Hello, I am interested in developing games for the system on my own. I have seen quite a few alternatives to develop games and it would be really helpful to hear about first hand experience from people who have worked on one or more of these languages. I know Cocos2D has a lot of fans here, and I would like to know how it compares to Gamesalad or even Objective C itself. Any other languages I have never heard about are also welcomed. I have many years of experience in Object Oriented Programming in Java, C++ and .Net so I think I don't need Baby's First Programming Language. Still, being easy to use is not something I would hold against the language, but it's not the most important attribute to me right now. I would like to hear about things like limitations, or obligations (I think GameSalad makes you put ads on games made with their enviroment if I am not mistaken.) Thanks in advance to any suggestions and information you can provide.
C use objective-C at a minimum where you have to. you can then port your game to other platforms (android, blackberry 10, webos, windows, linux, macosx et al). the more you become dependent on something like objective-C, the more your going to be stuck on the platform.
I've seen questions like this been asked many many times before, you could try searching the forum for a wealth of instant replies IMO The choice of language (ie, toolset) depends entirely on the types of games you intend to develop, and how strongly you feel about speed, portability and flexibility Every developer has their own preferred method of game/app development, so you should tell us more about what kinds of games you intend to make so we can provide more relevant info
My games use about 98% C++, with a tiny Obj C layer, just to set up the opengl context and process input. As already mentioned it make it fairly easy to port. However, if I had to do things over, I'd probably go for a well known, cross platform system, because doing it all yourself, albeit a great educational experience, can be a real headache and is very time consuming. I have heard good things about monkey, which is pretty cheap.
C++ is the way to go for most projects, hopefully you'll use some game engine or something. A friend of mine did everything from scratch but he can build iOS/android/blackberry and windows (which he uses as his dev environment). The code on multiple platforms took him 2 months to do and I would dread doing it myself cause it's pretty complex. Even though I know C++ and have been using it for a decade I chose Corona SDK using Lua to make things super easy, plus I wanted to start coding to my iPhone immediately! It has it's limitations, but you spend no time setting things like animation, sound and certain native features.
2 months my cross platform framework (internal) has been in ongoing development for over 10 years. i just recently added BlackBerry 10 to the mix and re-working the desktop layers for inclusion in places like Mac App Store, Ubuntu Store and the upcoming Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 devices.. you need to have balls of steel to invest time in something like this - there are a tonne of options (Corona, Unity, Marmalade, cocos2d et al) that you can use right now, but be weary of becoming dependent on a technology - it may bite you in the backside. for example, lets say you choose Corona, and they decide not to provide a layer for BlackBerry 10 - your stuck.
We used Unity. Given your background you would probably feel comfortable relatively quickly with it. You can use javascript or c#. Although I have to admit I recently used Visual Studio to do a database project and it really is a lot nicer when editing than Mono. Someone said you can use VS with Unity but I haven't tried it. One of the things about Unity is it really is an super IDE in that it tracks all your resources and converts your images files (for instance) depending on whether I'm compiling for iOS or Android. Our game ended up with tons of sound effects, animations, images, music etc.. It would have been considerably more difficult with out it. But like Mobile1up said there are lots of options and I haven't tried many. I guess I picked up the free version of Unity and I was so taken by what we did so quickly I just stuck with it. They don't do blackberry or windows phone though.
