whats up guys. im a new developer whose getting started with iphone games. i bought Unity 3d and basically jumped in. I've been learning as I go, reading forums about programming and the best way to use the iPhone's resources. My first got game approved in 2 days, and its been selling pretty good considering its my first game ever! Anyways, I just wanted to start a thread for new devs or for people who are interested in learning this stuff. It's not that bad
Cool, I saw your app in UK store. Did you have any previous programming experience before using Unity 3d? How long did it take from wanting to make an ipod game to havin made it?
I did alil HTML before but no not really. I just read the Unity forums and fooled around with the scripting language until I came up with stuff I liked lol. I toyed around with the iPhone input methods and user interface stuff for a few weeks before I got Trash it running well enough to be playable.
yeah i'm a little disappointed that it costs so much to start developing. i want to do it for fun and its goign to cost quite a bit, especially i need to buy a macbook to start!
If you don't mind working in Windows, there 's an engine called Shiva thats alot cheaper. Its 169,00 so if I'm not mistaken thats around $200. http://www.stonetrip.com/index.php
i think only the Advanced ($1499) license inlcudes support for multiplayer. The basic license only has support for high scores.
Just Use XCode If you don't have a Mac, this might not be possible, but I just used XCode to build my game. $100 to put it on the iTunes Store, but the development package was free. You can download all kinds of samples from Apple to teach yourself how to program.
XCode I'm with gillygize on this one - XCode and the documentation that comes with the SDK should be enough to get started. Knowing C/C++ beforehand helps immensely. Apple makes pretty good tutorials and there is a ton of sample code. ___________ Developer of the multiplayer online game Scramboni
Made my game with XCode, did the graphics mainly with Gimp, did the music with Garageband, and the title with Blender... free tools are great! (well technically Garageband isn't free, but it comes with the Mac.) Sure you need to learn a bit more to write in XCode, but you can carry that knowledge over to other programming languages and perhaps your career if game programming isn't it.
I'm not a dev, but still, I don't see the need to get some expensive engine. You can make a great game without one. Ohh, and David, how in the world did you figure out how to use GIMP. That program is impossible.
The program isn't quite impossible, it can be kind of annoying though. If you get use to the quirks that come with a GTK GUI in an X11 environment you can get by. The sticking point for me is the lack of shape tools.
It depends on what you're doing...if you're making another simple match-3 game (sigh) then you probably don't need an engine. If you're making a 3D game with character animation and particles and so on, an engine can save you a huge amount of time and pay for itself in a matter of hours. --Eric