I wanted to get a start in game development for the Iphone/ipod touch. Having not enough I was shocked to learn that there is apparently no way to do so on a windows machine. I can't get a mac. The tools would be expensive enough already. Unity, the iphone SDK and everything I saw does not work on Windows. It's a damn shame. At least for me. So is there nothing I could use? Does everything depend on the iphone SDK? I am only looking for a way to make 2d games. Nothing 3d. Edit: And can you use Unity to make proper 2d games anyway? I only find a tutorial on their side which explains how to do a 3d game in sideview and they call that 2d. I mean a game with sprites only tho, no 3d objects. Everything drawn.
You dont need to buy a Mac, but you have to buy a copy of MacOS X. Costs ~100$. Then spent some time reading on that page and start developing. I did it that way and my Mac Mini is now a Linux Backup Server.
Thanks for the info AxelF! A question I have tho: I thought these "hackintosh" things only work with hacked copies of the os which you get from a torrent? I didn't want to download anything illegally so it would be awesome if I could just spend 100 dollar on it. I am currently running a machine with an amd cpu tho (x2 6000+) and Windows Vista. Would that work?
Thats the easy and, of course, illegal way - but there are (legal because based on FreeBSD) tools for creating a hackingtosh DVD based on your original. Its tricky but its works. But because we dont want to break any rules in this board lets stop this discussion here. Good luck.
The developer of Besiegement did it *mostly* on windows by creating a wrapper, check it out: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/11/developer-creates-app-store-game-on-windows.ars
Legal way to do it... purchase OSX and install it on a VMware image on a really strong PC. I know at least one person who's running a Mac on a PC this way with decent results. Virtual PC images are by nature slower than usual, so prepare to excercise gobs of patience. HTH *thumbsup*
Unity can be used for 2D games. There was a recent 2D Zombie game in the top 25 list for about a month that was done with Unity. It's certainly possible. As for using a PC instead of a Mac, it's is possible but that just seems to add another level of hassle factor. Honestly, if you think you're clever enough to write a decent game, you're probably clever enough to come up with the cash for a Mac Mini.
I would agree with kenlem - personally, it seems like more of a hassle. I have a few friends who wanted to develop for the iPhone but didn't want to "pay the Mac premium". Then they discovered you can get a refurb Mini from Apple's website for around $400 (for example, there is currently a Refurbished Mac mini 1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo for $419), which is what they did and they're doing just fine. You don't need a "premium" Mac to develop iPhone apps. One guy tried to go the VM route and gave up and just bought a mini.
I really can't pay for a mac right now. That's it. I could come up with the 100 dollar for the os I think tho. However, I would rather install that as a dual boot with my windows than using it on a vm.
I'm running the ideneb mac os 10.5.5 distribution on a PC and it runs better and faster than a real Mac. I've been developing my entire game on it. You should give it a shot, i'm never going back to windows now.
Hackint0sh is a great option, if you really don't want to spend the money on a Mac. I would recommend you to pay for the license for OS X, so that you aren't stealing the OS, but that's your choice. I'd check a compatibility list, but you don't need to be able to do anything except boot and run Xcode.
is making a hackintosh a viable option on a primary/personal computer, and if i screw it up and need to reset using the windows disk it came with, will i lose everything that i had on it?
Has anyone actually released an app to the App Store, using only a Hackintosh? I keep reading about people developing apps, but haven't heard about actual success all the way through to selling it. Just wondering if it makes it through the distribution certification process.
Not sure if anyone's done it all on a PC before... but technically there's no reason it shouldn't work on a hackintosh or similar. If you've developed your app on a mac-ish system, compiled and tested it on the simulator and a device, and ad-hoc'd it to other devices and they all work... apple should take it for review. No way they can know if it was done on mac hardware or not.
I'm doing it all on PC, there is no difference AT ALL between them. The only thing you can't do is automatically update the operating system, you can update minor things but not the OS. I'm telling you, a PC with Mac OS costs less money and is WAY more powerful than a real mac. I'm never going back to windows, and i'm never going to pay those ridiculous prices for a Mac so i'm in a very confortable point in between. There's lots of 400-500 dollar laptops that are fully compatible with hackintosh as well. And if i remember correctly with some hardware configurations you can even install Mac on a PC right out of the mac os original install disks. Don't take my word for it though.
Do you have an app for sale on the store, built entirely on the PC? That's the part I never hear about.
