Filed under: Gaming, Software, Freeware, Developer, iPhone, App Store, SDK
Gamesalad aiming to bring their development system to the iPhone
Here's yet another interesting take on the burgeoning App Store environment. A company called Gendai Games has a game creator IDE/app called Gamesalad, designed to let you put together rapid prototype-style games for the Mac. They've been doing this for a while, and they even let you export your games out to the 'net using an online portal. But here's the kicker: they're also planning to let you take those games right out to the iPhone. Their roadmap page talks about downloading to a test iPhone straight from a Mac, but presumably, they'd either have their own app on the App Store in which you could play your games, or even output it to some sort of wrapper app that you could then release on the App Store yourself. Their press release says they will allow for games "to be sold and marketed on the App Store," and that seems to us like there's compensation involved somehow, either through their portal, or through Apple's setup.
Very interesting. Unfortunately, most of this is forthcoming -- their development environment is available for a free download right now, so you could start working on creating your masterpiece right away if you want, but you'd have to wait until sometime "in the next few weeks" to see what iPhone features they have planned. Part of the iPhone's draw as a programmer's platform is that it's relatively easy to develop for, and an environment like this promises to make it even easier and more accessible. Whenever you have a low barrier of entry to development, release, and sales, you end up with two things: a market possibly flooded with junk, but on the other end, lots and lots of creativity.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Monte said 5:31PM on 9-03-2009
Great. Get ready for a wave of garbage.
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Kevlar said 5:41PM on 9-03-2009
The problem with making it easier to develop for the iPhone, is that less-skilled people will spend less time making games of lesser quality.
So yes. Wave of garbage.
Anthony said 5:48PM on 9-03-2009
I am pretty sure they're not going to be allowing iPhone app development for free. As long as there's some fee to pay, that should help weed out some of the garbage games. Also all apps have to pass through Apple's own filtering system.
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BeyondtheTech said 6:25PM on 9-03-2009
As a game developer that has been looking for an easier method of creating games on the iPhone, here's hoping that it will be a viable alternative.
I developed "Archangel: Fate of the Galactic Commonwealth" (http://tinyurl.com/archget), but I admit that it was a very trying time with Torque 2D for iPhone. The Torque GDK has been an evolution of programming over the past several years, and that has its pluses and minuses, such as a lack of optimization and a lot of unfinished or unnecessary code.
Seeing that GameSalad was designed from the ground up AND with the iPhone as the eventual final platform for output, they are making sure it's being optimized.
I've been on their beta program forever, but have held back from developing anything major, since they never disclosed any timeframe as to when exporting to iPhone would be available. I hope we're finally coming to the light at the end of this tunnel!
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