Design: 2D vs 3D

One early decision we made was to go with a 3D game design. It ultimately won because one of our main objectives will be Explore and let's face it, flying around in a 2D game isn't very Engaging.

With 3D selected, the next choice is game engine. While there is a cocos3d that leverages the awesome cocos2d framework, I disqualified it due to some of its limitations. Surprisingly there are quite a few to chose from:

• Unity (free & $1500)
• Sio2 Interactive (-annual fee, yuk)
• Ogre
• Panda3D (not iOS?)
• iSGL3D (open source and awesome) <- winner!