Choosing your tools

I think the hardest aspect of getting started in game development is picking your tools.  I have to say that I jumped around quite a bit.  At one point I wanted to do javascript/html, C++, Java, you name it, and so I looked at many of the engines and APIs out there, but never seemed to really find a good fit -- I even considered picking a platform and writing my own engine. I wanted to develop for multiple platforms with as little extra work as possible, but also use an engine that was robust and easy to use.  What finally helped me decide was the fact that we use Blackberrys here at work and I have the opportunity to do some development work for some small projects.  So originally I thought of developing for the Blackberry phones and Playbook and I saw that RIM was partnering with Ideaworks Labs to add Blackberry devices to the Airplay SDK, so I checked it out.  The Airplay SDK allows you to have one code base, but to publish games on multiple platforms.  This was exactly what I was looking for.  The one big problem is that Airplay is C++ and it has been a long time since I have looked at C++ so I knew the learning curve would be steep.  Then I happened to notice that Ideaworks had also teamed up with Stonetrip to allow Shiva3D integration with Airplay.  I checked out Shiva for the first time and finally found an engine I thought I could use.  It is simple to get up and going, allows you to publish apps to multiple platforms and was cheap -- perfect for a lone programmer!  My big hope is that it will really work as advertised.  So I am using Shiva3D for my main development and Airplay for any other platforms I may want to publish to that Shiva does not support directly.  As far as art and other resources, I am pretty much sticking with the open source standbys such as Blender, Gimp, etc.  The Shiva3D developer site has a wiki that lists other helpful software and I will highlight those as I find a need for them.