Hi, I am an adobe flash developer…so adobe is shutting flash web/multiplayer down soon :( What Program should I use for my 2D games now? I prefer something with a clean design and cheap or free. I code in Java and actionscript 1 and 2, but if needed I can learn another langauge. I want something like flash… something easy to animate characters in.

I find Unity hard to recommend, due it's limited Linux support, though it is very beginner friendly if you're using Mac OS or Windows (which it looks like you are, I don't think Flash has Linux support either). Godot is the best engine in my opinion, though slightly less beginner friendly than Unity is. I've used Godot to make a few small games, I'm not sure how it scales to larger games though. You could also give Unreal Engine a try, I've never used this personally, so I can't speak from experience, but apparently it has very good sample projects.

I love Unity! ?
It is both powerful, flexible and quite simple to learn, and there are tons of tutorials.

Although not required, it is a huge advantage if you know C# programming.
I find the differences between c# and java to be minimal (compared to other languages), so you shouldn't have too much trouble learning it.

I know there are other game engines out there, and Unreal is definitely powerful, but the C++ language can be a bit harder to learn.
If you're mainly focused on building 2D games, I would recommend Unity for sure.

I know there are other game engines out there, and Unreal is definitely powerful, but the C++ language can be a bit harder to learn.

Unity doesn't have any options when it comes to language choice, though. Godot has support for C#, GDScript (which is very similar to python) and visual scripting. UE4 has Blueprints (Similar to Godot's visual scripting, I believe) as well as C++, so you don't have to touch text-based programming at all . I honestly find C# harder than C++, due to it always using managed objects, not a popular opinion.

Wrong forum. This is not a Game Design question. Moving to the appropriate forum.