Monday 10 October 2011

The tools for success

The primary focus of my initial year's development will be around mobile applications. While I am a .NET developer with over 10 years experience for me at this time the windows mobile market won't optimise exposure and revenue potential.

The choices therefore are obviously the Apple devices using iOS and Android.

I have dabbled a little with iOS but not with a game. Also I have no knowledge of gaming theory or development of it my skills are far more in web development and enterprise solutions.

So in order to give myself the right tools I need to ensure I have the right development environment.

I don't know if you are like me but I tend to have a thousand ideas, jumping from one to the other without ever finishing one. This was spelt out to me in the excellent book by Steffen Itterheim Learn iPhone and iPad cocos2d Game Development which while a good technical reference also reemphasised its better to get a smaller project finished then something complex that you will never get done.

Being a developer I want control but also want the help as I don't have a 100 man/women team behind me to fulfill this plan. Therefore I intend to short list a few game libraries, IDE's etc to make my decision over the coming weeks and months. My initial short list is:
They have their merits but I am looking for the following characteristics:
  • Ease of use
  • Physics engine
  • C based language
  • Costs
  • Multiple platform
My preferences are in that order but as I stated before retaining control which is why at this point of writing I think Game Salad will make the cutting room floor!

From previous observations I am leaning towards Cocos2D and Corona SDK.  If I were to go full time now (which I'm not) then Unity 3D would be my chosen route for its versatility.  

Over the next few weeks I will trial these with a simple example before diving head first.

4 comments:

Steffen Itterheim said...

Oh, you read my book. :)

deniz said...

Hello,

Maybe you also want to check out Gideros Studio.
http://www.giderosmobile.com/
If you need any thing, please let us know...

Cheers and good luck with your project!

Deniz A. Soykurum Çetin

Jay Jennings said...

I got into Corona SDK almost a year ago now after having poked at Objective-C for a few months and don't regret the move one bit. Of course, that's based on the kinds of games I like and intend to create -- for those, Corona SDK is everything I need.

I've been programming since 1984 -- it's how I've made my living for more than two decades. But I got into game development because I want to DEVELOP GAMES, not program. Yes, the two are linked (for now), but the less I can think about the programming, the more I can think about the game.

The thing I disliked the most about Corona SDK was the lack of an IDE, which is why I created Corona Project Manager (http://coronaprojectmanager.com) While it's not completely integrated with Corona, it makes the workflow much faster/smoother.

If you're planning on doing games like hard-core racing games, first-person shooters, etc., then you're probably going to want something closer to plain Obj-C, but for almost anything else, I think Corona SDK is the way to go.

Jay

mygamingproject said...

Thanks again Jay.

I was fortunate enough to get an audience with founders of Corona SDK about this very point over an IDE which I felt was a major issue in community adoption.

They stated that this was their biggest feedback area and something they were looking into.

Great work on the project management tool. I checked this out in the interim and seems very well respected.

As a matter of interest what are some of the games you gave developed and are live within app store?

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