Newbie: To Create mobile games with Adobe Animate and coding

[willscots]

Hello Every one!

This is a complete newbie question, although I have several years of experience with adobe illustrator, photoshop and even dreamweaver I have never touched flash / Animate in my life. Now I want to create html5 games with adobe animate for android and iOS. My question is how much coding is required to create mobile games with adobe animate? Is there any chance I can create games without requiring to work with javascript or actionscript ??

Thanks a bunch fellas!!

[Joseph Labrecque]

No - you will need to use some sort of programming language to write your game.

If targeting mobile -I still think AIR for iOS/Android is the best option. If web - HTML5 Canvas is where it's at.

[rayek.elfin · Accepted solution]

For native mobile games development Animate + Air is arguably an outdated proposition for a newbie to learn at this point, with too many uncertainties.

Adobe no longer supports Air, and Google requires 64bit apps by August 1st, which the current (free) version of Air does not support. Harman has taken over the development of the Air runtime/SDK, but has already stated the updated runtime (supporting 64bit) will cost money.

Another option is to export to html5 from Animate, and convert to a mobile app using Cordova or PhoneGap, for example. Although, as Joseph mentioned, good Javascript programming skills are required to develop a game in Animate.

A number of game creation options exist which do not require (manual) coding:

- GDevelop (free, open source)

- Construct (commercial, subscription)

- Clickteam Fusion (commercial, license)

- Unity with PlayMaker plugin (Unity is free, PlayMaker is not)

All of these export games to the web (browser games), Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, and Linux. And all four are actively developed and supported. And many online tutorials as well.

Animate can still be used to generate assets and graphics for use in these game development environments, of course.

[willscots]

Thank you for reply

[Joseph Labrecque]

The original poster specifically asked about Animate though - and while you may have a more negative impression of AIR as a technology... not everyone does. The Animate team definitely will be supporting AIR as a platform moving forward.

Even if AIR was truly dead - and not suitable for your final output - it is still wonderful tech for rapid prototyping and proof of concept either way.

[rayek.elfin]

JosephLabrecque​

Yes, the OP asked about Animate within the context of being able to create games without programming. And I answered, just like you, that without reasonable programming skills it is not possible to accomplish this in Animate, and since the OP seemed interested in a no-programming solution, I offered a list of viable alternatives which all work well and provide fast workflows.

I have no negative impressions of Air (the tech) itself. I do think Air received almost no support in the past few years from Adobe, and that the community has dwindled to a shadow of its former self. And therefore, if a person is interested in getting into game development with no prior experience, modern, up-to-date, very well supported and proven solutions with active communities are available instead NOW. With excellent (visual) IDEs.

And I never said Air is dead or not useful for rapid game prototyping. (Although you will find a visual tool like Construct is hard to beat for churning out quick game prototypes!)

If, as a game developer, you already invested a lot of time and energy in Air over the years, it makes sense to stick with that platform for the time being, and wait what Harman will do with the platform.

But advising a newbie to invest themselves in Air for game development? I just don't think that is a good idea.

That said, if the OP is interested in browser games dev, Animate can still be used together with Javascript.

[willscots]

Thank you for reply.

[Lars Laborious]

Although there is uncertainties around AIR at this point, with Harman taken over it's development, I would argue that AIR + Animate is great for newbies. It's visual and easy to learn, and the workflow is really fast. Harman has mentioned that they we will have an initial/free offering which allows people to get started, and will then have tiers in a similar way to how Unity is priced. Hopefully they will get a page up soon with more info, and the people from the AIR community will be ready to help with tutorials for newbies.

[rayek.elfin]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Lars+Laborious  wrote

Although there is uncertainties around AIR at this point, with Harman taken over it's development, I would argue that AIR + Animate is great for newbies. It's visual and easy to learn, and the workflow is really fast.

Air hasn't seen much development or support from Adobe for quite some time. For game dev much more up-to-date, more efficient and faster workflows and authoring environments have been introduced to the market over the past decade. Air doesn't (as far as I am aware) support building for current game consoles, for example. Even Linux is a problem. Also no web assembly output, of course.

The list of suggestions which I mentioned above (at least the first three) provide visual workflows to build 2d game prototypes within the scope of an hour. And even easier to learn than Animate and Air, because classic programming skills are not required.

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Lars+Laborious  wrote

Harman has mentioned that they we will have an initial/free offering which allows people to get started, and will then have tiers in a similar way to how Unity is priced. Hopefully they will get a page up soon with more info, and the people from the AIR community will be ready to help with tutorials for newbies.

Last I read, based on the statements given out by Harman's representative(s), they were saying no roadmap exists, and no actual new feature or language development is planned - sort-of Air in maintenance mode, as I see it.

Instead of hoping and wishing for a future of an Air community that returns from the dead, why not just choose a modern game development platform which already has vibrant user and developer communities?

Loads of active communities, tutorials and support are available for Construct, Unity, Godot, ... Not to mention active support and development by the communities and the developers of these tools, a wide range and depth of examples, tutorials and plugins/extensions.

I'd say choosing Air for game development is just a bad idea for any newbie interested in creating games. It had a good run. Adobe wasted its potential. It's too bad Adobe didn't decide to open source Air a long time ago, in my opinion.

Animate is a great tool for (web-based and off-line) animation creation, as well as interactive web apps and browser games (although better tools for this last purpose exist). And super as an asset generation tool, of course.