I’ve worked on business apps for mobile but never games. So a while back I decided to look into what was available for multi-platform development.
I already knew about Marmalade (formerly AirPlay) which is a pretty powerful C/C++ system that can target a wide range of mobile platforms. Last year they also introduced Marmalade Quick which was a 2D gaming platform based around Lua with some of the full Marmalade system underneath. But its a little expensive and there is a lot to learn. Quick is clearly targeting the gaming market and skips any features most gamers dont user. It can be extended but only if you know the SDK well.
Corona is one of the most popular. Its Lua based but with builds done on the Corona servers. But isn’t extensible unless you spend a lot on your license (enough to pay them to extend it for you).
Came across two that look promising: Gideros and Monkey
Gideros on paper looks like Quick or Corona except a lot cheaper (Lua based but local builds). But it comes with a plugin system so you can extend it yourself.
Monkey is an odd one. The programming language is based on Blitz (a descendant of Basic but extended all the way up to classes). Instead of having a Blitz interpreter for each target it cross compiles into a source code project for the target. Because of this is supports a very wide range of targets. The downside is for each target you’ll need to install its dev kit. Its very competitively priced.
I’m going to work on a simple project in both in my (sarcasm on) copious free time (sarcasm off) and see how they compare.