I am actually on mac, but funnily enough they seem to have just removed the trial period within the last few days. Probably too much competition on the market at present for it to be viable. I may try out GM 8 when I get back on a windows box(I miss them so much...) and I want to make a game in executable format. Flash is just pretty ideal for free games, and I find the object oriented nature really intuitive coming from a java background.

Cheers folks. I don't think HTML 5 is quite ready yet, too many fairly major problems without enough workarounds. I'm definitely keeping an eye on it though. I opted against gamemaker mostly because there's only a 10 hour trial before you have to buy it. With stencyl I can use it pretty much fully featured indefinitely, and also publish free games. I agree the flash market isn't really where it's at. With so many years, and so many fantastic examples already out there, of free flash games, I think the perceived value of flash games is really low unless you're doing something really different like the dream machine. When I plan on making something commercial, I'll almost certainly just code it. But as the subject says, I just want to make a game, in the easiest and hassle free-est way I can. For now stencyl's working out pretty well and I'm having fun trying to make it do things it clearly wasn't intended for(procedurally generated content is a bit of a headache).

Cheers for the advice guys. I've given stencyl a shot, and I like it so far. It's got the visual style of interface I wanted to try out that means I can hopefully churn stuff out out a decent rate once I get the hang. If I ever start a bigger project in flash I'll defintely take your advice into consideration.

baconman: I'll post in the intro thread when I finish a game. I've been a wannabe indie dev for too long, now I want to be an indie dev! Wait...

Bleargh. Unity requires a 1 gig update to use the desired plugins, not feasible on most cambodian internet connections alas. So I guess I'll give stencil a goo. Outputs flash, visual interface, mac compatible. Let's see how it goes...

Also, for a hobo like myself $150 is a crapload of money. I could almost live for a month off that.

Great reply, chur. I agree on pretty much all points. At the moment I'm leaning towards flash, mainly just for ease of distribution so anyone can play it more or less instantly. I also favour object oriented over the scripty doodads of GM. Dig it. Looks like I'll have to be on a windows box to make the most of the tools though(my win partition on my macbook is borked and my desktop is in a faraway land), so I guess I can fiddle about with orthello in the mean time. Thanks chum.

More feedback still more than welcome.

I don't think there's anything wrong with quick and dirty(it's 2D I'm aiming for by the by). I watched this interview with ed mcmillan and I'm taking his advice that the first few games you're going to make will suck. At this stage, small and fairly simple are what I'm aiming for until I build up experience and momentum.

Don't be disheartened by my attitude though. I have way, way too many ideas and truckloads of things I'd like to explore in gaming. I think it's the artform with the most potential for creativity and expression there is. To make games that have artistic depth, that people want to play and that I can eventually make a living off has been my prime ambition for a very long time. The reason I'm only concerned with the path of least resitance here is that I've tried to start before, but I've always hit a wall in my progress. I simply wish to know how to get a fully functional feature complete game out there with minimal possible problems. I'm a little reluctant to try a bunch of different things in case I get distracted again before I find the right one, so I'd like to get a few more expert opinions on good development environments before I jump in fully.

As for not developing in a bubble, that's why I made an account here. I don't really like posting in introduction threads though, they ruin my bonus damage for sneak attack.

Well, I've only worked 6 months in the past 2 years, so I'd like to avoid paying for licences if there's a good free alternative. I've got most programing experience in java, but I don't especially like it for making games, it's a bit slow, so the specific language really doesn't matter that much, although C# probably has the best balance of power and easiness from what I know.

Greetings wonderful people. My story is I've wanted to make games for most of my life, I'm a trained software engineer and I've even cobbled together a functional prototype(using processing), but I've yet to actually ever finish a game to the standard I'd be happy to release it publicly. I've tried starting up a few times, but always to no avail. But I'm soon to be back home after a long period of travelling, and I'll be damned if I'm not going to do it this time.

Initially I planned on using XNA, so I could publish to xbox(no longer a priority), then I found out about unity and it seemed really awesome, but I've got no 3D design experience and so the learning curve was very steep. Now I just want to throw together some quick and dirty 2D games and I'm really overwhelmed at the choices of engines and such available. I do have a coding background, but a visual interface might make it easier for me to just get going. Should I go open source, or is it worth it to shell out for something a bit swankier? I guess ease of use takes a back seat to power and functionality.

So do you fine folks have any advice for the best tool for the job?