Monkey-X Frameworks and Physics Modules

One of the useful ideas I picked up from reading a book on how to make games with PhaserJS, was to take a look at the various frameworks and modules that had been built already for Monkey-X.

I have been slowing myself down by trying to handle some of the specifics of the game directly instead of building on the work of others.

The thing I am looking for most is a physics frameworks. Nothing says edge case like handling collisions of various shapes.

Some GUI help would be nice too.

The Frameworks

I did some searching and there are probably others out there, but these were the easiest to find frameworks I came across and some of my notes on them.

  • Fling
    1. Free
    2. Physaxe implementation in Monkey
    3. No updates since 2011
    4. A few examples in Monkey-X forums
  • Monkey Box2D Implementation
    1. Free
    2. Last updated in 2013
    3. No real documentation
    4. A few forum posts on Monkey-X site with usage examples
  • Diddy
    1. Free
    2. Large number of examples in github
    3. Recent update by author
    4. Spotlight from Monkey-X main site
  • Ignition-X
    1. Paid with free trial
    2. Older framework which official site no longer directly links to.
    3. Still referenced from Monkey-X store page
  • Pyro
    1. Paid
    2. Successor to Ignition-X
    3. Looks professionally done.
    4. Various examples
    5. Scene Graph, Collision System (Box2D), Tile System
    6. Skinnable GUI System, and other useful features
  • Fantom X/Fantom Engine
    1. Free
    2. Creator wrote a book on how to make games with Monkey-X and Fantom Engine
    3. Fairly well documented with examples
    4. Recently updated
    5. Has Box2D physics implementation
    6. Has GUI helpers

Conclusion

Based on this research the choice is between Diddy, Pyro and Fantom X. I will be testing out the Fantom X engine for now and seeing how useful it can be, and depending on how that goes I will probably use it in the following parts of my making your first game with Monkey-X series.

There are 2 main reasons for this. First I will be using it for examples and for people just getting started into making games who may not want to invest too heavily financially to begin with or even don’t have the money for something like Pyro.

Second, for being a free framework Fantom X is well documented and the maintainer seems to keep it up to date.

Looking forward to evolving my game making skills.

I Want to Be a Better Developer