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Why not an Android app instead? To develop an iPhone game you need a relatively modern Apple desktop/laptop (at most 2 year old if you plan to run xcode 4.5, t

Why not an Android app instead? To develop an iPhone game you need a relatively modern Apple desktop/laptop (at most 2 year old if you plan to run xcode 4.5, thus fairly expensive) and an iOS device (the cheapest you could go would likely be a 4th gen used iPod, still somewhat expensive) + a yearly $100 license (not sure if this is waived for students?). You also end up learning a somewhat insular language with a ton of idiosyncrasies (Smalltalk on top of C with a somewhat uncommon take on memory management). I feel like you get a lot more bang for your buck with Java and the ability to develop from any platform out there. An old Ubuntu box will do just fine, or Windows for that matter.

mithras 14y ago
Eclipse is pretty heavy though, and it is my preferred Java/ Android editor.
- akurilin 14y ago
  Could you get away with any of the IntelliJ products instead of Eclipse?
  - biafra 14y ago
    Of course. The Community Edition (free and open source, no field of use restrictions) of IntelliJ IDEA is just fine for Android Application development. You can develop for Android without an IDE at all.
crgt 14y ago
Nothing wrong with Android - lots of good reasons to build Android apps. But...I'm running Xcode 4.5 on a 4 year old MBP (late '08) that still performs like a rockstar. And if you are going to build for Android (and take it seriously) you'd need to invest more than the cost of an iPod Touch to have enough devices to cover fragmentation across screen sizes and manufacturers. And I guess (?) you could call Obj-C insular - but learning it opens the door to deliver experiences to a huge chunk of mobile users. Long way of saying, I'm struggling with your "bang for your buck" argument. Especially if you're hoping to monetize your app. Because the primary ecosystem for that still seems to be iOS. Others seem to agree: http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/25/ios-android-appcelerato/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/25/ios-android-appcelerato/
brianchu 14y ago
MakeGamesWithUs developer here. Your point about the required computer is fairly valid, but you could get away with having a early-2009-generation computer, or with the cheapest Mac mini ($600). If you were truly strapped for cash, an iPhone/iTouch device is not actually necessary given the iOS simulator. And we'd totally be willing to test games on our in-house test devices if a developer doesn't have an actual device. Ashu, the guy who wrote the blog post, actually developed his game before he got his first iPhone. Developers also don't need to worry about the license, as the game is published through us. I'd disagree with your point about Objective-C. Firstly, automatic reference counting (ARC) mostly eliminates the burden of memory management. Also, learning the language is a requirement if you're at all serious about getting into mobile game development or mobile development in general. Any serious mobile app/game on the market HAS to have an iOS version. While Android certainly has greater market share than the iOS, the fact is that Android has lots of device/OS version fragmentation. Greater proportions of iOS users, on the other hand, tend to upgrade their devices. This makes us comfortable enough to drop support for devices older than the iPhone 3GS and not have our developers worry about backwards compatibility (the new iPhone 5 screen is a non-issue). People have also found that despite lower market share, iOS versions of the same game offered on Android usually gross more revenue. That being said, we are definitely moving towards publishing on Android soon.
- mamcx 14y ago
  Is not clear to me if is only on-site, or for anyone in the world...
  - brianchu 14y ago
    Anyone in the world.
    - mamcx 14y ago
      Great! What happend if somebody (me) is already familiar with xcode/obj-c and have created apps but never games?
krichman 14y ago
Take this with a grain of salt because I am surely biased; Objective-C is a great language. I really like the Smalltalk method calling style they've used, and you can still use C to mess with pointers if you know what you are doing. If one learned Objective-C first it shouldn't be that difficult to switch to any other object-oriented language, other than memorizing the order of variables in every method. (Also, retain/release is hardly uncommon and with ARC the programmer can basically act like everything is garbage collected anyway.) That aside, the price of entry to run on iOS is an excellent objection, as is (to some degree) the lack of code portability. I don't know how simple GNUStep is to get running, but it's certainly not as ubiquitous as all the JVMs.
greggman 14y ago
Not only that but you can't share the game with your friends (or can you?) Is there a way for them to install the game without also getting a $100 license? As for Java though, I think kids would do a lot better with JavaScript ;-)
skinnymuch 14y ago
Not the main point, but I just checked and have Xcode 4.5.1 running on an early 2007 MacBook. So about 5.5 years old. Of course that still means a MacBook is needed, just not a recent one.

