GameSalad in the High School Classroom

MrVargas

Hello, I am a high school technology teacher. I am planning on starting a Video Game Development club at my school. I was thinking of using GameSalad to create and publish an iPhone game by the end of year. I had a couple of questions.

What genre's work well within GameSalad's iPhone development environment? I was leaning towards working together to create a Shoot Em Up (SHMUP). Generally, where would you say the development of Shoot Em Up's fall in degree of difficulty?

My students seem to be more interested in making a platformer, but from some past experience I've had in game development they seem to be more difficult to develop, not to mention that I haven't seen to many successful iPhone platformers. Am I correct in that assumption.

We have PhotoShop and GarageBand installed on our computers, would you say that satisfies our audio/visual needs?

Any other thoughts or advice? Thanks in advance

ktfright

A shmup is a good way to start. They are fairly easy to make. Photoshop and Garageband is a big plus.

JCFord

There are many teaching environments that already use Game Salad as a platform for learning, have a look in the games sections there are plenty of demos.