Hello all. Apologize if been asked but I am on an iPod at the moment and unable to find the search feature.

I would like to start building games to inspire my daughter a bit and we both love the Zombies at my neighbors/monster shooter type games. Top down perspective and just random environs and characters, dual stick shooters.

Anyway, I have been learning web development like HTML and CSS but just very basic. Still I am a perfectionist and can tweak and break a site a thousand times until I get it right and I enjoy it.

But I have zero programming knowledge really and have been wanting to start learning practically by building something she and I will enjoy seeing and working on.

I do want to eventually play this on my iPod or an Android. I know that will take many months but it will happen, so it's important when it comes to game engine choice.

At this point I am thinking Unity but wanted to make sure there wasn't a simpler option I am missing. I am not afraid to have to program, this is how I am learning in fact, but I do want something very friendly because even HTML and CSS was difficult for me to grasp and begin to feel comfortable ish with. I am just a dumb ex Army grunt. ;) But I get there in the end.

Sorry to be long winded. First post here and wanted to try and explain exactly what I am looking for and needing and wanting to accomplish for the best advice. And did it on my iPod lol. Ugh. :)

Thanks so much, appreciate your input!

Is the Game Maker Language something that will benefit me learning for when I want to move up to something like Unity or UDK? Based on C# or something like that, something that will be a relevant first step towards learning one of the 'bigger' languages?

Thanks again!

Any thoughts on Construct 2 versus Game Maker for my needs/desires? That is apparently another well regarded low-programming required program.

Okay great. Java would be an interesting start as it does apply to more of my web development projects than most of the other options. I like the overlap. ;) Never really liked java stuff on websites though, seems like it always threw my computer for a loop or crashed something.

My 2cents, go to Codecademy and spend 30 mins doing the JavaScript lessons. If you like it, stick with it and by the end of the course you'll be all set for getting hands on in Unity programming.

If you have already been working in html and css, I would think that javascript could be a natural next step. There is a good javascript library called pixi.js, which should theoretically work on all browsers and most smart phones (if configured properly). Here is a webpage with several pixi.js examples, if you want to check it out. From your browser, view the source code of any of the examples to get a look at how the coding works. You can also check out the gtihub version of the examples for a detailed look at the code involved.

As far as working on video games with your daughter -- I have been making video game prototypes for my own daughter using Gosu, a powerful, but easy-to-use 2D game engine using Ruby. A lot of people might say, "No, don't use Ruby. Use C++. C++ is for grownups. Ruby is for babies." To such comments I would say, "Exactly." Ruby is so easy to use that there is a guy literally teaching ten-year-olds to create video games with Ruby. Also, Ruby is the language of Rails. If you ever want to learn to develop Rails applications, Ruby would give you a good foundation.

Gosu does not automatically work on smart phones, but it the easiest way I know of to make 2D video games on your computer. If you are interested to check out Gosu you would need to install Ruby. If you are on Windows you would want to use the Ruby Installer, make sure you get version 1.9.3 (not 2.0.0), and when you're installing check all three boxes for installation options, unless you have reason to do otherwise. Once Ruby is installed you can launch the terminal by going to All Programs --> Ruby1.9.3 --> Command Prompt With Ruby.

From the terminal you would run the following commands:

> gem install bundler

> gem install gosu

> gem install chingu

And from there your environment would be all set up (assuming you already have a text editor such as SublimeText2 or the like).

To check out Gosu, you could try out any one of the games from the Gosu Showcase Forum.

A good overall example of the different capabilities of Gosu is a mashup I made of several different tutorial examples:

Chingu Example Loader

Here are a few thumbnails of some Gosu examples and Gosu games:

As I was going through looking for thumbnails, I came across some comments which generally reflect how a lot of people feel about Gosu:

"A lot of....kids (not me, ok...me too...), struggle with RPG Maker xp/vx/2003/etc.

Well tonight I downloaded Chris Pines Pragmatic Programming - Learn to Program Ruby and that makes it at LOT easier.
And I get so frustrated with RPG Maker VX because I can't find everything to help me understand.
Like the Window_Base script inherits from Window and that script isn't in the script list for editing...
But THANK GOD (like really, thank you God) I found Gosu."