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I'm trying to expedite development for several iPad targeted mobile games I am developing. All will be coded using AS3 and Adobe AIR. I am familiar with several MVC frameworks, which may or may not be more than what I need. I have also heard of a dedicated framework called pushbutton engine, though the site is no longer live.

Can anyone share their recommendations on gameing frameworks for use with AIR?

Bachalo
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For starters, make sure you're using Starling to maximise the rendering performance of your game.

Outside of that, I'm not a fan of any particular framework, mainly because I like the challenge and reward of developing as much of a game as I can from scratch. With that said, there is a good answer detailing a few frameworks here. Regarding MVC, I am not a fan of using that pattern in game development. It's a little too overkill for my liking.

Community
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Marty
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  • Thanks. But from my experience with Starling, it too is 'a little too overkill' unless your game has hundreds of animated elements or particle type effects. Maximum performance(FPS) on even 2nd generation devices can simply be achieved in most cases by simply targeting GPU. Earlier versions of AIR had performance issues, no so with AIR 3.x++ – Bachalo Jul 08 '13 at 12:01
  • @eco_bach Startling isn't really overkill in the same sense that I was referring to when I mentioned MVC. It might be overkill in terms of optimization, but the approach is almost the same as with the standard drawing APIs. With MVC, you're actually doing a lot more work than with normal paradigms which is more what I meant. – Marty Jul 08 '13 at 12:08
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Thanks Also came across Ash an entity based framework http://ashframework.org/

Bachalo
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I you are comfortable with classic AS3 display list and want the best performance (compared to regular display list) you can get on the mobile devices, Starling is the way to go (though, there may be some other frameworks like Genome2D, that could possibly offer you more features, but also could lack some that Starling has). As for MVC, I agree with Marty that using MCV framework in whole game logic can be an overkill, but it can come very handy when you need to manage your ingame GUI and that`s what MVC frameworks are mostly used for. I use a combination of Feathers, a GUI framework based on Starling and Robotlegs along with Robotlegs-Starling extension and I feel pretty comfortable with that.

You probably will also need some other frameworks for physics, animation etc. I'd recommend to use Box2D or Nape to handle physics and if you don't mind additional layer of logic between your engine and physics lib you can use something like PhysInjector for easier physics handling. It works well with Starling and Box2D. As for skeletal animation, I didn't find anything better as Dragonbones - it comes bundled with Flash Pro IDE extension and that enables a really smooth workflow.

Varnius
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  • Thanks for all the great tips! Will definitely try DragonBones. Do you think it might be possible to simulate 'lifelike' seaweed using DB? – Bachalo Jul 09 '13 at 12:44
  • Hard to say, as our opinions on what 'lifelike' means might differ but good artwork combined with realistic skeletal animation should result in this 'lifelikiness'. :) – Varnius Jul 09 '13 at 14:02