MultiPlatform Alternatives to Corona

Solar2D General Questions/Discussion
#1

Hi there,

out of curiosity. What Alternatives you see for MultiPlatform Development.

Unity seems great, just a little big in Size and longer loading Times.

Any Experience with other Platforms?

Greets
Chris

#2

** SEE MY FINAL POST IN THIS THREAD a few spots down ** 

I’m afraid I don’t understand the premise of the question. 

Corona targets quite a range of targets and is multi-platform.

  • Apple Mobile - iOS 
  • Apple TV -  tvOS
  • Android TV
  • Android Mobile
  • Android … (basically any true Android target)
  • Win 32 (suitable to run on any Window 7+ desktop environment)
  • OS X
  • Win Phone 8
  • Amazon Kindle (not the reader, but the actual Android devices)

What platforms are you considering targeting?    

Maybe you were thinking:

  • Consoles - xbox, ps4, etc.
  • HTML5
  • Other?

Note: To get a better answer here you should clearly define what you mean by multi-platform.

#3

Its not about MORE Platforms

its simple about ALTERNATIVES

I personally only would need Android/iOS mainly. OSX , Win32 is nice to have.

Also I dont need special Game Engines. My Apps are Business Apps, most based on simple Calendar Designs.

i heard about
https://kivy.org/

http://enyojs.com/

http://8th-dev.com/

https://www.xamarin.com/

https://www.sencha.com/

https://build.phonegap.com/

http://www.kony.com/

http://www.appcelerator.com/mobile-app-development-products/

http://www.kony.com/products/visualizer

http://cocos2d.org/

so… but i have not tested anything else than CORONA for now. 
Any Experience from other Developers could be helpful, to decide if i go further with Corona with all my business apps

or maybe there is one or the other Platform more useful for me

thanks

chris

#4

** ALMOST THERE… my final post is the next one down. :slight_smile: **

Hi Chris.  

Others may not agree with me  (don’t beat me up too badly if you don’t agree) about this, but I feel like the ‘Corona Forums’ is the wrong place for a discussion about what non-Corona engine/sdk you should be using as an alternative.

Maybe I’m being over-sensitive / over-protective / something else?   However, this conversation seems better suited to a general forum like:

Sorry if this offends you or any other reader, but I wanted to post this because it just seems wrong to me.  :unsure:

#5

It’s probably too late to put the genie back in the bottle, so I’ll just say:

  1.  I said I’d be inactive here the forums for a while and working on my own games.  I should do that instead of de-railing other folks’ posts.

  2. Don’t let me stop ANYONE from discussing this.  I’m all for free speech and open discourse.  

Cheers,

Ed

#6

I had to smile at Eds seemingly internal struggle on this one.

My take is that the community will likely rally around Corona, because we are here. If anything I expect this will more strengthen the platform than undermine it.

Short answer IMHO, there are many other variants, but I selected Corona largely due to these forums and the community. People like Roaming Gamer, SGS, Scott H, many others and the one and only, Rob Miracle :stuck_out_tongue:

Unity - yeah it’s full featured, but for me, I couldn’t handle the coding side. Lua is something I could work with and understand.

Within the LUA realms, there are a few other alternatives. Monkey-X I liked as I have a history with Blitz Basic. It wasn’t so widely supported in the forums IMHO. 
Then there was GameSalad. I was put off by cost.

Defold was a newer free release, but they only had some of what Corona offers.

Corona had the right price point to dabble (Free), and while I don’t mind sharing revenue over $100k for some platforms, I’d like to hit $99 let alone $100,000. Corona provided a stable solution, still actively developed and a fabulous community.

So here I am. 

#7

I somewhat disagree that this is the wrong place to be asking the question. If Corona stands up well (and I fully believe that it does) it will not hurt to ask that here. (If Corona think this is the wrong place they can removed the thread!)

Anyway, IMHO Corona is the best and easiest cross-platform SDK to use because it has the lowest barrier to entry and fulfils the most criteria for any app you’d want to build. The only missing elements are true 3D (not really because plugins), accessibility (on iOS Corona has no accessibility UI Kit API) and a full suite of native controls (I’m fingers crossed for a plugin here.)

While there are many, many other SDKs for this job, Unity is pricey and overkill if you’re looking for 2D, though if you’re happy with C# it’s not bad. GameSalad is also expensive and didn’t do the job when I last looked. Cordova (or whatever it’s called now) is so limited as to not be worth trying. (If you’re just wrapping HTML5/CSS3 in an app these days you’re doing it wrong.)

#8

Maybe Xamarin is worth a look?

https://www.xamarin.com/

#9

One solution is to create HTML 5 apps and then host them in Corona.  The other massive advantage is to be able to change content without recompiling. There are some fantastic AJAX libraries for charting and Outlook like functionality.

I have a few business apps like this that offer full e commerce which would be impossible (AFAIK) in Corona.  I can’t comment for other (high level) frameworks but I doubt it.

#10

I heard Ionic is good for apps -> http://ionicframework.com/

#11

I forgot about Xamarin…

A year or two ago, before it was bought by Microsoft, Xamarin was too nascent to be worth a look. I now work for a company which is making good business apps with Xamarin. I’ve not seen the code, but the team is happy.

