Gamesalad - is it worth it?
Lykke
Member Posts: 174
First of all - hello 
I have for a time now played around with some iphone ideas and thought 'why not try it out for real'. I stepped over Gamesalad and became more eager to try, since this seems to incredible easy.
My biggest concern is, that I have to buy a mac or macbook to be able to run Gamesalad - but mostly my concern is about the money it would cost me, not concerned about using the mac, since I work with graphics and have for years, I also use to work on mac and loved it.
BUT again, it's a lot of money invested. Without saying if I could make a good game or not, what re your experiences. Was it worth it for YOU?
Thanks a bunch
Lykke
I have for a time now played around with some iphone ideas and thought 'why not try it out for real'. I stepped over Gamesalad and became more eager to try, since this seems to incredible easy.
My biggest concern is, that I have to buy a mac or macbook to be able to run Gamesalad - but mostly my concern is about the money it would cost me, not concerned about using the mac, since I work with graphics and have for years, I also use to work on mac and loved it.
BUT again, it's a lot of money invested. Without saying if I could make a good game or not, what re your experiences. Was it worth it for YOU?
Thanks a bunch
Lykke
Comments
Last christmas (most recent)
I first wanted a 50inch led samsung tv. Goes nice with my XBOX(for all you ps3 fans)
I then saw that making apps is a simpler way to make money than spend my hard earned hours mowing my neighbors lawn. So I changed my christmas list from tv, clothes, ect.
to just
Imac. lol
I wouldn't have asked for it if my moms macbook would have ran GS. but it didn't. So I took the whim on GS. and I LOVE it. About to release my first game, and just as a hobby, this mac is well worth the money. If you make a decent game, you can EASILY earn the money back.
I saw go for it:)
just my 2 cents
In total my first three games to date (2.5 months) have made me about $29. So not much of a success story, but I mean GS is such a fun and fruitful tool, I just do it to relax now.
I am still just a member (now cool 'pro' title in front yet), but I plan to become pro soon!
OHH !!! and I hear that the update coming out soon will have fixed the memory leak. Something everyone would agree to being worth the membership.
Can you really do this without ANY coding skills?
I have Adobe on my pc, and was thinking of just file-sharing to mac on a server. Would that be possible, you think? (have a server already for my forums/designs/creations).
outasite, any links to your game(s)? And Dreamlab - the same, if possible?
Would love to see what kind of games are made in GS and follow your progressing!
Thanks
and yes, no coding skills needed. Although some math skills may be required for some expressions. but you will learn all about that. its all drag and drop. What you need to learn is attributes and linking them with other actors.
still working on my first game, but it will be done soon. Will show you when I can:)
Ok, more hooked on investing in that mac now.
You will never think your sorry.
There is indeed no coding involved.
But it does take a lot of logic. It's more like scripting in a graphical interface.
With all the help you get here you will probably figure it out.
Give it a go. What do you have to lose?
Lump Apps and My Assets
Lump Apps and My Assets
60 hour plus a week for 3 months
hours more thought
15+ prototypes of different ideas and quality.
A little frustration with the tool but vastly more delight (and some wishful listing of wants)
a lot of satisfaction from the experience.
A couple of new friendships and a new alliance with someone to work with.
...about 6 serious possible projects I think could work/sell.
we shall see
Links:
First Game -> Button Smashing
Second Game -> Spun Out
Third Game (mix of the two) -> Purple Nurple
All three are free, feel free to grab them.
Ace
Thank you
99 apple
500 mac
_________________________________________________________________________________
GameSalad Community Project
Quality Game Making Service
1 On 1 Project Help
Matt
Well I will start out from the beginning brace yourself lol. About 2 in half years ago when the App Store launched I told my finance I was going to buy a Mac so I could try my hand at making games on the iOS devices it's always been a dream of mine to make video games ever since I could remember when I first got my iMac I was so confused I had never used an Apple computer before now I love Apple computers. Don't get me wrong I build my own PC which will blow any Mac I have right now out of the water but the simplicity of a Mac is just awesome in my opinion. When I started DreamSparks, LLC. it was with one goal in mind to build games for people like me, gamers! since I have only had one app make it into the app store it's called Bottle Cap Facts hasn't done as well as I wanted it too. I have been working on other ideas since. I purchased GameSalad Pro like 2 weeks after I saw it on the internet. I never had a problem buying things because in my opinion if it's worth it then I go for it. I see lot's of promising things in the future for GameSalad so I am sticking with it. I wish I could code in Xcode but theres lots of things that I can do that others can't as well so it doesn't bother me as much. Hopefully you enjoy your new Mac and GameSalad and good luck with your apps.
I am used to mac and I wasn't that difficult to convince, since I love mac and loved to work on it back in time. I was more concerned if I'm only using mac for GS then it's an expensive toy (of course I believe in making something good enough to pay it back :P )
I do believe this is the first time in a job I work (as a marketing manager) in adobe programs on a pc. I do that at home too, but normally my graphic works have been done on macs. So it's nice to know both the good and bad sides of both worlds.
There's always ideas, lots of them lol - the thing is to make them and hope that others find them great too. Practice, practice, practice - that's what I believe in - and believe in what you're doing too. One day you might hit the nail!
Best of luck in your adventures ^^
Yes it's worth it, especially if you're dedicated to making a good game. The experience alone is worth it IMO.
You can get a used Mac Mini pretty cheap off eBay and just use whatever current monitor/keyboard/mouse setup you have with your PC. The fortunate thing is, GameSalad doesn't require a whole lot of horsepower to run. I think the only requirements are the 10.4 OS and that it has an Intel processor.
As far as file sharing goes, I just do all the art on my PC and save everything in a shared folder. You can access a shared windows folder though your Mac going through the Finder/Go/Connect to Server
the URL is something like smb://YOURPCNAME/SHAREDFOLDERNAME
Boom, you're on your PC. Works for me, might work for you.
Hope that helps.
I documented my switch from Windows PC (with Adobe Creative Suite), to Mac (with Pixelmator).
Windows PC to Mac Mini – The Single Desktop Quest
http://photics.com/windows-pc-to-mac-mini-the-single-desktop-quest
One Week Later – How’s Mac Life?
http://photics.com/one-week-later-hows-mac-life
Pixelmator – A Successful Alternative to Adobe Photoshop
http://photics.com/pixelmator-a-successful-alternative-to-adobe-photoshop
Long story short, I rarely even turn on my Windows PC anymore.
I was able to make my first game...
http://photics.com/photics-revisions-course-correction-can-it-be-done
...but BOT is far better than that. HA!
I've been using GameSalad for about a year. It was so easy for me to use, I wrote and published a textbook approximately six months after my first GameSalad game.
I think GameSalad is great!
What I did so far:
1) Invested in an iMac
2) Installed (took 5 min .. hurray for mac :P )
3) Downloaded GameSalad
4) Downloaded Dropbox on both pc and mac
5) Made icons, FP, Intro and background in Photoshop and Illustrator
6) Dropped them into Dropbox, grabed them on mac and filled my new game with them.
7) Inbetween reading up a lot of tutorials :P
Incredibly how fast time flies by when you're having fun haha ...
Any other things I should be very much aware of? I'm struggling a little with the movements now - but I'm sure I will get a hang of it if I only practice ...
This is so much fun ^^
Ace