@LaserScheme i hear good things about love

@LaserScheme construct 2 will probs sort you. has a decent free version.

i reckon you could probably find a pretty cheap key for clickteam fusion 2.5 as well

@LaserScheme so, 2D game engines I've used so far:

- LÖVE ( https://love2d.org/ ) is pretty full-featured? I made https://packbat.itch.io/recolored-platforms in that riffing off http://osmstudios.com/tutorials/love2d-platformer-tutorial-part-1-the-basics - a tutorial for making a 2d platformer. It's cross-platform, but I couldn't figure out how to make a Mac game from my PC and I couldn't figure out how to do browser integration. Also, I couldn't figure out how to make the library work right. It's not /easy/ but it's probably feasible.

- Bitsy ( https://ledoux.itch.io/bitsy ) is cool but really, /really/ limiting and also badly documented. If you're doing the thing that Bitsy is designed to do - like I was with https://packbat.itch.io/a-memory-of-a-library - it's terrific; if you're not, it's really hard to do anything with. From what I hear, though, the community is fantastic and welcoming, and the games export straight to HTML5 which I like.

- PICO-8 ( https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php ) costs money, unlike the other two, but it has /lovely/ documentation (I recommend https://mboffin.itch.io/gamedev-with-pico-8-issue1 as a starting point, but the manual is good and the wiki is good) and very nice HTML5 export. It's limiting but a very generalized kind of limiting; it's kind of like trying to make a NES game or a Game Boy game, where you can do anything but not very much of it. If you don't think your target game could be made on a Commodore 64, PICO-8 is probably the wrong choice.

Other than those, Twine is wonderful but it's a text game engine instead of a 2d game engine, so probably not applicable here.

@LaserScheme either game maker studio or click team fusion. or Godot

@LaserScheme I’ve used gamemaker, pico 8, and godot. I think game maker was probably the best balance of features and beginner friendliness but godot is pretty robust and open source which i like a lot!