Hello everybody, I'll start off by saying that I've been an avid iPhone user and fanatic since the first iPhone came out, and I've also had a great knowledge and fascination with technology for as long as I can remember. While I've been extremely interested in developing games and software for quite a while, until the iPhone came out I've never felt that an independent developer and their applications could be recognized to the extent that they deserve, so I've never been motivated enough to learn how to develop just for the PC or Mac platform. I'm a writer with some really incredible work that I think iPhone and iPod Touch users will really see as a major jump for the App Store. I am also very critical, especially of myself, so every app I would release would have very high production levels and a great amount of polish. For anybody interested, all I can say is that the game that I'm planning to develop would be a very long episodic game probably spanning three "seasons". While I could post a synopsis, I'd rather not until I could at least develop at a good level, then I could really start posting details. The Unity Engine looks like a good way to develop long games for an independent developer. Ravensword is the only game that I've played that runs on the Unity Engine. I have to give the two developers major props for creating that without a bigger team. The performance and graphics that the engine was capable of in Ravensword seem both okay and impressive in some parts, but a custom engine seems like it could be better, such as in Dexter the Game. I will be working with a long amount of cutscenes that would preferably be rendered in real time to save space since there would probably be at least three or four hours just of cutscenes, considering that each episode should have a few thousand words of dialog, if not over ten thousand. There is already one script written with others in concept stages, so that isn't an exaggeration. Would the Unity Engine running on the iPhone be up to the task of highly detailed animations and cut scenes? It seems like the game would have to be made with OpenGL 2.0 to be up to the level that I want it to be, which is both great since I can deliver a graphic quality that hasn't been seen yet on the platform and a bad thing because there would be a lot of devices that can't play a game that will have so much effort put into. Since this particular game in concept stages won't be released until 2011 at the earliest, hopefully being OpenGL 2.0 exclusive won't lead to a problem with the game's popularity. I'm very anxious to start developing "console quality" iPhone and iPod Touch games. Not to get too ahead of myself, I was wondering if any developers have a recommendation to a good six month plan that would cover everything necessary to produce a game of this quality.
If you plan to use Unity, then you don't really need to know much about XCode. Unity creates your XCode project and automatically launches XCode to build it whenever you want. Also, by definition, if you are using a game engine, you won't be bringing a totally new level of graphic quality to the iPhone. The engine supports what it supports as far as features and capabilities. You CAN extend Unity in some ways if you purchase the expensive version (around $1500 as I recall). In that case you WOULD need to know XCode so you could write any custom extensions you want. It sounds like you are a writer with no coding background (forgive me if I am wrong), so I doubt that will be within your abilities given the 6 month timeframe. I don't know if the current version of Unity is very useful for scripting cutscenes, but I heard a new editor is coming for that. Not sure of the details. http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?p=224073
Thanks for your reply, MindJuice. That is true, but I've seen Unity capable of more than what has been released on the iPhone so far, and with the Unity Engine. Ravensword is the most extensive game developed with the Unity Engine to date, but it used OpenGL 1.0 to support every iPhone and iPod Touch model while using OpenGL 2.0 could've opened up the game to be more impressive visually. It appears that there is still much more that the newer devices are capable of that hasn't been touched yet (pun not intended), and it appears that Unity should be able to at least surpass anything released so far with a lot of work and focusing all of my effort into the newer OpenGL 2.0 devices, which probably won't be a big problem with a potential 2011 release date for the first game. I was hoping to use a six month timeframe just to learn how to build a high quality game with the Unity Engine along with 3D modeling and animation. So basically just to read a lot of tutorials, books, watch videos, etc. about developing with Unity, and make a few games that wouldn't be released. Then, after the six month period actually begin developing the game I have planned. I would get a team together on contract to help with the models and animation in particular, and I wouldn't release the game without professional voice acting because of how big of a role the story will play. I have no coding experience, but I do have a great knowledge of technology and the iPhone. I just wanted to plan the most efficient way to spend a six month period learning what I need to know, then afterwards learning more while starting alpha level development. The first development stages could be scrapped and completely redone depending on how much more I learn while developing them.
Unity is definitely capable of much more than you've seen on the iPhone, and part of the reason is that many cool features are simply not available in the iPhone version of Unity. It's been a while since I looked at the available features, but I don't recall there being much in the way of OpenGL 2.0 specific features implemented yet. I guess you'd get a speed increase. My info could be out of date, but I took a quick look on their site and didn't see any mention of new 2.0 features. I understand your plan better now, but if you are planning to put a team together anyway, then why don't you focus on your strengths (game design and writing) and let others who already have the necessary skills focus on their strengths (coding, 3D modeling & animating, texture art)? Just put the team together ASAP and get working on it. I'm a software developer "by trade", and I could have put out iPhone apps with my own art too since I am pretty handy with Photoshop, but I know I could never have gotten my games to the level they are at now having used a professional artist.
