Like heaps of other people here, I've been in love with computer games since I was a kid in the 8-bit era.. Commodore 64 in my case. I was always interested in coding, messed around with C64 BASIC making simple ascii text multiple choice games. Then we got a PC and I started playing with Pascal and C. I never got very far. I lived in outback australia and this was before the internet, so there was no way to learn except by experimenting. Then later I got into BlitzBasic on the PC. Got a bit further with it but still didn't finish and release any games... Then I got into music & sound engineering in a big way and stopped coding for a few years. In 2008 I suddenly got the urge again, re-taught myself some C and made some homebrew games for the DS. Exactly like NickFalk said, it was so amazing and thrilling to see my own little game running on a handheld device, using the touchscreen and stuff... I was in love again A coder friend online who was working for a small local game company (Tin Man Games - hi Mr TinMan if you read this!) saw my stuff and through him I got a freelance job doing some back-end code for an iPhone game. I don't think I did a particularly good job of it...never planned to work as a programmer. I'm a slacker musician at heart TinMan was extremely supportive and helpful though, especially to such an inexperienced coder, and I learned a lot - and also ended up being able to afford a Macbook. So, having a shiny new Mac I figured I'd have a go at iPhone coding.. I really love making stuff for handhelds, it's ace being able to carry your work round on a cool, futuristic, self-contained pocket sized device. --- I must say, I think anyone starting off learning to code now (at least, trying to do it by themselves - I have no idea about CS courses etc) has it a lot harder than people who started in the 80s or 90s, in some ways. Platforms are so much more complicated now...having to deal with all the different layers of OS, file system, Cocoa, OpenGL, etc... I just started learning how to code Flash games with Adobe's free open source Flex SDK and the Flixel library. I'd definitely recommend this as one of the easiest ways to get into it for anyone looking to try! It's really fun.
me too was sucked into gaming and game development in the late eighties. well, back then, me and my friend started developing a game named "Kampf um die Macht" ("Fight for Power"), but we where too young and not very disciplined. those were the times you started your game with an intro and a nice start screen and then stopped, hehe. ( actually our first game/app for the C64 was titled "Miss Face 5d": we "drew" the girls of our class in ASCII Code and you could give them grades. eleven year olds do such things ) we started (yes, the same dudes )again 15 years later, with our game Titanomachy (will be available for download soon, for free) for the PC. It's now nearly finished: it's a classical turn-based wargame (hotseat or PbeM), a bit of a mix of Empire and Panzer General. i'm not the developer. that's the job of my buddy. i'm doing concept work, testing and marketing and stuff, that's more my thing. and, what can i say, our division of work works very well so far. we understand each other without many words. it's cool when you know each other for such a long time and still have common goals and dreams. now we're both 34 years old and recently we both were fed up with the shitty jobs we were in and decided to start our company "smuttlewerkinteractive". we're currently developing our first IPad/IPhone game, which will hopefully be ready for release in december. more on that later, in another thread. have fun doing your thing!
I started coding in the early eighties on the Sinclair ZX spectrum and the Amstrad CPC. My first commercial game was on the Amstrad. Then I moved onto the Atari ST and the Amiga. After that I did a game on the Atari Jaguar, then got involved with PC development. After a while I was hired by a company to do a PS1 game, which got canned after a year of development. About this time I decided to go into handheld development, working on the GBC and GBA, then onto mobile. Then I ended up in Australia working for a company doing mobile stuff, and about after 2 years of working there I got interested in the iPhone. The guy I used to sit next to - James Hui of EpicForce - kept talking to me about the stuff he was doing on the iPhone, which got me interested, so I started to play around with the SDK. About a month after this I handed in my notice. A couple of weeks earlier Luke had handed in his notice at the same company. We use to meet up every so often and talk about the things we were doing, then we decided to work together with True Axis and then Jet Car Stunts was born.
schplurg, Thanks you picked Dave & Dropped the ball idea A Jet car stunts & 2 can happen over a talk... wow Waiting to read from many more!
