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I have worked in a .net (C#) environment for last 2.5 years. I want to start game development (not necessarily in .net). My focus is on different mobile platforms (android, iPhone).

My query is which development tool/environment will be better for me to start and why? Which development tool is widely used now?

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6 Answers

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I can't sincerely say "this is better than this other", what can I say is: "focus on what you want to do in future" and "let any door open".

Anyway, it depend on what you want to focus on and also deploy on.

Tools like "Unity3D" support JavaScript, C# and some other good thing and it will let you deploy on Android and iPhone, plus to Xbox, Wii, PlayStation, Mac, Windows and Web too.

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can you refer me any link that will help me to start with Unity3D? any video tutorial? I found Unity3D a vast thing. I couldn't find the starting point. – Woodpecker Jun 17 '11 at 7:44
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Unity have a great forum with a lot of good people inside, and also websites like learnunity3d.com helps. – MiPnamic Jun 17 '11 at 8:12
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Take a look at MonoTouch. I have not used it, but it promises to bring .NET development to the iPhone and Android. Recently, the company behind MonoTouch discontinued the development of it. However, Miguel de Icaza, the brains behind the project, has formed a new company, Xamarin, which is going to release a platform similar to MonoTouch to keep things going forward. I expect if you got started looking at MonoTouch, that the knowledge would be transferable when Xamarin is released.

I'm not sure whether or not MonoTouch is appropriate for games development or not. I'm guessing it depends on exactly what type of game you are looking to create.

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Check Miguel's blog, but they have more than a few cross-mobile games that are mono based. – Wyatt Barnett Nov 28 '12 at 23:18
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Also, if you want do go mobile, you should probably go to Android, which uses Java (similar to C#). Here you use Eclipse with the Android SDK and the Android Eclipse Plugin (ADT).

From thereon, you could expand into C++ (for implementing stuff in native code, giving you faster graphics/computation and better control over the application).

Additionally, if you want to go to Windows Mobile, Windows desktop or XBox, XNA ought to fit your bill. It's microsoft's SDK for doing games, based on .NET/C#.

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can you make it more specific? i know i will need Eclipse, SDK and ADT. but what else i need to develop games? can Unity3d help me? or anything other? – Woodpecker Jun 17 '11 at 7:59
You really should edit your previous answer with the information in this one and delete this answer. There's no need for 2 answers. – Walter Jun 17 '11 at 11:22
@Walter: It is preferred on SE to have separate answers so that it's clear what the user chose as their solution. Accepting an answer with both XNA and ADT would be confusing to the rest of us. – Macke Jun 17 '11 at 11:23
Actually, that's not quite correct. Your answer should include the "wrong" answer and then show you've edited it to correct the information you missed. – Walter Jun 17 '11 at 11:33
@Watler: Fair enough. :) – Macke Jun 17 '11 at 12:14
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Use Xcode for developing iPhone apps and use Eclipse for developing Android apps. You will find everything you need in those two IDEs and the documentation is second to none. If you are looking for some other magical tool you are just wasting your time because those two are the best and most widely used.

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Have you actually thought about programming for Windows phone 7? Yes the market share is not there yet, but you would have a smaller learning curve. Also, since the platform is still new, there's plenty of scope of doing well there.

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If you know XNA, then you may want to consider using MonoGame, an OpenSource implementation of XNA that works on iOS, Android, MacOS, Linux, PlayStation Mobile and Windows 8.

MonoGame powered games have been released on iOS, Android, MacOS, Linux and Windows 8 Store. There are already over 20 MonoGame powered game on the Windows 8 store alone.

Examples of high profiles games that have used are award winning Bastion, used a fork of MonoGame on iOS, MacOS and Linux. Draw a stickman : Epic released on iOS, Windows 8 and Android and has been top 10 on each of those stores/market places. Wizorb has been been released on MacOS, Linux. There are lots more example available from monogame.net. ARMED! has been the poster child of Windows 8 games and can be seen a quite a few Microsoft adverts for Windows 8.

Basically all types of games are using MonoGame and been released on various stores.

In the future we plan to support PlayStation Mobile, Raspberry Pi, we already have initial Windows Phone 8 support.

Try it out and make up your own mind.

D.

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