New to APPLE world. I need your opinions.

Imperium

Hello everyone,

I am new to the cummunity, I am new to the Apple world. Let me describe a little background of myself. I always

wanted to have a carreer in Gaming industry, however, somewhere along the line I had to change the direction a little. I have been in Software develompment (Embedded system to be exact). After, researching on gaming apps, I

decided to give it a try. This is my questions for you:

1) As for the Hardware, It seems like I can only afford either, Mac Mini or MacBook Air. I was thinking to hook up

Macbook air to my big screen TV. This way also I can take my Macbook air wherever I want to. But it seems like the

Mac Mini has a better specs. What would you suggest? Should I also get iMac?

2) Gamesalad vs. Build from scratch. I really wonder how far ahead GS gives you as for development. I think there are some codes from Apple that you can modify. Do you think GS is better compare to program it from scratch?

3) From what I understand, GS would make it easier for you to develope games as it will allow you to drag and drop. Does GS actually give you the freedom to code it yourself?

4) I have head people actually have to restart GS as it actually crashes often. How does this effect your development?

I apologize for the ignorance and if the qeustions have been asked before. Your answers, opinions and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Imperium

scitunes

I love having a laptop that I hook up to my tv via hdmi

GS is free so give it a try and see for yourself. If you don't like it no big deal. you'll find the folks on this forum to be very helpful. there are also a ton of great youtube videos by tshirtbooth and others.

You will find that GS is a bit limiting but has an extremely fast development time. You can create a game in GS in a fraction of the time that it would take in Xcode.

yes it slows down a lot due to a number of small memory leaks that add up to a significant slow down. The gs guys say they are working hard on this (I believe them).

I say go for it - I thin you'll love it.

oh, and welcome!

jonmulcahy

1. I develop on the road using an 11" macbook air with 4GB of ram and it's wonderful. that's a huge perk over the mini.

2. I tried coding from scratch once, in the time it took me to start displaying text on the screen and playing music, I had almost finished an entire game using gamesalad (http://gamesalad.com/blog/2009/11/12/interview-with-z-is-for-zombie-creator-jonathan-mulcahy/)

3. GS does not allow you to code in the backend, it's a closed system. It has it's limitations, but it's also VERY powerful if you know what you're doing.

4. It's a pain, but after a week you get used to it. every release is a little better. I restart about every 10-20 minutes depending on the project, and it just reminds me to save save save!

Imperium

scitunes said:
I love having a laptop that I hook up to my tv via hdmi

GS is free so give it a try and see for yourself. If you don't like it no big deal. you'll find the folks on this forum to be very helpful. there are also a ton of great youtube videos by tshirtbooth and others.

You will find that GS is a bit limiting but has an extremely fast development time. You can create a game in GS in a fraction of the time that it would take in Xcode.

yes it slows down a lot due to a number of small memory leaks that add up to a significant slow down. The gs guys say they are working hard on this (I believe them).

I say go for it - I thin you'll love it.

oh, and welcome!

Thank you for the response, I really appreciate it. I am glad that I can use bigger screen with laptop. Ouchh...memory leaks...yikes. Yes, sir, I will give it a try soon. Thank you for the welcome.

jonmulcahy said:
1. I develop on the road using an 11" macbook air with 4GB of ram and it's wonderful. that's a huge perk over the mini.

2. I tried coding from scratch once, in the time it took me to start displaying text on the screen and playing music, I had almost finished an entire game using gamesalad (http://gamesalad.com/blog/2009/11/12/interview-with-z-is-for-zombie-creator-jonathan-mulcahy/)

3. GS does not allow you to code in the backend, it's a closed system. It has it's limitations, but it's also VERY powerful if you know what you're doing.

4. It's a pain, but after a week you get used to it. every release is a little better. I restart about every 10-20 minutes depending on the project, and it just reminds me to save save save!