I have actually just published an article on QuantNet.com about how I started--the idea spark, learning Obj-C, business decisions, mistakes, etc. http://www.quantnet.com/from-financial-engineering-to-iphone-app-development The short story is that I finished my masters degree in financial engineering in December of 2008 (bad timing), got laid off in September of 2009, thought of my app idea in March 2010, had to learn Objective C and start a business, released app in late June 2010.
Hello! Actually you did a great job considering the circumstances and while things have progressed in different directions, your underlying contribution set the foundations for what was to come along later - so very valuable! My story is that I was running an art outsource company, Fraction Studios and doing work for other large developers and publishers. This was mainly environment art and design and I got to work on some quite big projects such as the Need For Speed and Tiger Woods franchise. It was always my dream to make my own games and so with money made from Fraction I started Tin Man Games. My second love was reading fantasy gamebooks, so that seemed one of my first ports of call regarding the games I wanted to make. To cut a long story short I managed to put together a team of passionate and driven gamebook loving people and Gamebook Adventures was born. I now juggle my Tin Man Games indie dev while working on large art outsource projects through Fraction Studios. I am privileged to work with so many talented people that keep both of these ventures running smoothly.
These are all really cool stories, I'm so astounded on the multitude of successful indie devs out there. I'm a senior in high school and the scariest thing I've ever thought of is choosing a major, and being wrong. I can't stand the thought of going to college for 4 years and realizing that wasn't what I wanted to do. Call it every boy's fantasy, but ever since I was little I wanted to play video games professionally, whether it was testing them or making them or competing on a team, I know I want to do something with video games. A few years ago, I bought a game called Warfare Incorporated, now I played Red Alert 2 while I was younger so I knew the basics on how the game operated, almost instantly, the developer asked for people who wanted to test the multiplayer version of his app and I jumped on the band wagon as quickly as I could. Elated to finally experience a game before it was released, I watched the game grow, I saw each new element be introduced into the game and that summer was like a whirlwind for me. I was finally doing what I've always wanted to do and it was even better than I thought! Needless to say, I tested the shit out of that game, I played for hours upon hours loving every second of it. At the end of the summer, Scott, the developer, had a discussion with me. We talked about the game, how it grew, what the future holds, the end of the summer and the end of the beta session. At the end of our talk, which took hours, he asked me for my paypal account, because he wanted to give me some money for being such a great help; my jaw dropped, I couldn't believe what he had asked me, I was so stunned (I was even more stunned when I found money in my account)!! That was all it took, I was finally getting paid for doing something I loved and would have easily done even without the money. I knew from then on that I needed to test more games, I craved it! I later stumbled upon this site and have been trolling it ever since, just waiting to be accepted into new betas. While no session came close to be as monumental as that, I welcome each new beta test session as a new challenge and try my best to provide helpful feedback to the developers. My head may be up in the clouds, but one day I hope to test a major game out (like Diablo3 from Blizzard, I can't wait for blizzcon 2010) and hopefully get paid for doing what I love again. Until then, I guess I'll just have to test and review games as a hobby, though I don't mind, I always have a blast. Sorry for this huge story, I guess I just had a lot to say.
That's so cool! I've always loved drawing but was never any good with people or faces, I always loved drawing abstractly because when you aren't imitating anything, nobody can say you did it wrong. XD I like drawing environments and backgrounds in school art classes because they're so underrated, I don't having a flashy personality so jives with me.
Been making games for 21 years, started out on the Spectrum and pretty much made a game for every platform except the PS2 and Xbox (took a sabbatical). I have worked on stuff like Monopoly, Frogger, Dungeons & Dragons Online, MX vs ATV, International Cricket etc. Soon as the iPhone came out I wanted to work on it, me and 3 other friends got in there and made a game called Touch'Em - I did (little) bits of the art and design as I am a Producer in my day job. Still not had a whole lot of success but I have played more games on iPhone than any other platform - it is a great device and one I really believe in. Now I am working with Sector3 Games and we have just launched ElevensHD this week with another one submitting next week. and I am also working with 3 Sprockets (coincidental duplication of the the 3) which will be launching it's first game next week http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=65510 which we are very excited about. We use Unity for all our our IOS games which is great tool, it does help to get to the meat of the game quicker and support for iOS features is getting better and better all the time.