I should be able to get the game more the way I want it if I program it myself. Programming is definitely something I have wanted and still want to do and I believe that I shouldn't have a problem as long as I learn the Unity Engine properly. Putting together a professional team to develop a game like this without a budget to pay them now (all contracts will state that the worker is paid x% of total profit per episode with maximum of y profit per episode) is easier said than done. I have no problem being the lead programmer and writer, and it will be hard to find someone up to animating cutscenes up to the quality (including animation and camerawork) of a movie or TV show in the vision I'm hoping for. I'd like to step in any work being done to tweak it to exactly how I wanted it when I wrote the script. I probably wouldn't be the lead 3D modeller/animator, and if I am there will probably be another lead 3D modeller/animator. I was looking into the Unity Engine more as well, and it does appear that they may not have actual OpenGL ES 2.0 support, though they do say that there's iPhone 3GS exclusive features in the latest update, possibly hinting that there might be. Either way, by the end of the year or the beginning of 2011 when real development takes place, Unity for the iPhone should support much more. Or there could be better engines available. I'm not completely sure if Unreal Engine 3 would be better for the project, I'll have to really compare the iPhone version's features to the Unity engine. The distinctive art style that every Unreal Engine 3 game has doesn't seem to match the style that I'm looking for.
Well, it certainly sounds like you're intending to bite off a very big chunk of work! Obviously I don't know the extent of the gameplay involved with your idea, but from what you've described, I think you'd have a lot of work even if you had a team of 10 or more involved. Doing it with just 2-3 people will be very challenging! Good luck to you and I hope to see your game some time in 2011!
From my experience: my partner has been coding, in just about every language available, primarily as his work for 10+ years. We just released a game, which does push the graphical limits, and uses the touch system pretty uniquely. It took him, by himself, with ten years of coding experience under his belt, 8 months to produce. this was not all full time, as it was infeasible to "quit the day job". He did have a graphic designer on board as well. I would say that you are being incredibly optimistic, and maybe a little naive, to think that you can do what you want in six months, unless you have a team and/or quit your day job (which I wouldn't recommend doing just yet). Having said that, I encourage you to follow your dream and learn as much as you can. Definitely having a team, and/or a mentor to help with the development, would help. Good luck to you!
I would also add to this, maybe make your first game a simple one? Just to test what it takes to make even a simplest game and I guarantee you, you'll be surprised how much effort it required. The way you described your game idea it sounds huge and because you have no experience is probably doomed to fail, I'm afraid.
I'm not planning a six month development process for the game. I'm trying to get recommendations on what to read, watch, etc. to learn the most necessary in six months, mainly just learning the Unity Engine very well to go from no coding knowledge to knowing one engine to the point that I can push the engine's limits. I will have at least one graphic designer and animator, and I've realized that it isn't completely feasible for me to learn that area to a good extent. I do want to learn some things in that area mainly for optimization, though.
Hmm Alright, I'm gonna be honest with you. Every one of us has an AMAZING game idea in our heads that we want to make some day. If you try to make your game right now, you WILL FAIL. If you work hard enough, you will EVENTUALLY be capable of to making it, but not yet! You're trying to start at the end. You've gotta start at the beginning. Sure, do it with Unity if you want, but the small things have to come before the big things. Make a pong clone. Make a breakout game. Make a space shooter. Make a platformer, and then make a few more games. At that point you can re-evaluate and see if you think you're good enough to make your dream game. I'm not trying to be mean, I just want to give you a bit of a reality check to make sure that you don't waste your own time. If you go about this the right way, you will do it! And if you think I'm crazy, or that I just don't understand how good your game is, consider that this happens in EVERY creative profession. Avatar was James Cameron's dream movie, but it definitely wasn't the first one he made! And I highly recommend you check out this video of Ira Glass(a radio host), whose advice applies to just about any creative profession: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hidvElQ0xE
I know a lot of people that have stupid ideas that would just end up sucking as games. I am actually writing full scripts for the game's many episodes. I do understand what you're saying. I'm trying to take it from the beginning, and I did state in a previous post that I would make a few games that wouldn't be released before even starting alpha development of this game, and I would completely start over if I was able to do a lot more by spending more time learning while developing.. I am just trying to find the best way to start from that other App Store developers recommend from their experience. Then, when I am confident in my programming ability, I will get a team together.