#12

We never want to censor discussions and if we need to be critiqued, as painful as it might be to us, we are okay with that. It’s how we get better. But encouraging people to leave us isn’t only un-cool, but it’s against the forum rules:

https://coronalabs.com/blog/2013/04/02/corona-forum-rules-and-guidelines/

17. Avoid posts that are not useful to Corona Labs’ developers

Our forums are intended for discussion that’s beneficial to Corona developers. Excessive off-topic posts or posts promoting competing platforms may be grounds for post removal or banning from the forums.

This thread is falling in a gray area between the two. We know people can build some awesome and beautiful business/utility apps with Corona but we also realize that there are other business apps that we are not the best platform for. Let’s work to keep this discussion on the valid critique of Corona side of that gray area.

Thanks

Rob

#13

** SEE MY FINAL POST IN THIS THREAD a few spots down ** 

I’m afraid I don’t understand the premise of the question. 

Corona targets quite a range of targets and is multi-platform.

  • Apple Mobile - iOS 
  • Apple TV -  tvOS
  • Android TV
  • Android Mobile
  • Android … (basically any true Android target)
  • Win 32 (suitable to run on any Window 7+ desktop environment)
  • OS X
  • Win Phone 8
  • Amazon Kindle (not the reader, but the actual Android devices)

What platforms are you considering targeting?    

Maybe you were thinking:

  • Consoles - xbox, ps4, etc.
  • HTML5
  • Other?

Note: To get a better answer here you should clearly define what you mean by multi-platform.

#14

Its not about MORE Platforms

its simple about ALTERNATIVES

I personally only would need Android/iOS mainly. OSX , Win32 is nice to have.

Also I dont need special Game Engines. My Apps are Business Apps, most based on simple Calendar Designs.

i heard about
https://kivy.org/

http://enyojs.com/

http://8th-dev.com/

https://www.xamarin.com/

https://www.sencha.com/

https://build.phonegap.com/

http://www.kony.com/

http://www.appcelerator.com/mobile-app-development-products/

http://www.kony.com/products/visualizer

http://cocos2d.org/

so… but i have not tested anything else than CORONA for now. 
Any Experience from other Developers could be helpful, to decide if i go further with Corona with all my business apps

or maybe there is one or the other Platform more useful for me

thanks

chris

#15

** ALMOST THERE… my final post is the next one down. :slight_smile: **

Hi Chris.  

Others may not agree with me  (don’t beat me up too badly if you don’t agree) about this, but I feel like the ‘Corona Forums’ is the wrong place for a discussion about what non-Corona engine/sdk you should be using as an alternative.

Maybe I’m being over-sensitive / over-protective / something else?   However, this conversation seems better suited to a general forum like:

Sorry if this offends you or any other reader, but I wanted to post this because it just seems wrong to me.  :unsure:

#16

It’s probably too late to put the genie back in the bottle, so I’ll just say:

  1.  I said I’d be inactive here the forums for a while and working on my own games.  I should do that instead of de-railing other folks’ posts.

  2. Don’t let me stop ANYONE from discussing this.  I’m all for free speech and open discourse.  

Cheers,

Ed

#17

I had to smile at Eds seemingly internal struggle on this one.

My take is that the community will likely rally around Corona, because we are here. If anything I expect this will more strengthen the platform than undermine it.

Short answer IMHO, there are many other variants, but I selected Corona largely due to these forums and the community. People like Roaming Gamer, SGS, Scott H, many others and the one and only, Rob Miracle :stuck_out_tongue:

Unity - yeah it’s full featured, but for me, I couldn’t handle the coding side. Lua is something I could work with and understand.

Within the LUA realms, there are a few other alternatives. Monkey-X I liked as I have a history with Blitz Basic. It wasn’t so widely supported in the forums IMHO. 
Then there was GameSalad. I was put off by cost.

Defold was a newer free release, but they only had some of what Corona offers.

Corona had the right price point to dabble (Free), and while I don’t mind sharing revenue over $100k for some platforms, I’d like to hit $99 let alone $100,000. Corona provided a stable solution, still actively developed and a fabulous community.

So here I am. 

#18

I somewhat disagree that this is the wrong place to be asking the question. If Corona stands up well (and I fully believe that it does) it will not hurt to ask that here. (If Corona think this is the wrong place they can removed the thread!)

Anyway, IMHO Corona is the best and easiest cross-platform SDK to use because it has the lowest barrier to entry and fulfils the most criteria for any app you’d want to build. The only missing elements are true 3D (not really because plugins), accessibility (on iOS Corona has no accessibility UI Kit API) and a full suite of native controls (I’m fingers crossed for a plugin here.)

While there are many, many other SDKs for this job, Unity is pricey and overkill if you’re looking for 2D, though if you’re happy with C# it’s not bad. GameSalad is also expensive and didn’t do the job when I last looked. Cordova (or whatever it’s called now) is so limited as to not be worth trying. (If you’re just wrapping HTML5/CSS3 in an app these days you’re doing it wrong.)

#19

Maybe Xamarin is worth a look?

https://www.xamarin.com/

#20

One solution is to create HTML 5 apps and then host them in Corona.  The other massive advantage is to be able to change content without recompiling. There are some fantastic AJAX libraries for charting and Outlook like functionality.

I have a few business apps like this that offer full e commerce which would be impossible (AFAIK) in Corona.  I can’t comment for other (high level) frameworks but I doubt it.