Simple animation puzzle game development - game-engine

I want to develop a simple "guess next frame" game. Basically, the game will show a picture of a stock chart with the right side of chart hidden (the future price). When player ready, he will guess price up or down, and next hidden part of future price is revealed. If correct, he gets points... something like that. Simple game.
Is there any existing game code and framework that I can use to develop this? I am totally new in game development.
I suspect there is game engine or framework available to make this type of game easy and fast.
Would be best if it can run on mobile phones OS and PC
Can anyone suggest ? Thanks

Simple javascript game should do the trick. There is just some small logic involved which isnt too complicated. If you want to overdo it, you'd probably use a mvc framework. You could probably though just do a simple jQuery/HTML mixture with a small server backend for the charts that you will be presenting.

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What gamekit/engine should I use for 2d simple game in ios?

I'm thinking in doing my first ios game, I am new in ios programming and I need your advice.
The game will be very simple and 2d, imagine something like a card games.
My doubt is if i should use UIKit, spritekit, cocos2d... What is the recommended for 2d simple games with few animations?
Thanks you :)
i would recommend cocos2d, since it is widely used by many developers and can also be used for serious game development, so when you feel that you've picked it up and gotten familiar with the api, it will be something that you can continue using after the first one is released.
http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/games/
As you can see, many successful games and it has a nice collection of features build it, so that is always handy even tho' in your first title and development training program you would also like to get as close as possible to basics which is the best way of learning, it will also allow you this.
I would not even consider UIKit as THE platform to approach at all.
as for spritekit, that could go ether way, i wouldnt use it, but it is not useless if you know what i mean.
As per your requirement, i would really suggest you CORONA SDK. Specially for simple and 2D game development. It's very fast and easy to understand and you can create game faster then cocos2d and objective-c development. Also it's support cross platform.
http://coronalabs.com/
With Corona, you will develop mobile apps in record time.

Suggestions about 2D in a "risk"-like game for iOS

The idea of programming a risk-like game for iOS has been around my mind for more than a week, so I thought I should do something about it. I'm not an experienced iOS developer (I haven't done a real project, only tutorials), but I got some notions about both the language and Cocoa Touch.
So, the thing I want to do is a board game, similar to dicewars (see http://www.gamedesign.jp/flash/dice/dice.html). The maps will at some point have hexagonal-tiles, but if it is to much pain for starters, I don't have a problem with regular tiles for the beginning. I want the maps to be dynamically generated, not made in advance. There won't be much on the game screen : the map, divided in areas, the dices, and a HUD.
The main thing I'm grasping with right now is what to use to do the graphic stuff. I have no background in game programming, and very limited in 2D. For my purposes, should I go with Core Graphics/Animation, OpenGL, Cocos2D, or something else ? I would like to avoid starting with a technology, and halfway through the project, realizing another would have be more adapted.
I'm also listening to any advice about game dev in general, map generation, IA programming.. etc. If you have links that answers my question, feel free, I haven't found anything conclusive so far
tl;dr:
I'm wondering how should I do 2D for a simple board game similar to dicewars/risk. No need for collision stuff, just something to draw a map, update it, and display a hud.
Thanks for your time!
I'd suggest Cocos2d: Very easy to get started, has more than enough functionality to cover your requirements (including tile-maps built into the engine), has an active community, and has been the framework used by many successful games.

I need help choosing a game engine for a very specific task

I need a 3D engine for a very specific task in Artificial Intelligence, and I'd like some input.
The first part is the trivial one - basically, all I need is a FPS engine (3rd person would be good, too), such that it allows me to navigate a room and interact with objects (if you have Java and Windows, I'm looking for something similar to the Give Challenge, but a little more up-to-date). Physics would be nice, but is not a must.
Now, the non-trivial part would be: I need to impose a virtual grid over this room, such that at any moment I can say "the player is located at B5 - now he moved to B6", and so on. I need to redirect this information to another system (namely, one which will give the player instructions about what to do) and, at the same time, send messages to the player, so I must be able to have a single point through which the game logic passes through; also, I'd love not having to write my own collision detection and such.
So far, I've tried:
the Source SDK: it seems a little overkill (since I'm not really planning to shoot anyone, at least half the code base is useless to the task), and since I'm not really a Windows developer, I'm spending too much time with the "easy" stuff (such as getting VS up and running). Plus, cross-platform would be really nice.
Blender game engine: while this worked decently, the interaction model seems a little weird, and some easy stuff (such as making sure the camera stays inside the scene or showing the mouse on screen) gets too weird too soon.
Crystalspace 3D: I've tried their demos, but it looks a little old-fashioned, and since that was one of the problems of previous engines (it's easier to get volunteers when your game looks nice) I'd like to try something else.
Now, maybe I'm asking a little too much for a single software, but I'd love some input. Can anyone suggest me an alternative? Or should I give one of the previous ones a second chance?
Try the UDK. All of the things you request are present, and it's free for personal/noncommercial projects. Here are some highlights:
Modern looking. The UDK features an intuitive-ish visual material design system, post-processing effects, Scaleform Gfx UIs from Autodesk, and more.
A visual scripting interface called Kismet that can control gameplay elements, the camera, and more.
UnrealScript, a scripting language similar in syntax to C, C++, Java, that gives you the ability to extend existing functionality or create your own.
Comprehensive documentation available on UDN.
Lots of community support outside of Epic, in places such as Polycount, Eat3d, 3dbuzz, and more.
Basically, "and more".
If what you're looking for is a professional, free (as in beer) engine that will allow you to focus primarily or solely on your differentiating gameplay features, Epic has set the bar high.

