Which WYSIWYG-Video Game creator to get

I was wondering between these three software, which would be more ideal for side-scrolling Sonic games.

The three are:
The Game Factory 2 - $59
Multimedia Fusion 2 Dev - $359
The Game Maker - $20

I tried MMF 2 standard and really like it. I know a site where I can get extension for the software in order to create a true sonic games with loops. However, the price is not what I want to spend on a software if the other two can do the same. I was wondering if anyone who have used and/or can recommend an alternative.

I see TGM is a good alternative but I feel the software could be limited compare to the other two software.

Which would be better in the long run is basically what I am asking for.

Next question... What is a good sprite creator software? And a game engine creator as well? Thanks.

 

I have owned and used The Games Factory 1, Multimedia Fusion 1-1.5, and MMF2. Multimedia Fusion 2 is a huge improvement over MMF1, which is a huge improvement over TGF1; though I'm not sure how TGF2 compares. Why not get the Standard MMF2 @ $120 and save yourself $240? The dev version really isn't worth it; it adds a few features, but the standard version is still very powerful, much more than TGF2.
The license restrictions are very lenient as well; with the standard version you can still sell your games without paying royalties, you need only include their logo during game startup and on the packaging. If you're not selling your application, you don't need mention them at all. (the dev version has no licensing limitations)

MMF is very powerful; TGF is also fairly good, but lacks some of the advanced functions of MMF (I'm not sure about version 2, but TGF1 lacked trigonometrical functions, which was really terrible, though I'm sure it's gone a long way since then). I havn't used The Game maker, but it looks pretty weak in comparison.

For a sonicish game I think TGF2 would be sufficient, as even though its a much simpler interface than coding, there's a fairly steep learning curve to get into the more advanced functions of MMF that TGF doesn't have.

So yeah, for your first game I'm pretty sure TGF2 would be a good choice. If you're a bit more ambitious, you could dish out a little more for MMF2. If you're planning on using it for a year or more, you could probably benefit from the added features. There might be an upgrade discount going from TGF2 to MMF2, but I'm not sure.

I'm not sure exactly what features are lacking in TGF2 versus MMF2; but I know there was a pretty big gap in functionality between TGF1 and MMF1. You could always try the 30-day TGF2 demo and see if it's lacking anything you needed from the MMF2 demo.

 

Thanks for the information. I am probably leaning more toward MMF 2. I have one question...

How exactly would one use a extension? I add the file to the extension and runtime folde and renamed them to .mxf. When I tried to open up a sprite file, the program does not detect the extension needed. The sprite is a .caa file.

 

I don't think you can add extensions to the demo version.

 

But what I was doing was the right way of adding an extension to MMF, right? I will probably get the standard MMF if most of the fan made extension can be used. Thanks again for the info.

 

Which extension is it? I don't think you should have to be renaming files.

 

kcpop which was a .cox file I went to the SFHQ forum and they have a list of MMF extension specifically made for sonic games. I also have a engine which is a .cca file but I cannot seen to use it either.

 

Ah, that must be for Multimedia Fusion 1; unfortunately, MMF2 isn't backwards compatible with MMF1 extensions, though many of them have been recompiled/ported to work with MMF2.
.cox is the extension format for MMF1, .cca is application file format. A .cox file won't work in MMF2, even renamed to .mxf; you need to find an updated version of the extension (though there might not be one). .cca files can be opened in MMF2 if you have the required extensions installed. There's a way of 'faking' MMF1 extension installation to open a file with incompatible extensions (though you wont be able to run/compile the game, you can modify the file to remove the incompatible objects). I don't remember exactly how though, I'm sure it's somewhere in the clickteam forums.