Open Source GameMaker Alternatives

Godot is a cross-platform engine for making 2D and 3D games from a single unified editor. It provides the common tools a project needs so the effort goes into the game itself rather than into rebuilding the parts every game turns out to require.

Games export with one click to Linux, macOS and Windows, to Android and iOS, to web platforms and to consoles. Official binaries for the editor and the export templates are published for download, and compiling from source is documented for every supported platform.

The licensing and governance are unusual enough to state plainly.

• MIT licensed: no strings, no royalties, and a finished game belongs entirely to whoever made it.
• Engine code included: that ownership reaches down to the last line of the engine itself.
• Community-driven: development is fully independent, and users shape the engine to match what they expect from it.
• Foundation backed: a not-for-profit foundation supports the work.
• Long history: it was an in-house engine used on work-for-hire titles for years before being open sourced in 2014.

Documentation is maintained by the community in its own repository, and the class reference is available inside the editor as well as online. Official demo projects and an asset store are published separately, with community tutorials and videos filling in the rest. Core developers are reachable through a contributors chat, and the contributing guide doubles as the guide for reporting bugs.

GDevelop is a no-code game development application for building 2D, 3D and multiplayer games that run on iOS, Android, desktop and the web. It removes the gap between having an idea for a game and shipping one, because game logic is written as events rather than as code.

Games are assembled from an event-based system and modular behaviors, with AI that assists or builds alongside you. The engine, GDJS, is written in TypeScript and renders with PixiJS and Three.js over WebGL, while the editor runs on React and Electron using the same renderers. Core classes reach JavaScript through WebAssembly bindings.

The project splits into parts that each carry their own weight.

• Event system: an easy-to-understand model where conditions and actions describe behavior instead of source code.
• Extensions: built-in extensions add objects, behaviors and features, including physics engines compiled to WebAssembly.
• Asset store: creators submit free examples, paid templates and asset packs for others to build on.
• Publishing targets: exported games reach Steam, the iOS and Android stores, itch.io and browser portals.
• Ecosystem: official, experimental and community extensions live in separate public repositories.

The core library, both engines, the IDE and all extensions are MIT licensed, so a game you export can be sold or distributed on any terms you choose and never has to be opened up. Online services and commercial support are sold separately for teams and individual creators.

Celeste, Stardew Valley, Streets of Rage 4 and Carrion were all built with MonoGame, which settles the usual question about whether a lean framework can carry a shipped game. It is a simple .NET framework for making games in C#, and an open source reimplementation of Microsoft's discontinued XNA Framework.

One codebase targets a long list of platforms. Windows 10 22H2 and up runs on OpenGL or DirectX 10, Linux with glibc 2.27 or newer and macOS 13 Ventura and up run on OpenGL, Android 6 and iOS 12.2 cover mobile, and registered developers can target PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox and Nintendo Switch. Vulkan and DirectX 12 support is in preview for version 3.8.5.

Alongside the framework itself, the repository carries the tooling a project needs.

• mgcb: a command line tool for content processing.
• mgfxc: the effect compiler.
• mgcb-editor: a graphical front end over the content pipeline.
• Templates: project templates for starting a game on a chosen target.

Building from source means cloning with recursive submodules and opening the solution for your platform, with a second solution for the pipeline and content tools.

Release and preview packages are published on NuGet for anyone who would rather not build, and the team maintains samples covering a 2D platformer, a twin-stick shooter, a pong clone in three hundred lines and a 3D ship game.