mobile gaming. what platform?

[tomtefan]

Elo ppl, been awhile since i was here now. formated comp and lost address.
then i remembered i made a link from my own picture site to this one...

Anyways. i have a Question for ya.

Iam interested in mobile gaming development at the moment. seems like a good market to maybe
get some minor income to fix some bills in the end.

Iam not sure where to start with it tho. or what platform to use, as there are many out there.

Android - (wich a friend of mine said have law issues at the moment for some reason, (guesing greedy corps)).
Eclipse.
Java Micro Edition.

are the ones i have looked at.
All 3 seem to have its way. but wich is the easiest one for someone like me (and many others on here maybe)
ppl with very limited programing skills

And wich one might be best for universal development. for a broad arange of phones.

[Chris]

If it were up to me I'd look into HTML 5 and JavaScript.

But if it has to be an app, I'd use Eclipse and download the Android SDK. Shouldn't be too much trouble to set up. Eclipse would be the most universal.

[hallsofvallhalla]

android is the platform and eclipse is the IDE to make it happen. If you want to work on android apps then yes use eclipse. It all depends on what kind of phone you have I guess as you will need to test the app out. I recently got a win7 phone so I am working on a win7 app. If you have a android device then yes you should go that direction but I would not recommend it unless you have lots of time and ambition.

[Jackolantern]

Stay away from Java Micro Edition! It has nothing to do with Android development. Java ME is an implementation of the Java runtime that is designed to work in low-memory, low-power environments. About 6 years ago or so, tons of apps were being made for it. But since the iPhone came out with basically no way to run Java ME games, the whole mobile industry has changed. Everything has gone much more towards the direction of app stores and mobile OS developers controlling the apps released through them. The 3 main platforms that mobile developers consider making games for today are:

1. iPhone: You need a Mac, pretty much. There is no way around that.
2. Android: You will use Java, but not Java ME. Java ME is all but dead in the consumer app development arena. Android apps can be developed on basically any desktop OS.
3. Windows Phone 7: You will use C# (and in some cases Visual Basic.NET, although that is just getting started) to create XNA games and Silverlight apps.

If you have a Mac, iPhone would be a good choice because there are tons of tools out there for making iPhone games. The discussion is still ongoing about Android vs. WP7 development. I still think WP7 is a fertile market because there are so few apps on it; it is a developer's landscape, whereas something like Android could be considered more of a consumer's landscape.

EDIT: Ohh, and Chris has a point with HTML5 development. You can actually port HTML5 web apps into native mobile apps with something like PhoneGap, so that your 1 HTML5 app can be instantly turned into several different platforms, such as iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, WebOS, etc. It does not include WP7 at this time, though.

[Xaleph]

Like Jack said, you have 3 options. iPhone, Android or WP7 ( mango )

To develop iPhone apps, you need a Mac, to develop on WP7 you need a Windows machine and last but not least, to develop for Android, you can use whatever you like. iPhone and Android app markets are saturated, but there`s allways room for more, earnings in both cases will be around 3 to 400 dollars a month if you develop a good app/game.

I`m not sure about WP7, it`s a new market, no one knows what it will render for you, it could be good money, it could be bad money. There`s just not a ton of people using WP7 at the moment. But for learning purposes I would recommend either Android or WP7. WP7 has a nice addition what is called XNA, Android however, has a short learning curve. However, creating 3d games on Android requires a bigger learning curve then WP7.

Languages in both cases look pretty much the same. Both higher OO languages and both quite easy to understand. However, I have no experience on WP7 development, butI guess you`ll use XAML in it. Android uses XML. Both things pretty much mean the same thing.

[tomtefan]

Ty for answears.

I dont have a mac.. dont like to lock myself into a corner...

And if WP7 and android are almost a clone.. but android is easier to start learning.
Its only logical that i will start with the android then.


And btw, there are no such thing as bad money, even if its a minor extra. its still better than zero..
Besides, if i see the "other" market is greener for my type of app/game,
It cant be that hard to convert it to fit both, can it.

[hallsofvallhalla]

WP7 and android are not clone's by any means.

[Jackolantern]

Definitely not clones of each other. The comment was only concerning a very small portion of app development on both platforms: the UI mark-up. For WP7, you will use XAML, an extension of XML, and for Android, it sounds like you use vanilla XML. That is about where the similarities end. I would say that WP7 likely has more of a ready-built base for app development since you are starting with XNA and Silverlight, versus starting with almost nothing on Java. Not that XNA and SL are a giant head-start, but it may count for something to some people.

[Xaleph]

Yes let me clarify Android != WP7, however, to come back to Jack`s comment, similarities don`t end on the XML/XAML. App development itself is pretty straight forward, and yes Apps in the normal sense of the word can be compiled to WP7 wihtout to much hassle, because of Java.NET.

My similarities are:

XMLvs XAML // syntax differences, that`s about it
Java cs C# // again, syntax differences

Now, for game development, on WP7 you`ll have a slight head start because of XNA and SL, so if you start out from scratch, i definitely recommend going with WP7.

However, XNA and SL are just a means to an end. The real games are mostly written in C++ and C for the obvious reason of speed and optimization, so if you do want to go "hardcore" differences are slightly less.

However, the cool thing is this: both Java and C# offer great tools to use open GL ES. Libraries are key here. The libraries are written in C++ or C ( i don`t even know.. ) so all you need are connectors for it. That way you don`t have to limit yourself. What remains is your choice or preference.

Android === any platform
WP7 === Windows

So it`s up to you.

Now, something about me, my opinions are not biased, but I come from a Java background, so with that in mind, take whatever I say with a grain of salt. However, I am going to start working on C# again as of right now, I just downloaded the XNA Game Studio, so let that be comforting.

Ps. TOTALLY offtopic: Has anyone here have any experience with SteamWorks and Steam platform integration?