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App Marketing Networks 2014

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iOS and
Android Game
Development
Tools Guide
Our comprehensive list of all the resources necessary
to get started developing games for iOS and Android –
learn new skills, keep abreast of trends and much more.
 iOS and Android Game Development Tools Guide

iOS and Android Game

Development Tools Guide

Whether you’ve had a great idea for a mobile game but have no clue on where to start, or
you’re an experienced mobile game developer wanting to take your skills to the next level,
you’ve come to the right place. Below is a list of all the resources necessary to get started
developing games for iOS and Android, learn new skills, keep abreast of trends and much
more. Categories have brief explanations for beginners, and each link below has a line on
what it does, ranging from game engines and builders to tutorials and articles. You can also
find these and other services in our app development tools directory.

Mobile Game Makers

There are so many ways to make games without knowing a how to code these days you’re
basically spoilt for choice. While learning to code is always advisable for a huge number
of reasons, a great way to get into game development is making a first game without using
.
code, then examining the code lying behind what you created with a visual platform. Here
are a number of mobile-game-specific, both code-less and and not. The downside? You don’t
get as much flexibility (though more flexibility often means more complexity), and you have
to give attribution to the game-building software or pay to use it.
Construct 2 – Described as the “Photoshop for games”, an HTML5-game creator with an
“event-based” interface, meaning no coding is required to make your game. It also allows
porting your game to multiple platforms.

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 iOS and Android Game Development Tools Guide

GameMaker – A very popular platform, it caters to all levels of developers. The visual drag-
amd-drop interface and lets you build games for Android and iOS, has workflow control and
exporting tools.

Crashlands, by Butterscotch Shenanigans, was made with GameMaker

Styncyl –Another codeless game creator, this deserves to be up there with the best: a clean
visual interface, it publishes for iOS and Android.
PlayMaker+Unity – Playmaker is a visual scripting tool for the Unity engine – it makes life
easier for Unity devs, but does require some experience. If you use Unity already, this is a
great addition to your toolkit.
Fusion 2.5 – Clickteam’s Fusion 2.5 lets you compile both apps and games for both iOS and
Android. Aimed at all experience levels.
PlayIR – Another multi-platform game developer, this one very much concentrates on begin-
ners designig their first app or game, with a drag-and-drop interface, visual design tools, 3D
animators and pre-existing templates.
GameSalad – This game-development tool is almost as beautiful as the games it makes, and
more than 65,000 games developed speak to its simplicity. Three of those, like Help Volty,
even made it to the top of the US App Store.
Gideros Mobile – Open source, free and multiplatform, this game maker uses LUA to de-
velop apps and games – while it does use Object-Oriented Programming, it does require a
modicum of experience.
LiveCode – More of a coding platform than a game maker, it nonetheless stresses simplicity
of use and accessibility, while also letting you create games or apps. Says it ports between
iOS and Android.
Game Editor – Uses C to make games, meaning it is cross platform and open source that’s
free to use, provided that the game is open source. Good place to start learning programming.

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 iOS and Android Game Development Tools Guide

Game Engines
Game engines provide core functionalities to make the foundations of a game. These in-
clude graphic rendering (both 2D and 3D), AI, sound, physics and animation. Engines are the
software that, effectively, makes the game “work”. There’s a large range of these for mobile
games, which are often optimised for performance on mobile devices, but require a bit more
experience and effort from the user. We also have a list of tutorials further down if any of
these seem out of your reach.

Cross platform (iOS/Android)

Unity Mobile – Mobile version of the biggest and most popular game engine, Unity. Current-
ly on “Unity 5”, it supports iOS and Android, requires experience but has pretty much any-
thing you’ll ever need.
Unreal Development Kit – Industry-leading together with Unity – has a free version and is
used to create games for all platforms, as well as 3D simulations and apps. Experience re-
quired but can’t go wrong.
Corona SDK – One of the more popular app development platforms that isn’t Unity or
Unreal, supports iOS and Android and offers a wide range of tools to go with it, including
deep-linking cards and training.
Marmalade – A strong and popular game dev tool for cross-platform native games and apps
in C/C++ and deploy to both mobile and desktop. Supports both Android and iOS. Used by
top developers, also has an asset store.
Edgelib – A “middleware” solution that allows for both 2D and 3D development on both plat-
forms. Comes both free and with a paid-for licensed version.
Emo – A light-weight framework for mobile games. Based on OpenGL ES and OpenAL/Open-
SL, it’s open source and free, and its license doesn’t force you to release your code. Runs both
iOS and Android.
JMonkey Engine – A Java OpenGL engine that is free and open-source, its 3.1 Alpha has just
released. Allows porting to all OpenGL 2-compatible devices.
Cocos2D-x – One of the strongest and most famous free-to-use frameworks for building 2D
games on both platforms.
Esenthel Engine – A high performance engine with ease of use in mind, it works for Android
and iOS and can be used on both Windows and Mac. Offers free and subscription-based ver-
sions with access to the source code.
ShiVa3D – 3D “What you see is what you get” game engine and editor, it supports all major
platforms and offers a whole dev toolkit, from workflow management to LUA coding. Three
versions available one of which is free.
Libdx – Free to use development platform for Android 3D/2D. Open source under Apache
2.0, offers discounts on game development books too.

