Oolong, SIO2 or commercial Game engine for 3D iPhone Games newbie?

Question

I'm trying to pick between the Oolong and SIO2 iPhone game engines for my first game programming project. I have some Cocoa experience and many years of C++ including relatively low level 2D graphics and developing Quicktime plugins but only minor OpenGL exposure. Which engine would be easiest to learn and most productive for someone with my background and limited time?

Both include the Bullet physics engine. I lean towards Oolong because of its C++ source and optimisation for the PowerVR graphics. However, the Lua interpreter and additional sound goodies in SIO2 are appealing. SIO2 also seems to have a good range of tutorials.

I'm also willing to spend money on Unity or Torque Game Environment if they will save me significant time. The pricing gets interesting though - the Unity Indie license only applies to companies with turnover (not revenue!) of under USD 100,000 so you're easily out of that category and up for USD 3,000 per seat. I'd want a lot of convincing it will save time to justify that investment over just using SIO2! The Torque 3D product doesn't seem to be released yet but looks like costing about USD 500 on top of a USD 150 Indie license (their income threshold is USD 250,000).

**Edit Dec 2011 - SIO2 is no longer free **

Answer 1

I started my first SIO2 app last night and it was easy to get up & running from the tutorials (the tutorials include a full XCode project that you can load and start hacking on). The tutorial projects are also very well commented - this makes it quicker to pick up.

The interfaces to SIO2 are mostly in C, so your C++ background should make that transition pretty easy.

Even if you don't use it, download SIO2 and open one of the tutorials and check out the comments & code. You'll be able to tell pretty quickly if it's a toolkit & style you like.

Not directly related to speed of uptake, but a big plus for me was the Blender integration. It lets me use a free 3d toolkit to make & export models and then go from there. I saw that Oolong uses 3DS and I'm not sure if Blender exports that format or not so I could be wrong.

If you're curious: SIO2 provides a python script that exports the Blender scene to a zip file. Then, from inside the SIO2 code you reference your objects from the scene and pull them in to your iPhone app.

Answer 2

I try both OOLong and Unity way. I suggest to use unity:

• Learn Curve is very short if you have a basic game background
• Unity include a large set of utility outer of 'graphics & audio'
• With unity you don't care about graphics/audio file format
• One code for both iOs and Android
• Full set of pre-assembled asset free from the store
• Exendible editor to make your level-editor

I spend one year to close a OOLong project. I probably would have saved six months of work with unity.