how hard is it to learn xcode ? newbie developer here

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by steveios, Jan 31, 2011.

  1. steveios

    steveios Active Member

    Jan 31, 2011
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    I have a Mac and looked at xcode and its look very intimidating. How long will it take to learn to make a solid game in xcode with an hour to an hour and half a day. Can people who have made xcode games please send me links to your games so i can see what can be made. Also can you make a 3D game in xcode without any other add-ons. Just plain xcode I want to know about.
     
  2. Drenguin

    Drenguin Well-Known Member

    Jan 10, 2009
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    If you want to make a game I would highly recommend cocos2d. Look it up and you will find all sorts of tutorials on how to use it, how to install it etc. Have you coded before? If not then I wouldn't even think about 3d games. I know that you only want to use xcode but I think that if you don't have much programming experience creating a good game will be very tough. I would recommend looking into cocos2d.

    PS if you have coded before have you done flash?
     
  3. steveios

    steveios Active Member

    Jan 31, 2011
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    No I dabbled in code but no serious coding. I looked at how tough cocas is , that for people who know how to code. It seems unity or game salad is better for non-coders.
     
  4. Drenguin

    Drenguin Well-Known Member

    Jan 10, 2009
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    If you have had no expirience coding then I would recommend looking into gamesalad at first. It's not actual coding but it will teach you "how" to code (it will basically let you "code" without having to write any text or at least that's how I look at it). I tried to do gamesalad but I felt like it limited me and just wasn't great but it actually turned out to be a great tool to get me into programming.

    There are a TON of tutorials out there for iPhone programming and game programming. I would look into objective-c tutorials and they're pretty boring because you're not doing anything cool but learning the language will help you get into game programming. Then I would seriously look into cocos2d if you really want to do games. That's what I did and I'm actually working on a physics-based platformer (I've learnt off of online tutorials and a couple of objective-c books and I can't believe that I've actually learned how to program games). I find video tutorials really nice because it's easy to follow along with them. There is a youtuber called "thenewboston" and he is a blatant copier of online tutorials but I find his videos to be a good way to learn (he basically copies online tutorials that were not videos and turns them into videos). I didn't do his objective-c tutorials but I did learn quite a lot from his cocos2d tutorials (which he copied off of the legendary cocos2d blogger Ray Wenderlich).

    I would look into thenewboston's or other online objective-c tutorials and then maybe try cocos2d.
     
  5. Photics

    Photics Well-Known Member

    Jun 1, 2010
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    You might like GameSalad instead. http://gamesalad.com

    You can create iOS games — without programming — FOR FREE! The professional version is $499 a year, but if you don't need the OpenURL or iAds behaviors, that's shouldn't be a problem.
     
  6. Razoric

    Razoric Well-Known Member

    If you want to go it alone then you really need to learn how to program first before diving into any serious project. Game Salad is all well and good to start with but eventually you'll need to learn how to code or team up with someone who knows how to code.
     
  7. Jack Shiels

    Jack Shiels Well-Known Member

    Oct 25, 2009
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    Just to say, Unity is not non-coder friendly. It helps a lot in getting the game running quickly, but you still need to code.
     
  8. NickFalk

    NickFalk Well-Known Member

    I'm a bit uncertain what you're actually asking. XCode is just the tool used for creating the game/app. (Like you would use a word processor to write a novel). If you're talking about using Apples Cocoa API it means learning Objective-C then starting to get to grips with the frameworks and all that they include. From a graphical/speed point of view I think my humble floptastic game Fumbers is about as far as I would try to go just with Apple's standard frameworks.

    For the title I am working on at the moment I've switched to Cocos2D which actually is simpler when it comes to handling graphics than most of Apple's stuff. It is still Objective-C based though.

    It's always hard to advice people because people's ability to learn greatly differs, as does what methods suits ther personality. Anyway, here's my suggestion: You've dabbled with code? I would suggest dabbling some more, maybe with some procedural-C stuff*, just text based to see if you gel with the whole logic thing. (Perhaps make a small Rock-paper-scissors game). From here I think a book like Beginning iPhone Development by Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche
    is a good, solid next step...
     
  9. DemonJim

    DemonJim Well-Known Member

    Nov 19, 2010
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    You don't need any add-ons to do 3D - just use OpenGL directly (ES1.1 and/or ES2.0). Anything can be made without middleware - it just saves you loads of time / knowhow by not having to reinvent any wheels (model export pipeline, renderer engine, sprite and font libraries, collision physics, etc. etc.)

    I second Nick's recommendation for Beginning iPhone Development by Mark / LaMarche -- I didn't know ANY Objective-C, Cocoa or UIKit before making my game but that book taught me all I needed to start making it without any middleware in a matter of weeks. Can't recommend it enough.
     

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