I think you'll be hard-pressed to find a gaming engine that focuses on being code-oriented. That tends to be a bit of a counter-productive marketing plan, as the idea for game engines are to be easily accessible to a wide-variety of people. However, much engines I know of, while being UI-oriented, also allow some sort of scripting. Even Game Maker does so now.
Unity is free as long as you don't bring in lots of money with it: https://unity3d.com/unity/download
And I think it's pretty much the most popular engine floating around now. I think it uses interfaces Javacript and C#, the latter being Object-Oriented:
http://unity3d.com/unity/workflow/scripting
https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/...nner/scripting |
I've used Unity, it's not really ideal for making 2d games. It contains pretty much no tools for 2d games, only 3d. I don't know anyone talented enough in 3d model creation, so I can't really make a game with original content using Unity.
I found something called dragonfiresdk, which allows you to code games in C++ and they compile it into an iOS application. Has anyone used it? It's $100, but I think it would be worth it. Considering that I already know c++, adjusting to use their libraries(which look simple) should not take long at all. Considering making a game through them, as iOS games are very popular and the most simple ones are the ones that spread most.