Thank you for your response, Sir. Hmmmm...Yes, that would be awesome that it's handy and you could develop anywhere. However, I heard about the screen being too small for displaying GS. How do you handle that in 11" screen.

Wow, I could see how GS will be fast. How about those source code from Apple? aren't they also going speed up the development?

That would be a pain indeed where you have to restart every 10 minutes. Specially with my background, that's a NO-NO for a software.

Thank you again.

forklift

I use a MacMini hooked up to the 42" flatscreen, but I admit I would rather have the laptop because I am mobile so much and go out to test on various machines.

HoneyTribeStudios

Being able to quickly bring your ideas to life feels great - that's why I like GS. I've been using it for a couple months now and should have my first game finished in a few weeks. I made loads of small demos in a matter of hours and days before deciding on which to go with for a full game.

Before starting to make anything I read through the forums quite a lot so I'd know what to avoid doing. Knowing what the engine can and can't do is good to know before you start trying to make Halo for the iphone!

The community on the forums is nice too. I quite like reading through the posts as short breaks while I'm working on my game.

I use a 13" macbook - it seemed like the best option for portability and price. Not had any problems with it at all.

Imperium

Thank you Forklift and Shaz. I appreciate your suggestions and answers. Now, how does that 13" view affects the big screen? any difference? I guess more space?

mayakovski

Welcome;

I am currently using a borrowed iMac (about 3 years old) with 2GB RAM and an old dual core CPU, it works great. I love the big (21.5") screen and cannot imagine using a smaller screen, especially as you cannot change any of the scaling or display in GS.

As for GS as jonmulcahy noted, learning Objective C is not for the faint of heart. I tried to learn it and same as him, the time it took to just get a button to pull up text was almost as long as getting a LOT done in GS.

Just remember, save often ("Command S" is your best friend), restart frequently and you'll be fine.

Have Fun

Maya

lagunacomputer

im developing on a dell 4700 running osx86 10.6.3. runs sdk 4.1 no problem. Buy a copy of macos from apple, and then you can cut out alot of dev hardware costs by doing it on your 'pc'.

of course you will have to get the pc running with osx86 and sound and video and network drivers which can be a pain.

i also have an iphone 4, which is mandatory that you have an iphone to test on, or you wont get too far.

PIXOMUSE

'i also have an iphone 4, which is mandatory that you have an iphone to test on, or you wont get too far.'

Or an ipod Touch 4 ! That's what I have anyway.

patm1982

If your already skilled at programing I would recommend a game engine that has a scripting language. One of the nice things about GS is you don't have to know a whole lot of programing, but also theres a lot of limitations on what you can do. So I guess it depends on the kind of projects your interested in creating and how much control you want. For me GS is great, I understand a lot of the concepts of programing, but I can focus on the art & level design.

as far as the computer goes. you can always hook in a secondary display. The only issue you might run into with the macbook air, is that its a solid state drive, so the HD sizes will be kinda small. I might look into a a slightly used macbook Pro with a 15' monitor if your worried about screen size.

something else to consider with iphone. I'm actually testing on a 3rd gen touch. My thinking behind it is there are still a ton of iphone users who haven't bought a new iphone, and I want my game to still work for them. Because their is quite of a speed difference. And the graphics will automatically adjust for the retina display as long as you have the resolution big enough on the images.

gazjm

I had the same thoughts about the 13inch screen, so I opted for a 2 year old 15inch MacBook pro SR from eBay. could be worth a look on there.

hackmodford

If you want portability I would go for a regular macbook instead of the air.
The macbook 13" is cheaper (I think) and has better specs.

I upgraded my ram to 4GB
Also I have to restart gamesalad about every 20 minutes (but it is in beta so I accept it for now)
So far the biggest limitation I've run across in gamesalad is no arrays. ugggghhh...

I suggest you download it and give it a try

butterbean

I would suggest an iMac all the way if portability isn't an issue for you. I have a Macbook Pro 17" and an iMac, and the Macbook Pro hasn't seen the light of day since I purchased the iMac.