King's Defold game engine is now available for free

Candy Crush Saga creator King has made its Defold game engine and editor available for free. 

Created by developers Ragnar Svensson and Christian Murray back in 2007, Defold was eventually acquired by King in 2014, with the mobile giant using the engine to build its own match-3 puzzler, Blossom Blast Saga. 

The engine itself has both 3D and 2D capabilities - although it specializes in the latter - and can be used to create games for a variety of mobile and desktop platforms including iOS, Android, Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. 

The only caveat of using Defold is that, for the time being, all games built using the engine must be stored on the Defold servers; although the team are working on supporting other storage providers. 

For more information on the engine, including how to use external Git tools, publish to the App Store, and nifty development tips and tricks, you can dive into the extensive Defold FAQ right here.