I'm considering starting up a Kickstarter Campaign of my own...

I can vouch for this. Making an Unreal game for instance, the better the PC, the less crashes the UDK has (although should always save frequently), and the better the PC the faster compiling takes. Now, we are talking 2 days worth of time, over 4 hours. For a unity phone game? The code could still take hours to package, compared to under and hour.

Sadly, he is planning a kickstarter for a development PC, while motherf***ing let's players and streamers just slap a donation button on their stream and get swag for miles, no work whatsoever.

Unity free totally does the job. Pro just adds a lot more fancy stuff, mostly graphics and audio related, but since you're talking mobile games, I don't think fancy graphics are going to be of your concern. As long as you don't make more than 150k a year, you don't have to buy pro. Just saying the free version isn't as limited as you might think, it still can do incredible stuff.

One problem is though that there really aren't many tutorials for RTS games in Unity, so if you have no experience making games, then you'll have quite some time spent searching for stuff.

First things first before you do anything - Which language are you going for? Javascript or C#? (or both?)

I've worked in both java script and c++. If I wouldn't need the pro version then I'd be ecstatic, as it does get a bit scary when you need to have a product that people like, I can assure you that I'd be a bit scared of having people hate every choice I make like it had been with Uber for a bit. I'd still consider a KS, mainly for the ability to run Unity well and kill rendering times, buy a teams license (which I'm assuming is compatible with the free version?)

Anyway I had thought the free version was free... But limited to a month. Guess it wasn't what I had thought.

I understand where the confusion comes from... you can have a month trial for the pro version, the free version has no time limit. You can even get the 4.6 beta (with the cool new UI stuff!) for free. Also there's the Asset Store, where you can get a bunch of stuff from (paid or free), models, scripts, sounds, systems, nearly anything. And all the official assets from Unity Tech are free to use.

As for programming language, JS is in the minority (I say that, it's like 40% of the users that use JS), but all the (new) video tutorials are in C# (they do post JS versions of scripts used in tutorials on their tutorial pages), but there's always the community who can help you. Nonetheless, C# is similar to C++ (well, they're all similar in the end), it never hurts learning another language, as long as you have enough memory space in your brains.

For the other questions, you'll have to take a look at their FAQ.

Take it from me, C# over JS.

I don't do C# (I'm a Java man), but I've been dabbling in Unity again for the first time in a couple of years and it seems alright. Handling Unity scenes with nothing but JS is a massive pain in the rear end and i really don't recommend it.

Also doesn't teach you good programming habits (global vars to pass attributes from game load to ingame scene, I shudder remembering it).

I would recommend releasing a base version to a site like Kongregate where you can get some early feedback.

Most mobile games are just slightly reskinned webgames with payment options anyway. I still can't believe stuff like flappy bird, angry birds and all that stuff is so popular when it existed on the web 10 years ago.

EDIT:

just so you know, it's become increasingly common for games on that particular site to be in Unity. It might even hook you up with some useful people. overall, i think it would be a good testing-the-water experience, and provide you with a plateau to start you from. I recently saw Rebuild 3 on steam early access, which was a free game on kongregate (in the form of Rebuild 1 and 2). So, it may provide you with a basic audience too.

Good idea, I think I'll try to make as good of an early version as possible, so people don't think I'm just out to take money, I just genuinely think the mobile game market could be so much better. I already see games of play station 2 quality which frankly to me is amazing and so interesting.

Well at least everyone knows I have experience balancing an RTS! ;D

Ooh, and it'll also be a nice little resume booster.

I just wanted to say thanks guys for giving some more in depth ideas, as the earlier posts of plain no's with the assumption of inexperience was a tad bit disheartening as well as not too helpful without much else of an explanation/help!

Just a little info:
Mobile App stores are REALLY bad for discoverability. The IOS app store is very much a "rich get richer" situation where games people arbitrarily get obsessed with race up the charts along with clones, and finding new, interesting games is pretty hard. Android is kinda the same but also has issues with a thousand different devices to be played on, and piracy is much more of an issue.

I hope I'm not coming across too negative, I really hope your project works out, but I want to help make sure you've thought everything through and can get the best possible outcome.

Meh, it's less about making money, and more about making the game I've wanted to play for a year or so now.

You're gonna have a real hard time getting a successful funding without either

a: a history of games under your belt that people play and enjoy
b: a working alpha to show off

I don't have Android so I won't be backing your game, but I am quite interested. I've already shared with you my thoughts on mobile RTS games in another thread, so I really want you to prove me wrong about them.

Best of luck to you!

Yep, but now that I can get to the free version for a bit I'll be able to work on a free alpha to show off to show its possible. The alpha would probably showcase a map with a couple land units in a factory, air as well. Maybe no naval for the moment at least. Probably a 1v1 against a most likely terrible ai! XD

A free alpha would be a HUGE plus to getting funded. Very nice idea.

Your biggest obstacle is gonna be getting people to trust you since you're a "no-name" and don't have a history of published games (from what I gather).

Having that playable alpha will get people to trust you and your capabilities when they otherwise wouldn't have.

Agreed, a KS almost must have either a bad *** trailer to make people get hyped, or a game play showcase. Especially considering how cynical people have been of KS lately.

i don't think an alpha is absolutely necessary. Tell you what I'll vote yes. and I'll back you if you run your kickstarter. I just want you to be absolutely certain that you can pull this off.

You might find this of interest, Squishy:

http://www.reddit.com/r/RealTimeStr...pent_3_years_making_ios_game_galaxy_dominion/

Also, don't use the terrain editor in Unity to generate terrain unless you really, really hate yourself.

Use it to sculpt a basic heightmap for design purposes (helps with brainstorming level layout/flow), but construct the actual heightmap in something like 3DS Max or Blender (or even ZBrush) and import it into your Unity scene.

I'd hoped they'd improved it in 4.5 or whatever I'm using (I last used it around 3.5 back in my final year of uni) . . . alas, they haven't.

Last I was told height map based terrain in unity for phone's is a bit resource intensive. @ozonexo3 uses brushes for terrain if I remember correctly, and I may do similarly.

I'm not too certain at the moment, haha.

There are differences between designing for a phone and for designing for a tablet - please bear this in mind. Apple even enforces separate builds for iOS on iPad and iPhone / iPod these days (Google, on the other hand, doesn't really care).

Resource restrictions differ, screen real estate differs, available finger space differs, etc, et al. What is comfortable to play on an iPad or Nexus 10 might not be on a Nexus 7 or iPad Mini. For an RTS game you're going to have to pay attention to this - you'll want maximum coverage on release so making a tablet-only game probably isn't sensible, but the control scheme is going to have to work (or vary accordingly) for each platform the game is released on.

I work in mobile software development, so I consider myself pretty educated on these bits and pieces. I also rant about games design in my spare time (ultimate aim is to be a professional games developer) and also develop my own stuff. This paragraph is basically a disclaimer to say I might be posting/spamming in here a lot

I'll back if you give me 76% of all profits earned.