I realized after I typed that, that it sounds as if I want to make some sort of blood-sacrifice--I promise, no blood here, lol.

Anyways, I am a Graphic Designer by trade. I do web design, print design, pixel art, and have dabbled in 3D a few times (and was naturally good at it). I am not a programmer, and this is the source of my troubles.

I do not want to work on other people's projects, as I am an Idea guy. I can come up with all sorts of great, solid game ideas; and I want to make them (one at a time, of course).

Here is my issue:

I was 100% convinced that I needed to make an HTML5 game, because I truly see it as the future of gaming, on the desktop anyways. However, there are no HTML5 engines (that I could find) that have similar tools to Unity. I am completely useless when it comes to the programming side, so taking just an engine with no tools is impossible for me. The extend of my "coding" knowledge comes down to HTML, extreme proficiency in CSS, and enough jQuery to pass off that I know what I'm talking about... sort of, lol.

So, I have looked into UDK and Unity, and have decided that Unity has the best feature set to get an artist a working prototype. However, I feel like I am making a pretty hefty sacrifice by switching from HTML5. It's been a dream of mine for a while to make an HTML5 game, but without a team to back me, perhaps it's nothing more than a dream?

I was wondering if any of you guys have made similar sacrifices, and if it sat well with you in the end. I don't want to make a game in Unity, only to discover that I feel terrible for having not be all that I wanted it to be. Of course you can't tell me my future, but I'd love to hear any similar experiences.

I don't see why this is a sacrifice: If Unity gives you the best chance at putting a game or a prototype together, use it. You might like the idea of using HTML5 but, if the tools aren't ready yet, you should not feel bad about using a different solution.

Thanks guys. I guess my concern is that if my game turns out great (or at least great in my own mind), that in 3-5 years, I will either want to remake it in HTML5, or make a sequel, etc. I just don't want to waste my "great" idea, when I could potentially wait 3-5 years? I guess I'll go ahead with unity and go from there.

Thanks for the feedback!

Hello friend,

There are always options, most of the time if you think a tool would be super useful, chances are someone already created it, except it's not always easy to find.

https://www.scirra.com/construct2

Construct2, never used it before but it's an HTML5 game creator that can deploy to pretty much everything and doesn't require a single line of code, perfect for a graphics designer.

You can also look into http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/studio, seems like something close to Construct2.

If you're a one man team and haven't coded outside of jQuery I honestly wouldnt recommend you starting with Unity, unless you have a lot of time on your hands. If you are only working on this in your spare time( ie. a few hours a day), you won't be finishing your project for a very long time. For 3D Models theres a lot to be done, the model itself, animations and textures alone are a great amount of work. If you want to create an amazing game, listen to what Sir frob says "While programmers spend their days smashing keys on a keyboard, artists spent their days drawing and sketching and making art. Just accept that both groups need each other.".

Now if you don't like any of those options, I would suggest you check out Lua 2D game engines/frameworks. Do you want to reach all platforms or just some of them? Lua is pretty much the same as Javascript except with a different name. However you use jQuery so I'm not sure the difference there as I've never felt the need to use jQuery. But coding in Lua would be quite possible for you if you can create some amazing stuff with jQuery.

Yeah, if I wanted to do a 2D game, I'd probably go with Construct2, but I mainly want to work in 3D. Thanks, though!

EDIT: I haven't used it but here is the reddit of one of the creators, I'm sure he will answer any questions you might have about it:

http://www.reddit.com/user/ambiera

Yeah, I had seen that lastnight. I'm not sure about it since I cannot find any reviews on it, and the demo's they have feel awfully buggy. Have you used it before?