Hey there everyone,
I am completely new to this forum and to the subject in general. I've made 2D sidescrollers in the past with basic point and click software, as well as MS-DOS 'If, then' statement oriented text games. Pretty old school, yes. It was the only software I could get at the time to work with and I wasn't too interested in diving deep with the game design. So, the problem is this:

I am creating something with writing that I would like to make a companion world to. Basically I write the story, then design some levels according to the moods, atmospheres, and weather related events in the story. I'm looking for it to be an interactive world, not necessarily a mission based game. I'm more focused on the art aspect and designing a world in accordance to my story. My needs for this 'game' would be a software that can program Windows and iOS games, and not require code. More of a program where I can focus more on designing the levels visually then having to code in and focus on a lot at one time. I have looked into the UDK development program (Unreal) and wonder if that would be what I'm looking for? I just need something basic, simple to learn, and visual, not code based. If anyone can assist me, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.

You're in the wrong forum. Moving this to For Beginners.

Thanks Tom, I'm a member of other forums but wasn't positive how this one works (different formats). I appreciate you directing this to the correct spot.

Thank you Dynamo, I'll look into that. The thing is, I have a multi-faceted project in which I'm immersing myself into many unknowns to market a product on a different creative spectrum then gaming. I want to direct my purpose solely into that project, but have the other projects easily accessible on the side. I have to code an entire website and engage myself in Flash 8, so learning those two things itself and giving myself a 6 month time frame to complete everything makes some things have to be simpler then others. Is the coding complex in Unity? I've never heard of it, mainly because I've only heard of Visual Basic, Flash, UDK, and Cryengine as game development tools. So out of the loop here, but I would love to start a beginner project, and delve deeper into it when I can. The main thing I was is for the user of this game to immerse themselves in surreal landscapes, possibly just having it be exploring, but I was considering having little 'eggs' for the player to find long the way. It's more a showcase of the terminology and literature than a game, basically a visual aid to a product already in development. I appreciate the input and look forward to any further contributions : )

Based on your requirements I would say Unity, you can focus more on the game itself oppose to coding, but you will eventually have to code just not as much, I only played around with Unity for a few days and there was very little amount of programming involved, however that isnt to say it is completely code free, just getting started up on a project doesnt require much or any code.

Looking more at Unity, it's a beautiful engine. I'd love to go more in depth with this one. I'll be looking through tutorials and finding literature on it soon. I looked on the actual site and downloaded the free version, is the pro version something recommended with beginners? I know it has a lot of stuff I wouldn't understand but it also has iOS and a lot of other design features. 1,500 is kind of a big drop, I'll talk to my adviser after getting more input from you all. I'll be using this for future projects as well so whatever input you can give on this engine would help : ) thank you.

Thanks for all of the replies so far, I really appreciate them all. I have personally looked at each of these major recommendations:
Unity
Blender
jMonkey

and personally so far Unity has it for me. I was using Blender in the past, or at least trying to, a bit last year... I didn't understand hardly any of it, I was looking at it for animations. I'm sure it's simpler than I made it out to be, and I can look into it but so far Unity looks the best for my purpose, realistic levels that emulate weather and different sceneries. Blender I saw some things with some absolutely stunning beautiful grass scenescapes, but I believe it would take quite awhile to get into it. If I'm mistaken and someone can point me to a 'beginners guide to blender' I'd appreciate it, the engine amazed me with some of the things I saw. Unity and Blender are up there for me. Looking at the videos I saw on jMonkey there were far too many unrealistic ones that I saw for me to go with it definitely. Again my opinion is based on observation and I know pretty much nothing about how to use any of these softwares, I just want to get the most out of something that is easily operable. Thanks : )