Create swipe controlled simple flipbook style animation in ObjC

I am a beginner in Obj C development, though quite experienced (over 10 years) with other ECMAscript based languages and OOP development.
I want to build a simple flipbook style animation, controlled through swiping motion. I'm sure extremely simple for any advanced ObjC coders.
Can anyone with extensive ObjC-CocoaTouch experience give me some higher level recommendations?
ie,
1 -general application design, should I start with a simple view based application, or navigation based or?
2 -should I use 3rd party animation frameworks such as Cocos2D, or stick with built in classes and methods?
3 -if using built in methods, classes, what is the recommended way of achieving a animation, that will be controlled via swipe and touch gestures?
4 -I want to eventually have multiple 'flipbooks' that I can 'instantly' swap with one another, ie to give the net effect of an object changing color, etc, but not sure how to approach this from a memory management point of view, related to #1 above
Except for point 3 above, I'm not expecting any actual code examples. Just general guidelines to follow and perhaps, what are some next steps I should take in my goal as an ObjC code samurai.
While I am no expert I can think of a few things you could pursue to get the effect you want. Sounds like you want have a somewhat immersive experience for users. Cocos2D would definitely fit that bill. Me and my team at Get Set Games have been using it for the past year and have not been dissapointed with it. We haven't done the flipbook effect you speak of but quite possibly someone in the Cocos2D forums has implemented are at least attempted this. Forums are accessible here.
Having said that I think starting with the iPhone SDK UIKit framework and basic examples that come with it are great. There is a great array of samples on scrolling, swiping, etc. If you want to hook in Cocos2D or other frameworks later that's definitely an option.

iPhone game programming: Framework for this game?

For something like this app http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=323242790&mt=8, what sort of game framework is needed? It's all 2D and I've read how popular Cocos is. The problem is I'm not a game programmer and there aren't any good Cocos tutorials out there. Would Cocos be able to create a game like the one linked above?
If someone uses CoreAnimation (Quartz 2D), do they have to create the physics from scratch?
I don't see any games with the Unity 3D logo on startup, which must display if you use the Indie license. What is the style of game Unity works best with?
For a beginner, should they start with Cocos or something such as Unity, which has lots of free resources (images, sounds, etc).
I'm no expert in iPhone development but have been studying it, and will try to chip in my 2 cents.
Yes, it seems that Cocos would be very suitable for what you are planning to do, and it would most definitely be able to make something like that Cartoon Wars. Plus it also gives you two choices of integrated physics engines to choose from. Streaming Colour's Owen Goss is developing a game using Cocos and vlogging the experience, he occasionally comments about physics-engine related issues http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/ .
You can also pick CoreAnimation, but then you are on your own to do the physics. If I'm not mistaken, the NimbleBit http://www.nimblebit.com/ guys developed their games (Scoops, Moon Drop) directly in Quartz.
Unity, despite being a 3D engine, is also suitable for the job. Zombieville USA was developed using it (more details here http://www.thecareergamer.com/?p=513 ) and has a cutout animated feel that resembles the link you shared. I guess all those games that don't display the indie Unity logo simply were made using the full version. It seems that using Unity allowed them to develop Zombieville in a very small amount of time. Also, in Unity you are not stuck with Objective C and allowed to use C# as well.
Good luck!
Don't code it from scatch. Use Unity.
Depending on which version of Unity you buy you can exclude the Unity logo on startup.
http://unity3d.com/unity/licenses
Start with Unity. It's a solution that can target users of all levels since it supports very advanced enhancements.
My impression of the games I've seen with Unity is that they are slow to start. That's OK if there's a big game experience but not for something I want to play within a few seconds.
Based on my research, I've decided to use Cocos for simple 2D games. There are a lot of good postings in the forum, even though there are no explicit tutorials
I also asked a question a while back about 3D engines - Oolong vs SIO2, got some useful answers and when I get time will be trying SIO2, although that won't be until next year at this rate (non-gaming projects in the way and I'm going to walk with 2D before flying in 3D).