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I've started libGDX programming a few months ago, and I've found many tutorials for basics. I've liked its cross-platform nature and ability to build Android, desktop and many other game versions at the same time - but when getting into intermediate and advanced features I found very few tutorials and documentations for it. I've spent many hours to figure out how to do some GUI and stage operations for instance.
I want to ask about the libGDX power in the Android gaming market? Is it the best 2D gaming engine currently, or is there better free alternative for gaming engine?
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Verdict: libGDX is slightly easier to install because of fewer dependencies, but introduction of Unity Hub significantly improved Unity installation process.
Unity's 2D game engine, evolved. Top 2D game creators choose Unity's industry-leading engine to develop and launch innovative games.
libGDX provides a well-tried and robust environment for rapid prototyping and fast iterations. libGDX does not force a specific design or coding style on you; it rather gives you the freedom to create a game the way you prefer.
No LibGDX is not a game engine, it's a framework a wrapper around OpenGL, direct x e.g. An game engine is usually good to go after starting the application. You are using their custom made functionality to create your game.
Unity facilitates you in creating the best 2D games like Alto's Adventure, Hitman Sniper, Forgotten Anne, or Monument Valley 2 without any hitch. While there are many gaming development studios like JuegoStudio who love to use Unity Engine for amazing 3D features, it is greatly suited for 2D games as well.
Monogame is great for 2D development, as it was initially built for 2D projects and has great customization tools specifically for 2D development.
I'd like to stand up for libgdx and say that also for intermediate and advanced topics, there are tutorials out there. May it be shaders, GUI, physics or input specific tasks.
If there is no 100% matching tutorial (which is usually the case for advanced topics in any framework), you can always try it yourself. LibGDX's API is very well documented in total and there is an extensive, but still growing wiki tackling nearly every part of the API.
If you have really difficult problems, there is still the community. It has an active forum, questions on stackoverflow are also regularly answered and if nothing helps, there is still the active #libgdx chatroom on freenode IRC where you can find the main developers every day and get instant feedback on every kind of question.
I also always like to point to Google Trends - LibGDX which shows the direction of this framework pretty well.
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There are few 2D engines out there:
The list is not exhaustive...
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