Corona SDK free alternatives [closed]

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.

Chivaree

Answer 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.

Bucaramanga

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. – Chivaree

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. – Bucaramanga

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. – Hygrograph

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. – Corm

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

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

Answer 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.

Wicker

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

Answer 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.

Stedt

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

Answer 4

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

Lymph

Answer 5

The other SDK's mentioned are also Lua-based and work much in the same way as the Corona SDK, however, Corona has had lots of time to mature, and is co-founded by Carlos Icaza and Walter Luh, both of whom are pioneers in the mobile industry (they have worked for Macromedia, Adobe, Apple, the list goes on, etc. etc.)... In fact, they've had their hands in industry-leading software that many of you probably use on a regular basis (Illustrator, Photoshop, the list goes on...)

The Corona SDK is also growing an amazing pace, so you can be confident that it's going to stick around for a while.

And to answer your final question, no, you cannot build for distribution using a trial membership with Corona. The trial, however, does not expire.

Sizzle

Answer 6

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.

Bueno

"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. – Bucaramanga

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. – Longicorn

Answer 7

Moai! is awesome! It's a great alternative to Corona and if performance is a problem you can always get into the source code and address it yourself.

I've personally contributed to Moai (upgraded Box2D to the latest version). Their team was quick to integrate the changes in addition to some bug fixes. They're moving really fast and it's getting better every day.

At first I was hesitant writing everything in Lua, so I took Moai for a spin by porting on of my existing games on iPhone B.I.T.S Pinball written with my own engine in C++. I was pleasantly surprised that not only was it almost just as performant but MUCH faster to re-implement and cut way down on the code. Lua coroutines are like magical pixie dust.

Palomo

Answer 8

If you are looking for an open source alternative to Corona, as others have noted, the Moai open source game framework is making a lot of progress and a number of experienced game developers are using it. I switched to Moai in since November and it's basically an open source, high performance game engine with Lua.

Moai might not be suitable for a beginner though. I'd stick with Corona Free edition if I was just getting started, then switch to Moai when you are 100% sure you can create a good game.

Khaki

Answer 9

the free open-source thing of MOAI is just a (big) added bonus to its capabilities. It's syntax is similar to corona due the fact they both usa LUA as wrapper, corona has a better number community, tutorials and DOCS are very well spreaded all over the net. Moai just lacks of them if you don't consider the examples on "samples" directory of the SDK and the few examples on their forum. Corona workflow is amazing, i can work with IntelliJ Idea and have both auto-completion on LUA (this works also in MOAI obviously) and Corona itself, plus i can run the output straight on the simulator.exe (time saving!) Moai is more for advanced people, it's updated on the fly everyday but again, you really should check it and spare some time with it, you won't regret it!

Nucleoplasm

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 – Nucleoplasm

Answer 10

I second the call to check out MOAI! I've done 4 titles with MOAI so far, and won't be stopping any time soon .. MOAI absolutely kicks ass!

Also check out LOAD81, which is a similar effort albeit with SDL as the target environment: http://github.com/antirez/load81

Gouache

Answer 11

Please note that the Corona platform is totally free now. Corona Product into page. They call it completely free! :)

Quickly

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

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 :). – Quickly