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 iOS and Android Game Development Tools Guide

MoSync – The Github repository of a tool for HTML5/JavaScript developers to natively build
mobile apps. Lightweight, but definitely requires some experience coding however.
Orx – Orx’s developer is very active, and says the framework is both portable and an open-
source, lightweight 2D engine.
BatteryTech – Game development framework, works on OSX and Windows and lets you de-
ploy to Android and iOS, its C++ SDK allows apps to function on multiple platforms beyond
the big two.
App Game Kit – This uses a BASIC language and is available on Steam. You can code natively
or write your app once before deploying on multiple platforms including the two major ones.
Starling – Rovio uses this cross-platform framework to develop Angry Birds, and they’re not
the only ones. It is free to use and opensource. Of note is its low CPU-usage and great opti-
misation.
Antiryad Gx – A complete 2d and 3d cross-platform multi-core game engine with years of
development behind it. Compiles for both iOS and Android , supporting C, C++ and Gel.
PlayCanvas – On top of being an open source WebGL engine for iOS and Android, PlayCan-
vas offers to host games developed with it for free. Fully 3d and open source.
PowerVR – An SDK and developer tools to make any kind of app, its forum isn’t very active,
but it does offer a specific program for universities wanting to use the platform.

iOS specific game engines

iTorque – Now available as MIT opensource software, this 2d game-editor for all iOS device
development was used for Bellatorus and Sushi to Go, among others.
Sparrow – Starling’s iOS-specific little brother. Free-to-use and open source, it uses Objec-
tive-C and was built from scratch for iOS.

Made with Sparrow: The Inner World, by Fizbin Studios

Oolong – Written in C++, this free-to-use engine can both create new games and port exist-
ing ones to iOS devices.
Newton – As the name implies, this is an open source life-like-physics simulation library.
Free-to-use but does require some basic knowledge of physics to employ effectively.

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 iOS and Android Game Development Tools Guide

DragonFire – A C++ 2D iOS development tool to be used in Windows. Was used for games
like Ghost Jumper and Little Fish, and can also create App-Store-ready apps.
NinevehGL – 3D engine built on OpenGL ES with Objective C, it features the ability to
import 3D models directly from any software, multiple shaders within a single object and
numerous special effects.

Android specific game engines

Candroid – Free-to-use engine for Android. If you like it, donations are appreciated by the
creator.
Android Arsenal – A collection of different Android libraries, from colour pickers to ads,
layouts, scrollers and more.
AndEngine – Free-to-use Android 2D OpenGL game engine, a bit dated perhaps (last update
is from 2013) but functional.
jPCT AE – Free, light-weight 3D game engine that’s a port of jPCT for Android and Java. Sup-
ports OpenGL ES 1.x and 2.0.
Android Box2D – This is 2D physics engine written in C++ for Android developers which has
even won some awards. Used to create the Crayon Physics Deluxe game, and ports for other
platforms are available.
Catcake – A free 3D graphics engine for Android (and possibly iOS) – light-weight, comes
with its own debug console and plenty of management features.

Sound and Light Engines

Audiokinetic – Audiokinetic’s Wwise is a multiplatform-compatible sound engine which
integrates with Unity, Unreal, Marmalade and more. Comes with built-in sound effects and
ready-made plugins.
Geomerics – Geomerics produce Enlighten, a dynamic global illumination technology com-
patible with pretty much every platform under the sun, and behind AAA games like Star
Wars Battlefront.
ARM Developer Center – A suite of tools ranging from an OpenGL ES emulator to texture
compression and asset export, this is one for the more experienced developers.

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 iOS and Android Game Development Tools Guide

Asset Libraries and Software

So often, the aesthetics and the sounds can be the difference between a good game and a
great game, and fantastic art can be a great promotional tool. Other times these assets don’t
matter so much, and there’s nothing to say you can’t mix it up, using commissioned pieces for
some parts of the game and free-to-use art or sounds for others. The quality of free-to-use
art and sound assets on the internet can be high, but always remember to attribute the crea-
tor: it’s often not necessary, it’s just good manners.
OpenGameArt – Extremely large repository of videogame art assets. Most of it is free with
only proper accreditation required. Also has themed collections of assets.
SpriteLib – One man’s sprite library, created over twenty years ago but completely free and
open license.
PD Sounds – The name stands for “public domain sounds” and the site does exactly what it
says on the tin – plenty of sound assets to use for free in your game. Not updated in a while.
FreeSound.org – Free sound repository, updated fairly frequently and with a very large vari-
ety of sounds.
HasGraphics – Repository of free art assets for Indie game developers. Hasn’t been updated
in years but it still has a sizeable library.
Blender – 3D model and animation software, it is free, open source and very powerful. While
it has its own plug-ins for Android game creation, it’s best used to create assets and animate
them elsewhere. A highly professional tool, it does require experience.
Blender Models – Library of user-submitted 3D blender models. Updated and used very fre-
quently, there’s nothing stopping you using the models directly into your game, but do credit
the creator.
Autodesk – The famous design software company known by engineers and designers world-
wide is great for making 3D models for your game. Doesn’t get more professional than this.

