Where to start?

So we have decided on a game, but the question remains as to how we are going to create it. We orginally wanted to use unity however I thought it would be best to explore other avenues before deciding so I did a bit of research on other game engines such as ex2D, DarkBasic, Blitz3d, GameStudio, Ogre, and CrystalSpace. But first things first, we needed to decide if we were going to design a 2d game or a 3d game. A 2d game would be a lot simpler however this simplicity might take away from the story that we wanted to tell. Most 2d games in todays world have a very simple objective such as 'save the queen.' We wanted to do something more complex and outside the box than that.

Although we wanted to do a 2d game at first, we decided to do a 3d game instead for a few reasons: 1) Tim had experience with 3d within unity.
2) We knew the programming language to an extent.
3) Unity is not great for 2d games and 2d animations which is what we originally going to use.
4) Players would be more immersed in a 3d environment rather than a cartoonist world

 We LOVED the art style of Limbo and Botanicula in the way the 2d environment was transformed into something almost 3d through the use of background blurs and layers of texture which gave the game depth. The story of Botanicula wasn't all that impressive, on the other hand Limbo was extremely interesting to us. I had a very atmospheric world and art style of actually being stuck in limbo, the story itself was not dictated to the player, instead the player was left to interpret the story in their own way. Just like great books such as The Great Gatsby, the viewer is left to interpret their own meanings from the story. At the end of Limbo you actually are left wondering, "was I bad? or was i good?" This ambiguity is something that we really want to incorporate in our own game as it is an aspect of story telling that is not commonly used in a game format.