Where to Start? Information Overload!

DavidLightman

Hi, All.

I'm new to Game Salad and game creation in general. I've successfully installed GS, poked around here and there, and visited the YouTube Channel and seen the long list of videos. I've watched the first few videos but then the list seems to jump all over the place (in terms of topic names).

What I really need is a roadmap -- some method for tackling GS from the beginning. Most of the forums topics are things I've not yet discovered or figured out.

Does anyone have any suggestions on a proper way to learn GS? I haven't found the tutorials all that helpful (yet), so any suggestions on a plan of attack will be appreciated.

GugsGames

Heya,

I was sort of in the same boat as you. In fact I sort of still am. I started with GameSalad last week and have been slowly finding my way around. I've been through a number of the tutorial vids and also a couple of the wiki how to's.

There are also a couple of tutorials on youtube of 'How to create a game from scratch' with GS.

I've also started loading up the various projects in the GS Creator and having a look at how people have put them together. So that might be a good idea.

Do you have an idea of the type of game you want to make? If you do, then it will be easier to narrow down the type of info to seek out.

Try not to be afraid. We're all in this together.

ultima

cook book videos. that's where you start. look for ones that talks about the type of game you want to make, and go from there, instead of planning to "learn" GameSalad make a roadmap for yourself to design your game first, and when you don't know how to do something come back to the forum or look for tutorial videos or game files within the program "new> search filter"

that's been working for most of us at least.

or you can purchase the "unofficial book" by one of our member.

DavidLightman

I'll hunt down the YouTube tutorials you mention and give them a view.

No, I have no idea what kind of games I'd like to do -- I'm really that much of a novice. I have almost zero programming experience and that's what got my attention with GameSalad.

In one of the very first videos, for example, Tshirtbooth talks about an "actor" and "scenes" but there are no early videos on what these actually are. What seems to be lacking is documentation for the complete novice who knows nothing.

I'll keep digging and playing around, and thank you for responding.

ultima

i feel your pain. try to go through the documentations and learn what each term means..

scene is well scene... think of it as pages in a website if you would.. (well for the most part) you can have a intro scene, level 1 scene, pause scene. etc.

actors - everything inside the scene is an actor. be it text, images, or invisible elements that contains controlling script that tells other actors what to do, or how to react to user input.

Zombiebrains

Yep, have to agree with Ultima on that.

I'm new to this too but now have two app's in the app store...

I started by checking out tshirtbooths cookbook videos on the Gamesalad uTube channel. This are invaluable in my opinion and I have also used this suberb forum which is fully searchable to find all sorts of quewstions and answers.

You can guarentee that if you have a problem then someone here has asked it!

I then just started to play around in the editor and just play around with dropping sprites into the screen and start to get them moving and stuff.

Try doing a splash welcome screen to your app, as this teaches you things like, scrolling backgrounds, fading in and out and adding timers and sound effects/music.

Hope this helps you out a bit

DavidLightman

Thanks, Ultima! I'm working through the CookBook videos now, but most are definitely confusing. If I can't make headway in a week, I'll hunt down this "book."

DavidLightman

It does, Zombiebrains! Thank you!

ultima

make sure you pause the video step by step and actually work on a project file hands on.. otherwise you'll just forget. but ya think about your game while you are watching the videos... something like "oh ya i can do this with that.." that's the biggest issue..
you can learn how to use a wrench but it'll be useless unless you have a project to work on. and unless the project you are working on requires a wrench, a wrench will be useless to you.

Zombiebrains

I also tend to plan scenes out on paper first so that I know what sort of routines and stuff will be needed. As Gamesalad uses scenes in the editor, it easily translates over from your workings out.

List things out on the scenes like, colours, graphics, do I need scrolling?, when to play sound effects and when to kick in the music.

Planning is a great skill to learn as it helps you know in anvance what sort of videos/forum questions to ask and everyone on here is great in helping newbies.

ultima

Planning is a great skill to learn as it helps you know in anvance what sort of videos/forum questions to ask and everyone on here is great in helping newbies.

+1 and in life in general haha.

Zombiebrains

indeed Ultima!