Hello everyone,

I'm a beginner at game developing and I'm planning to make to top-down shooting game in my free time. I'm trying to make a space shooting game which sync to music like the game in the video below

I'm thinking of using Unity to develop it because it is the engine that i have learnt how to use in the past 4 months. But then I realized there are other engines that can make 2D game developing somehow easier.

My question is: Is it some sort of overkill to use Unity to develop games like this? If yes, which other engine would you recommend to me?

Thanks everyone!

Is an 'engine' or C# a hard requirement? If not then did you ever take a look at SFML? https://www.sfml-dev.org/

10 hours ago, FRex said:

Is an 'engine' or C# a hard requirement? If not then did you ever take a look at SFML? https://www.sfml-dev.org/

Thanks, I will give it a shot.

Unity's 2D stack has gotten quite robust in recent years and I don't think you should be reluctant about using it. If you really want to evaluate options, I believe Godot Engine has both a very capable easy to use 2D system and a scripting language.

9 hours ago, Long Nguyen said:

Thanks, I will give it a shot.

Don't be afraid to use their forums too, they/we (I'm not a developer myself) are very friendly.

9 hours ago, Promit said:

Unity's 2D stack has gotten quite robust in recent years and I don't think you should be reluctant about using it.

That's true and why they dropped '3D' from their name a while back but I do not recommend Unity to anyone for anything due to their ToS and attitude (current SpatialOS drama and July 2018 email drama) regardless of its quality.

Since 2D games are being asked about here, I have to mention Game Maker Studio or Game Maker Studio 2 are also both good options. I would check out Godot first though since it's free, and it seems simpler to use to me. Right now I have to use Godot, because Unity and Game Maker aren't made to run on linux.

I'd second Godot for a classic 2D game.

Slim and easy to learn, although my interest was in making an Android game and it sadly didn't work out( VR was also a requirement ).  That said, Godot would be fun to use on a 2D Desktop pet-project...

Monogame may be something to look at. Its a port of xna so it's got a very solid tutorial base (most xna stuff seems to apply). I'm using it for 3d but 2d seems solid:

http://rbwhitaker.wikidot.com/monogame-2d-tutorials

I can say that Godot and Game Maker Studio 2 are both quite good, but GMS2 has a pricing model you might not like. I also used Construct 2 a lot a few years back but if you want to use a 'real' language, it's not for you. I'd also say steer clear of Unity unless you really want to put in the time, and stick with it for some time to come.