I first tried making a game on my BBC Model B back in the early 80s, but it was rubbish. So I concentrated on playing games instead, which I loved. Progressed through Amigas to PC. Never really liked any of the jobs I had and made a concerted effort to get a job in video games. I had a lucky break and got a job as a level designer at Acclaim working on Forsaken, which was a great first project. Since then I have worked for developers large and small, but regular redundancies never allowed me to settle. Eventually decided to try on my own making board games, which had been a childhood hobby. I got several deals arranged with publishers, but they all fell through. So I went back to working in video games. Another redundancy coincided with the launch of the App Store. So started making an iPhone game along with a programmer made redundant at the same time. That game got delayed, so I spent time learning Unity so that I could make a game on my own. Hopefully both games will be out soon. Then I plan on making an iPhone version of a game I designed that will also be getting released by a board game manufacturer.
Great idea for a thread I'll start from the beginning. I've always been a bit of a nerdy girl - which surprises a lot of people as they expect me to wear glasses and look sickly I think, lol - and grew up playing Commodore 64 games and Mario. I'd always had websites, and made OK money from that - but I was never passionate about it. It irritated me. Anyways, on October 31st last year, Halloween to be specific, everything changed for me. The 4 months leading up to that I'd been pulling 20 plus hour days, working at less than minimum wage, in order to support myself and my partner. For Halloween I was planning my first weekend off in all of those 4 odd months. That night, I lay on the couch, and I thought I was dying. Something was seriously wrong with me. I ended up in hospital, sick from working so hard, needing emergency surgery - we wont get into that in any detail though XD I got out 8 days later and was not allowed to work - or do anything for that matter. The extent of my activities the next few months was going to the bathroom and back to bed, and showering once a day in a chair because I was too weak to stand up. I realized I couldn't go back to working how I was; even if I was paying the bills and keeping food in the house, if I died, well - I'd be dead >.<' It was the first day I was able to use a computer, and I was reading about iPhones - when I was in hospital they wanted me to pay to use the phone, even to receive calls, and I had no money. (Luckily, I do have health insurance.) I wanted to make sure if I ever went back I could contact people, hence the iPhone. I then started reading about programming and decided "Hey, this is something I could do!" - and then I did it. Basically. I'm still new to the game with only two apps up, but I have another waiting on approval and am soon to release a mini bundle of games I created while still learning that are a bit of fun. That's my long and slightly depressing story, but it led to a good thing. I've now got an iPhone 4 and an iPad and am happy and passionate about what I'm doing. Great reading everyone's stories - again, thanks for the awesome thread!
Back when I was a wee lad, I loved playing "Count the sheep" on me fadders farm. Right then and there I knew I had to be a video game programmer. So I began talking to any one cohnectid with veegio games, and sure enough I found as dev who wanted to work on an application together. 4 months later, the project is complete, and my dream has come true. I have an app on the appstore (not a game, and it was my first try at programming and design) and I plan on doing many more updates for it. In all seriousness, I went into college wanting to be a psychologist, got my liberal arts degree, then decided that it's not what I really wanted. So I decided to start reading programming books and graphic design guides. i got really interested and started asking around for a programmer who wanted to team up and make an app. I found one and now we have it on the appstore. All within 4 months of me deciding what I really wanted to do.
Greetings all. Long time lurker, first time poster. Anyway, grew up on the NES, but to make it short: I picked up a book on programming a few months ago, and read everything I could find on Objective-C and cocos2d. The result is this little game that I have almost completed: Hope to release it to the App Store soon.
Always loved games and went for a CS degree at CMU. Ended up writing software for Wall Street for several years through the bust and boom times. Always thought I would pursue a position in the front office, but at the peak of the boom, I decided I had enough of this BS and quit. After a failed venture, I saw Jobs announce the iPhone SDK on Thursday and went out and bought a macbook on Friday with cash in hand. Lucky to be 1 of 400 apps to launch on day 1. Ridiculous 1st month and months following that. Put up a decent chunk of my own money to fund this solo venture and eventually bought out my partner at the other company. Still trying to figure out how to make this into a real business.
