New to game development

Questions & Answers
1

I've been a web developer for 12 years. I've written code in many languages. I've had a little experience with OOP. I've written a couple data driven iPhone apps.

I want to develop some ideas I have for games on the iPhone. I want to start with 2D games, a platformer or maybe something in the style of MiniGore or Guerilla Bob.

Is Unity a good place for me to start or should I go with a different SDK or no SDK at all?

2

Unity would be a great place to start - it's fantastic for rapid prototyping of ideas.

It does lend itself to 3D a lot more easily than 2D, but that doesn't mean it's not feasible nor practical.

3

I really reccomend you starting with Unity, it is the best engine I have ever used (I have used a ton of bad engines).

Unity is the best place to start and to stay. Coding, graphics and everything is simple to manage in this engine.

Unity is specially 3d but you can also build 2d games, some examples are Zombieville and OMG Pirates (very succesfull games on the appstore).

Good luck and enjoy your work Tyler.

4

If you're going mobile, well honestly I haven't used anything else, so I don't know what's even available, but Unity seems to have it all. I took my app from pc/mac/web to android and iphone pretty quickly. I would never want to have to learn Objective C.

5

Thanks for the feedback. Starting out would it be worth getting the iOS pro and Unity Pro license or just the iOS license and free Unity? In the real world would I benefit from the Pro versions for making 2D games?

6

Late answer... Yes it's a great place to start.

I am myself also an experienced developer from other areas and I praise Unity's debugging tools. It's amazing how easy the platform is and how you can debug everything in realtime so flawlessly.

As for the licenses, you can begin with free unity and get the feeling of it. From there, hop into iOS license first and get Pro only if you feel the need. Most of benefits from the Pro version would be great for 2D games in case you are willing to add a 3D graphics or feeling to it, but they are not applicable on mobile.