mithras 14y ago

Eclipse is pretty heavy though, and it is my preferred Java/ Android editor.

akurilin 14y ago
Could you get away with any of the IntelliJ products instead of Eclipse?
- biafra 14y ago
  Of course. The Community Edition (free and open source, no field of use restrictions) of IntelliJ IDEA is just fine for Android Application development. You can develop for Android without an IDE at all.

crgt 14y ago

Nothing wrong with Android - lots of good reasons to build Android apps. But...I'm running Xcode 4.5 on a 4 year old MBP (late '08) that still performs like a rockstar. And if you are going to build for Android (and take it seriously) you'd need to invest more than the cost of an iPod Touch to have enough devices to cover fragmentation across screen sizes and manufacturers. And I guess (?) you could call Obj-C insular - but learning it opens the door to deliver experiences to a huge chunk of mobile users. Long way of saying, I'm struggling with your "bang for your buck" argument. Especially if you're hoping to monetize your app. Because the primary ecosystem for that still seems to be iOS. Others seem to agree: http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/25/ios-android-appcelerato/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/25/ios-android-appcelerato/

brianchu 14y ago

MakeGamesWithUs developer here. Your point about the required computer is fairly valid, but you could get away with having a early-2009-generation computer, or with the cheapest Mac mini ($600). If you were truly strapped for cash, an iPhone/iTouch device is not actually necessary given the iOS simulator. And we'd totally be willing to test games on our in-house test devices if a developer doesn't have an actual device. Ashu, the guy who wrote the blog post, actually developed his game before he got his first iPhone. Developers also don't need to worry about the license, as the game is published through us. I'd disagree with your point about Objective-C. Firstly, automatic reference counting (ARC) mostly eliminates the burden of memory management. Also, learning the language is a requirement if you're at all serious about getting into mobile game development or mobile development in general. Any serious mobile app/game on the market HAS to have an iOS version. While Android certainly has greater market share than the iOS, the fact is that Android has lots of device/OS version fragmentation. Greater proportions of iOS users, on the other hand, tend to upgrade their devices. This makes us comfortable enough to drop support for devices older than the iPhone 3GS and not have our developers worry about backwards compatibility (the new iPhone 5 screen is a non-issue). People have also found that despite lower market share, iOS versions of the same game offered on Android usually gross more revenue. That being said, we are definitely moving towards publishing on Android soon.

mamcx 14y ago
Is not clear to me if is only on-site, or for anyone in the world...
- brianchu 14y ago
  Anyone in the world.
  - mamcx 14y ago
    Great! What happend if somebody (me) is already familiar with xcode/obj-c and have created apps but never games?

krichman 14y ago

Take this with a grain of salt because I am surely biased; Objective-C is a great language. I really like the Smalltalk method calling style they've used, and you can still use C to mess with pointers if you know what you are doing. If one learned Objective-C first it shouldn't be that difficult to switch to any other object-oriented language, other than memorizing the order of variables in every method. (Also, retain/release is hardly uncommon and with ARC the programmer can basically act like everything is garbage collected anyway.) That aside, the price of entry to run on iOS is an excellent objection, as is (to some degree) the lack of code portability. I don't know how simple GNUStep is to get running, but it's certainly not as ubiquitous as all the JVMs.

greggman 14y ago

Not only that but you can't share the game with your friends (or can you?) Is there a way for them to install the game without also getting a $100 license? As for Java though, I think kids would do a lot better with JavaScript ;-)

skinnymuch 14y ago

Not the main point, but I just checked and have Xcode 4.5.1 running on an early 2007 MacBook. So about 5.5 years old. Of course that still means a MacBook is needed, just not a recent one.