I’ve been wondering now that we’re looking back at 10 years of Corona SDK - what is the most successful game published using Corona SDK? Does anyone know?
Lots of good alternative engine options in this thread, including ones I wasn’t aware of like Construct and LOVE, and each of those engines seem to be curating a list of the most successful games built on their platforms. I don’t see anything like that for Corona from my Google searches.
The most successful publishers probably have the most financial incentive to back a Patreon and could be called upon to help. After all, their livelihood and business would depend on it.
Here’s itchi.io’s most used game engines: https://itch.io/game-development/engines/most-projects Obviously itch.io is more indie than triple AAA and more relevant to the Corona community. Looks like LOVE is the most popular Lua-based platform. Wish I knew about these alternatives before I started porting to Unity…
I think that is precisely what most of us are sort of hinting at. I mean, who would be a better person to lead Corona’s open source future than Corona’s trusted long-time project manager, Vlad? If Vlad were to set up a Patreon page, then we would first see that he gets enough financial incentive to keep working on Corona. If we’d initially get to 1k, that’d mean part-time involvement from his part, most likely, but if and when the funding would rise to something like 3k to 4k per month, then it’d be enough to support him working on Corona full-time. Then, the hopeful part in me would like to see that if and when the funding would rise higher at some point, then Vlad could at his discretion hire part-time, and maybe later even other full-time developers to work alongside him.
The idea of having Patreon polls to decide on what features get implemented next would be a great idea too. I’m guessing this Molten or Metal issue would be at the top of the line. After that, we could look into other smaller features.
But, again, we are making these plans without hearing from Vlad himself. I’m not sure if he is speaking in Slack, but I’d love to know where he stands with all of this. Also, I’d really want to hear if it really is just Vlad who has been working on Corona for the past several months (or years). If it isn’t just him, then it’d be kind of a duck move for us all to keep saying he is the only one (which he probably is).