I've always been junkie for computers. I remember being 5 and playing Aladdin on PC, or rushing back from school to finally kill Scar in Lion King. It quickly turned out, it wasn't enough for me. I wanted to create my own games. The problem was I didn't know how. I remember dreaming about developing awesome games, ones that could beat Age of Empires easily. My first contact with programming was Visual Basic language. I don't know who pointed me into this direction, but eventually parents bought me a book about VB6.0. Not having IDE for VB i was forced to write my mini programs in VBA in either Word or Excel, whichever was fancier at the moment. After a few weeks I finally got some proper environment, it was some kind of a trial version though, so I couldn't compile into .exe files. After some time spent doing Visual Basic, I encountered Delphi and Object-Pascal. Man, it was awesome! Being 13 or 14 at that time, I've decided it was time to make my own, full blown game. Being into Corsairs game at that time, my choice of interest was making a clone - 'Pirates'. I had completely no idea what to do. I somehow managed to make an early alpha version, with so many ideas to implement, and little eagerness to complete implementation. Here's screen of 'Pirates' ('Piraci' in Polish). I know it's hard on eyes, it's made in MSPaint. And some wood textures. From Microsoft Word. Yeah. When I was 15 I've stopped programming. I don't remember exact reasons. However, I was about to go to high school and choose my class orientation and Computer Science just didn't feel well. Not to mention I've started playing World of Warcraft. Fast forward and I've just finished my second year in College, learning to become mechanical engineering. I wasn't playing WoW anymore and I've just recently bought a MacBook. Having just started summer vacation I figured I could give a shot to iPhone programming, and put some personal magic into my almost 3 years old 1st gen iPhone. And boy, what a ride has it been. I greatly enjoyed learning iPhone SDK, Cocoa, Objective-C, everything. It was one hell of a summer, I've spent a lot of hours in front of a computer. Shortly after starting programming again and old idea came back. To make games. This is how Portaball was born. Portaball development begun on July 25 and took me 49 days. Including time spent on learning language and frameworks, total time sums up to 72 days. I don't regret any of this time. The one disadvantage is, I become much less interested in mechanical engineering, but I'm planning to start computer science next year.
I think the iphone is Perfect platform for the kinds of games I grew up playing. mostly in the intellivision and C64 era. I've been dabbling with programming since BASIC and there are a few games I've always wanted to make. So I got my ipod and said wouldn't it be cool to do a game like this?
It all started in 1990 when I got my C=64. After having played a lot of games I decided to make my own games. So I learned BASIC, then assembler, then got a PC, learned C, then C++. And all the time I was making small games. After finishing school I went on to work for a game development company who made games for J2ME phones. I quit after 1 year as the job was hell. It was the year ~2003 and phones were by far not as powerful as today's iPhone. Hell, even computers weren't that powerful. After quitting the job I went on to university to study comp-sci. Shortly after I finished the iPhone SDK was announced and I decided to start making apps for the new platform instead of getting a boring cubicle office job. So I became "indy". Well, not really indy as my apps don't make enough money (PR is my huge weakness) to feed me - so I do some freelance work here and there. A few weeks ago my brother and I founded a label/studio which will focus on iOS games exclusively. We hope it will take off and allow us to earn our living by making games.
I started my new iOS game about 4 months ago. I'm also developing an iOS game. I started coding it about 4 months ago after thinking about it since the 1st generation iPhone was released. Actually the game was 1st created in 1984 for the Apple II and I'm now bringing it into the Web 2.0 world. I'm using ANSCA Corona (Lua) to develop it. But rather than repeating myself I started blogging about it about 2 weeks ago. To read about it in detail: http://tot-game.posterous.com http://tot-game.info and @tokyodan on Twitter.
Thanks! The music track is by awesome musician Kevin MacLeod. Funny thing is, I've been making music myself for over 10 years (was a huge MIDI gearhead) but decided to go with somebody else's tracks for my game. Nothing I've made seemed to suit it! Looking forward to TOT-game. Would be great if you could post some screenshots. I'm trying to load the video but internet connections here in China sometimes... hmm how can I put this... SUCK
