I've been a Flash developer for about 8 years, and it's time to get my head into Apple game development! Obviously I've done a lot of research, and I thought I had it all worked out in regards to what platform to use, which was Adobe AIR, exporting to iOS, which would allow me to keep my AS3 skills, but I'll soon be getting a Mac, which gives me more developing options. so my question is, what's probably the best platform to develop on ? I know it's a very subjective question, but I'm just looking for peoples opinions on platforms such as using AIR, Cocos2D, Corona, and XCode etc? I don't need something which is a complete beginners platform, but at the same time (even though I have some C++ experience way way back) I don't particular want to jump in with Obj-c.
I, too, have been a Flash developer from quite some time. I gave Adobe AIR a try and I wasn't really impressed by its exporting to iOS capabilities. Since you would be getting a Mac, so I would recommend you starting off with Cocos2D. Its really easy to get started with for an AS3 developer. So, pick a tutorial for it and give it a try. You can also give Unity 3D a try if you want develop 3D games, but starting off with Cocos 2D would be best for you, IMHO.
I've never tried developing 2d games. You can download Unity 3d and try it out on your PC. It supports 2 languages C# and Javascript. I use Javascript. You only need XCode for testing and submitting your games. I spend 1-2% of my time in XCode and never touch Obj-C.
Thanks for the advice. I'll just be sticking to 2D for now. I'm interested to hear why you wasn't impressed with the exporting from AIR to iOS? I've read that the latest version of AIR produces some fast results, also there's quite a lot of handy extensions appearing to make things like connecting to GameCenter etc easier. No love or Corona? is that because it's commercial where as Cocos2D is free? Also is it worth the extra $200 to get a mac (used) with Lion rather than snow leopard?
If you buy a mac that has snow leopard but can upgrade to Lion then you are better saving the $200, since the upgrade only costs around $30 If you buy a mac that can't run Lion then you aren't going to be able to run the latest version of Xcode, which will be a huge problem for you.
current development Right now i am developing with Flash developer . For Unity3D projects c# and javascript is better. No a days c# http://csharp.net-informations.com and c++ fast growing. you look at Corona SDK also. zaaki.
Lion is a cheap upgrade, so it is not worth it for that. But Mountain Lion arrives next month, and you will probably need that at some point in the next year for the latest Xcode. There are some Macs that can run Lion, but not Mountain Lion, so check against that if you want longer term development from that machine.
I've made the switch from Flash to Cocos2D to finally Unity3D and haven't looked back. I'll be previewing the fruits of my labor soon. The great thing about Unity3D is you can port to many things besides iOS, send playable web demos to people and, with a little work, do some fantastic 2D games. Best part about it? 1% of your time is spent in Xcode.
I use Corona SDK, it's written using lua and a natural upgrade for flash, it's very easy and fast to develop 2D with, but no effects/shaders, no 3D, no direct access to the graphics buffer. It has built in physics, sprites and a lot of support for natives stuff like gamecenter and native UI. If you want something more powerful go with unity3d.
Something new, take a look at http://monkeycoder.co.nz/ It translates your code to target platform so at the end it'll be 100% native code on all platforms...
