I have a decent background in basic and some javascript, but primarily I am an artist. What is the best package to develop apps that has both drag and drop plus some decent coding? Someting similar to GameMaker? I read about Game Salad but a lot of people seem to complain that it is slow and limited, I looked at cocs2d but I don't know ObjC. Unity looks powerful, but can it do 2D games? Or iTorque? Thanks guys!
You can do 2d games with Unity. For example Snuggle Truck or Tumbledrop are made with Unity. This games are still 3d in the editor, but the camera is orthographic and doesn't rotate, so the player doesn't notice.
I'd second this. Unity uses scripts, which is a good way to ease into programming - and it is powerful. Using an orthographic camera is a great way to do it. I'll have to give that a shot in my next game!
+1 to Unity. It gives you quite a bit of overhead so you will probably experience a longer loading time than programming it in Obj-C in Xcode however if you don't have a great deal of programming experience then it's probably the way to go. Also you can use JS to write Unity applications so it sounds like it could be a good match for you
The Marmalade SDK makes it very easy to port to other platforms once you've written your game for iPhone.
The good thing about Corona is that you can use it free right up until you are ready to publish to the App Store. This lets you test it out and see how you like it, even test on your device (need an Apple developer account though, $99/year). I really want to play with Unity though. Can any Unity users tell me if I can make IOS games using Unity free? What are my limitations? I don't want to spend $400 before I can get a good feel for it.
There is a 30 day trial for UnityPro/iOSPro/AndroidPro included in Unity free. You can test on your device, of course, but are not allowed to publish to the AppStore. Only limitation during the time is a "Unity trial" watermark in IOS builds, I think. You can always convert your iPhone projects back to Mac/PC/Web whatever, nothing of your project is lost. So ideally you could work with Unity free for Mac for some days to get the Unity basics down and after you feel comfortable, you activate the trial for Unity Pro/IOS Pro/Android Pro, switch the target platform of your project and test on your device to enjoy the trial to its fullest extent.
I've done all my games in iTorque. It's not for rookies. You've got a combo of script, C++, and objective-c to work with. On the flip side, it has a great editor and a friendly, helpful community.
And to top it off, if you do decide to use Unity and publish an iPhone game it's only $400 for the basic version. But I think the bigest winner with Unity is it's portability between devices and operating systems. For example you could do a iPhone game, then do a web/facebook version of that same game with very little changes having to be made. So +1 Unity for me!
Thanks for the info unlit and luke. I always wanted to try Unity. As for the OP, I still suggest you look into Corona SDK for 2d games, if not just to try it.
Suggestions I'm a beginner also and have been using Corona SDK. I would suggest you try this also because it uses Lua, which is a friendly scripting language - I would say easier than JavaScript! Also, it's free to try - you only pay if you actually want to publish your game/app. Note though its not drag and drop and you simply use a text editor of your choice to code. I did also try GameSalad, which you mentioned. Similar to this is Stencyl http://www.stencyl.com/ which includes both drag and drop and coding. However I didn't really get into the depths of this - my initial impression of this was favourable. I just personally found Corona to be easier and quick. I would also like to try Unity at some point, but right now my focus is casual 2d games for which I feel Corona is suitable for. Good luck!
since you are a designer, you might have some knowledge in Adobe Products? I'm using Adobe Flash together with Air, to create my apps. Which works pretty good for the things I'm doing.
I used Gamemaker in the past as well. I made the jump to Unity easily. I'm not sure it's the easiest to use for 2D games though, as you are still working in 3D.