After looking for the best start for developing a game, I found some diferent ways to go, I will brief list them, couse I did’nt spent much or anytime to have a detailled view of each one:
Cocos2D: Free. The one I choose, as the name says, its a 2D Engine, but as far as I see, not impossible to use on 3D games either (Ex: 3D game based on 2D physic engine, car running on a flat road).
The best of all its totally free, an open source engine, featuring Actions, much like the tweener AS3 Class from Zeh + Box2d or ChipMunk for Physics, OpenGLES for Graphics, also includes Menu, AtlasLabels for text with bitmap png charMap. Pretty easy to use even if you have no knowledge at all for Objective C or C++. All seems to be simplifyed , I on my second week developing only during the nights, and I’m pretty advanced on my first Game.
It also can be integrated with TiledMap tools, and has a Paralax class. I recommend this if you don’t want to spend cash on a paid engine and want to start on 2d game. Also good for learning Objective-c.
UNITY3D: Paid. It seems to be the easy way for 3D games, but you gonna have to spend about 3k , it seems to be easy to use and as far as Iknow you can use JS for scripting. It’s my choice when I get some bucks from other games and also for a 3D option.
Torque2D: Paid. The easy way for 2D games but its paid, not so much, but like $750, for me is much as I don’t want to spend more than what I already did on the IPHONE and MACBOOK PRO I bought for developing my games. The bad is you gonna have to learn TorqueScript, I checked out the language and seems to be pretty ease if you have a AS3 background as I do.
Torque3D: Paid. It’s the GarageGames version for 3D, seems to be as good as Unity3D, but you have to use TorqueScript or C++.
Irrlicht 3D: Free.Don’t know.
SIo2 : Free. Open Source for 3D, seems to be a good way for 3d games, not a real game engine. Use Blender for 3d modelling , has collision detection, and some other features.
Bork3D Game Engine: Paid. Don’t Know.
I think might be a lot of others, but for now, that’s what I could find.