Tutorials, Forums and Resources

The following links are a great place to start reading and building your knowledge of game
development. This industry moves quickly, with new advancements, standards, plug-ins,
games and much more being developed every day. We’ve selected some free online tutorials,
guides to mobile game development, the admin side of things and the all-important submis-
sion to an app store. Some of these guides are dated, but good advice never goes out of style,
and it’s always valuable when starting from scratch.

Tutorials
Raywenderlich.com – A collection of written, video and podcast tutorials can be found, cov-
ering all sorts of engines and frameworks for iOS, Android and more.

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 iOS and Android Game Development Tools Guide

Cocos2D Flappy Bird Guide – Create a Flappy Bird clone with this step-by-step guide, using
Cocos2D and Sprite Builder. Solutions can be found on Github.
Learn Cocoa – A very large database of tutorials, guides and resources on learning the ins
and outs of the cocoa engine.
Cocos2D programming guide – The official Cocos2D website offers a collection of in-depth
guides for the “sprite-builder”, one of Cocos2D’s game development frameworks.
iOS Tutorials
Intro to Swift – Free tutorial on Apple’s programming language, Swift, in which you create a
Tetris clone to learn the ropes.
Complete iOS Game Tutorial – Part 1 of a game-making tutorial that will have you develop
an iOS version of the famous Pong, including examples of code.
iDevgames Programming for beginners – A bit dated (2013) but it covers all the basics and
has a good intro: a four page beginner’s guide to iOS game development. Includes libraries,
engines and programming languages.

Triple Town by SpryFox

Handmade Hero – A bit left-of-field but well worth a look, this is a game accompanied with
videos which explain every single line of code within it: a great idea, and good for learning
while having fun.

Android Tutorials
Building Your First App – The official Android introductory lesson on app building for their
platform. Pretty much anyone who develops for Android should read this.
KiloBot – A game developer that has published free tutorials for Android. Hasn’t been updat-
ed in a while but a very good resource to start with.
App Fundamentals – Guide from the official Android website, this one is aimed at complete
beginners and is on fundamentals like components, the manifest and resources.
Android Application Development Videos – The New Boston has a huge number of tutorial
videos for all sorts of platforms: the Android playlist linked here currently has 200 videos in it.

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 iOS and Android Game Development Tools Guide

Android Game Development – Wide knowledge-base and plenty of articles on Android

development by Javacodegeeks.

Mobile development forums

The wisdom of crowds is often the best way to resolve a problem. If you’re having an issue
with creating a game, chances are someone else has also had it, asked the question and been
provided an answer. Forums are indispensable for this, both to get solutions and to see what
other people are doing, to be inspired and keep in the loop of game development. One thing:
if you find the solution to your own problem, make sure to post it underneath your question
so others who look it up can benefit from your discovery.

iOS Forums
Apple Developer Forums – The official Apple developer forums. Requires membership of the
Apple Developer Program to access.
MacRumours Forum – iOS dev sub forum for the popular Apple news blog MacRumours.
Active and full of resources
iPhone Dev Sub Reddit – An extremely active and well-organised subreddit, with extensive
FAQs, tutorial links and discussions.

Android Forums
Google Groups Android Devs – The Google Group for Android development. Full of very
active users, but not for beginners.
Android Dev Sub-Reddit – The SubReddit for Android developers. Good source of news,
with plenty of discussion, but not the best place to look for technical, nitty-gritty answers.
Phandroid Forums – Phandroid’s developer forums. Plenty of resources for beginners and all
levels above, great place to ask technical questions too.

Cross Platform Forums

Stack Overflow – The indispensable resource for programmers, and the best place to ask
any kind of question and get answers. All platforms supported, non-mobile too, and a good
search engine to find previously-asked questions.
Corona Forums – The official forum for discussion of iOS and Android development frame-
work Corona. Great resource and very active.
Gamasutra – Programming news, updates, how-to guides and tutorials from various authors.
Not platform-specific.

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News and Reviews

Develop – News website covering all aspect of game design, from business to coding to art.
Excellent source to stay on top of trends.
Gamesauce – Great source of news, inspiration and post-mortem aimed specifically at game
designers, indie or otherwise.
Pocket Gamer – Mobile-only game review and news site, covers new releases, best-ofs, vide-
os, walkthroughs and has an indie-specific section.

Conclusion
And there you have it: an exhaustive list of resources to dive right into mobile game develop-
ment. The resources are out there are aplenty, but we believe this curated list should answer
your beginner questions and provide you with plenty of food for thought and resources well
into your game-dev hobby or even career!

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