Again, I'm saying this from my own personal experience so that you don't waste your own time. - A GOOD or even AMAZING game idea doesn't matter if the EXECUTION sucks - EVERYONE has BAD execution the first few games they make - If you make games only up to the alpha stage you'll miss out on some of the HARDEST but most REWARDING parts of game development. The last 10% of the game takes 80% of the work. - No developer is EVER going to work with you for just a percentage of the profits. Why? Because every developer has their own AMAZING game they'd be working on if they had the time. - A good script can make for a good movie or novel, not a good game. A good story is just the icing on top of good mechanics(gameplay) and visuals. It sounds to me like you might be better off learning something like Flash to animate and present your stories to people if you think that's key to your game. Yes, a game can be a good medium to tell a story, but there's SO MUCH more work to games before you can ever get to that point.
I definitely wouldn't use just regular 2D flash animation for this particular story, or really anything I write. There will be a lot of gameplay components as well as an engaging story that some people will really appreciate being combined together, especially on a platform like the iPhone. I don't want another programmer to be the lead programmer, if there are more than one for the first game, I'm trying to learn myself. Being the critic that I am, I would never release anything without the execution being 110%, and I do know what a game needs to reach that. I'm trying to get advice where to start learning to become a programmer that can fluently use Unity, no matter how long that does take, then begin development when I'm completely confident with my programming ability.
Alright well, if you're determined then go for it! If you wanna get good at programming, you're gonna have to be a self-motivated learner. Don't be a copy-and-paster. Take it a little bit a time, use Google, and do tests with every little thing you learn over and over until you're sure you get it. A really solid of the basics will make the rest SO much easier. That being said, you can check out the Unity docs here: http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/ I'd suggest watching a few of these videos just to get familiar with the interface: http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/video/ I'm not gonna lie to you though dude, I wish you the best, but I just don't want you to end up like this guy: http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=14806 He thought he had made an amazing and epic game, but it ended up being... well, awful.
I wish I had such a big brains to be able to go from non programmer to programmer who's able to push boundaries of a game engine in 6 months. I wish you good luck though, it's good to have big dreams, problem is - can you turn them in to reality?
I'm only trying to learn as much as I can in six months. Then, I'll start real development when my programming ability is up to the level that I need. I can definitely distinguish between what works well as both story elements and game elements, so don't expect anything less if it actually hits development.
Thanks for the link, it was a good read. And remember, that took him five years to do on his own. To the original poster, I would recommend starting with a couple of simple games. It does sound like a huge game to me, and I wouldn't recommend it being your first project. And if you haven't done a game before, I would multiply your estimations with 5. Trust me. For comparison, Labyrinth 2 took about 9 months for 1-5 talented programmers to do, which would be around 35 man months I guess. Re-do the classics. They are a good way of learning to program. Do Pong, do a worm game, do Tetris, do Space Invaders etc. And 3D is a whole other deal than doing 2D. I don't know how much linear algebra you know, but I'd recommend you pick up a book or take a class if you are serious about doing a game in 3D. (I haven't used Unity so I don't know how much help you get or how limited you are by using an engine like Unity)
Use the six months to learn Visual Basic, and some intro to general programing logic, like the rest of us.
I won't make any suggestions as to what you should do, but I will tell you my Unity3D story, as quickly as possible I've always made games as a hobby so I have some programming experience. Intermediate I guess. I picked up the demo (now free) version of Unity and played with it. Watched a few tutorial videos, and did a few other tuts. You will spend A LOT of time on the Unity developer forum searching, and sometimes asking, for help. It's where I learned most of my stuff. The people there are great. Anyways, I started making my first game. It went slowly as I learned the engine and the scripting involved. I already had graphic and some 3D experience too. Things went smoothly, but the game started to get a little "bigger" than I inititally intended. Problem is that it ran kinda slow...barely over 20 FPS. I also realized it would take many more months to complete. Every programming "move" I would make was slow. I would get frustrated..."NOW what's wrong!? Why isn't this working?" Every step was a learning experience. Then one night I had a MUCH better idea for a game. After a few days, I set my project aside and started on the new game (which should be released within a month from now!). It was a tough decision. The reasons for the switch: - The new game was simpler to build and would be a 1-2 dollar game. - I figured a simple game would be a better way to get my foot into the iTunes store. - The game is more fun and unique and has more possibility of appealing to a wide audience. - I want to build a name for myself. It's better to release a good simple game than a huge yet inferior game. If your first game sucks it will be hard to convince people to buy your next one. While designing this new game I discovered that my coding had improved and the game ran faster! I learned a lot from the first project and was able to apply it to the new one. In short, I made the correct decision. Someone mentioned the last 10% of the game is the most time consuming, and that is a fair assessment. Making menus (OMG!), all the UI stuff, optimizing code. It is a lot of work! But the second time around was MUCH easier than the first, and the game was built a lot better as well. Okay I guess I'll stop now. Good luck!
I would strongly advice against learning Visual Basic if he's interested in doing games, he's better off with C/C++/ObjC/Java.
