I'm a new designer that is looking to get his first iphone game released sometime this summer. I've don't have any serious programming experience except a little dabbling in C. My question for the more experienced game designers here is should I commit to learning objective-c or should I just use the Game Salad toolset? (or will it be too limiting?) Also, I've seen that Apple is really cracking on flash development/ 3rd party development in general. Will their banning of 3rd party tools effectively make Game Salad useless? (In other words is it worth paying 99$ for it if it won't be able to churn out games for the new iphone?) Finally, which path have you guys taken on making your games? Game Salad or xCode? Which method do you feel is better and you feel more comfortable with? Are there any free toolsets I could try? As just a noobie programmer, I'll be very thankful for some helpful feedback.
Hey, I'm using GameSalad at the moment to create a project I have in mind. As long as I'm not in the testing / publishing stage, I don't have to pay a penny for GameSalad. So you can try it out for free unless you want to release your game. If GameSalad is too limiting only depends on what you want to do. Ask on the GameSalad forum at gamesalad.com if your ideas can be realized with GS. At the moment it seems that Apple will NOT ban games made with GameSalad.
Gamesalad has stated that at the moment they are fine, and will not be banned. Of course, it has its limitations, but for a 15 year old with no programming experience like me, it's one of the best things out there! $99 a year is quite cheap for what you can produce with it as well. The limitations aren't too bad, you can use most of the iPhone features, but not camera to my knowledge, or in game music library. Also, unless you pay the $99, you can't test the games you're making on your device, you can however test on your computer, but I THINK that you will have to design it with keyboard controls, then convert them to touch controls of virtual pad, but I may be wrong. EDIT: Also, converting the controls isn't very hard, just in case that got you worried.
Don't forget that GameSalad is still only in beta and I'm sure there are many more things to come from it and, if Gendai get their act together, hopefully it won't be too long until it's up to the standards of all the other 3rd party development apps. And it's ridiculously easy to pick up.
It's a very fun tool to use. If you're not a programmer, but think you might want to create games, I think it's a great thing to try out. I like to call it Fisher Price programming. They've laid everything out in such a way that makes its easy to pick up and get started. There are a ton of examples online (most are user created). Added to that, the forum community at their website is great. Someone is usually willing, and able, to help. I made AIG, with no prior knowledge of the engine in two weeks using GameSalad.
I use game salad, but I find lack of supporting saving and in-app purchases disturbing, but well, I guess its still in beta...
As a consumer, I dont buy or even play game salad apps. The few I have played I was not happy with, they seemed clunky and, in lack of other words, crappy. There may be some game salad gems but i haven't found any. Not trying to ragg on anyones hard work.
GameSalad does have saving (it's saving of individual attributes). On the other hand, it doesn't have in app purchase. As you said, it's still in beta. As has been noted, GameSalad has been built to be easy to pick up. We try to make it as powerful as we can under those parameters, but it's not going to give you the level of control full programming does (at least not yet The way I look at it, GameSalad is a good starting point. For a non programmer, it starts you on the path of learning to think the right way. For programmers, it's a great way to get things up and running quickly for prototyping (and if your prototype happens to perform well, it's just a hop and a skip away from release). I've heard of a few GameSalad designers who have moved on to Unity because they really wanted 3D, but still use GameSalad to plan their logic and prototype gameplay first.
The updates they made last week to engine have brought performance of AIG to a respectable level. Since the engine is still considered Beta (version 0.8.7), I can only imagine it'll only improve. It's also worth noting, that due to the nature/limitations of the tools most established developers are not going to spend any time making a project with GameSalad. When someone is just as capable using Xcode, cocos2d, Unity, or their own development environment, there's simply no reason to use it. GameSalad does however offer someone with no programming knowledge a good method to get started. Especially if they're trying to build a foundation of logic for a future career in building software/games. On a personal note: Each of the four games I have in the store currently was built using a different engine. Synth Racing was made with Unity, Straight Aces was built on a PC using a custom engine, Solitaire Stacker was made in cocos2d, and AIG was built with GameSalad. I've been designing games professionally for 12 years before going off on my own. In the process I've worked with a lot of different tool sets. As far as ease of use goes, GS is up there.
We use gamesalad. We are designers and musicians, with not much real coding experience. Our last game Doodle Ski, went top 100 games in 16 countries, and top 100 overall in 6 (including USA)...aaaanyways as others have said Pros if you have no programming knowledge, you can still get up and running and designing games The tool gets updated almost on a monthly basis Great helpful community Cons there are limitations as to certain things you can't do that you can in xcode You sometimes have to use some "creative" techniques to get the best out of the tool.
