Starting a Company - 2D or 3D beginnings

Hello!

Update on this post, talked to James about using Unity; looking over the prices I didn't realise how high the upfront costs for Unity and the add on costs for IOS and Android. This for a starting company is a big investment ($1500), especially since only one of us will be able to have the license (if we both pay equal, who gets the license?)

The alternative suggested by James is using Marmalade to allow portability to Android and i0S. This has a cheaper community alternative of $150 a year (so we could theoretically use it for 10 years for the costs of the Unity License) and James could build his engine from that, using the time in which I'll be abroad to get the engine and a designer interface ready for me to use upon returning. Neither of us at this current time have to worry about wages and earning money since we're both students so taking the time and effort to create the engine isn't having any financial impacts.

Do any of you have previous experience with Marmalade and what experiences did you have whilst or currently have using it? Also, if you invested in a Unity license, does the programme compensate by allowing you to iterate and get your games out there faster and how soon was the pay back for the software?

As mentioned before, as a designer my experience and understanding of the construction of engines is minimal, but James is taking the time this thursday to explain the process of creating an engine and what length of time he predicts the construction to take (he has till September to get it as polished as possible), so should hopefully have a better understanding later this week if there's any technical answers.

Update! Having looked at the progress of James, the engine should be at a functioning state within a month, which is a lot quicker than I anticipated! We're going to wait until the Marmalade trial runs out at the end of the month then purchase a copy.

Thanks and look forward to hearing from you!