Beginning iPhone Games Development
iPhone games are hot! Just look at the numbers. Games make up over 25 percent of total apps and over 70 percent of the most popular apps. Surprised? Of course not! Most of us have filled our iPhone or iPod touch with games, and many of us hope to develop the next best-selling, most talked-about game. You’ve probably already read and mastered Beginning iPhone 3 Development; Exploring the iPhone SDK, the best-selling, the second edition of Apress’s highly acclaimed introduction to the iPhon
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Price: $ 22.35
Follow my blog at: www.sorryifthismakessense.tumblr.com Twitter: twoand2makes5 Sorting through the 6000+ games one in the iTunes App store one by one is a tedious and frustrating process. With literally every single genre of game represented, lite or full versions offered and thousands of copycat @#$%les, who has the time to play them all? Well, not me. I actually have a life. I have played a lot of the games in the App store, though and lucky for you I’ve made a list. These games are the cream of the crop, according to yours truly. Here is my “Top 7 iPhone Games You Need To Play.” Why 7? Because I said so. Check out my other reviews at Kokugamer.com. 7. Wolfenstein 3D 6. 1112 5. Rise of Lost Empires 4. Hero of Sparta 3. Zenonia 2. Let’s Golf 1. Rolando
Video Rating: 4 / 5
A Great Way to Save Money on iPhone Gaming
With the rise of users of Apple’s iPhone, more and more software developers are making really cool games for your mobile on the road. It is said that iphone gaming will rule over the world (of gaming at least), and software developers are responding to such calling. Plug in the iPhone and you are good to go, being on the road should will not be boring that is for sure.
It is one of the great ways to save money to be involved in this because you can still enjoy cool games and graphics with a portion of the cost as compared to other gaming platforms such as Sony and Nintendo. With being more practical with money nowadays a must, the iPhone gaming era is worth considering.
With all of the many game developers out there for the iPhone, you can get any game that tickles your fancy, from puzzles to rpg games and the list goes on. But if your the type of person who wants to have “bang for the buck” games on iPhone gaming without compromising the fun and excitement, here is a trick that you can do.
Independent software developers launching new exciting games and concepts are the thing to watch out. They opt to launch unique and new games that may bring the iPhone gaming era to a whole new level. Buying ot testing games from them will give you the first hand experience of what is it to come with the future of iPhone gaming.
The good thing about this is that when they launch, you can either have it for free as a tester or for a cheaper price than the iPhone app store, or many have many bonuses. But do not let the price fool you, it is cheap because they are in the launching stage, but may even be cooler and more exciting than more costly games out there.
Many people are doing this not only to save some money, but also to see the promise of the future of iPhone gaming, the independent developers.
Saving money and gaming often do not usually come along, but with the launch of many independent software developers out there such as Beteo Games (http://www.beteogames.com), this will definitely sell out. Do not be left behind on the future of gaming, with the with the promise of the future, you are sure to go for more iPhone gaming fun with a portion of the app store.
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The 16 best iPhone games of 2009
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Long BART rides, delayed CalTrains, long waits in the line at Ritual… my iPhone has kept me going. Here is a list of (in no particular order) of my top 16 iPhone games of the last year:
Tower Madness- (iTunes) My favorite tower defense for the iPhone since Fieldrunners. Although most known for it’s use of an interesting 3D camera views, but what made Tower Madness my most played game of the year was it’s constantly updating content. The developers maintained about two new free maps a month.
Sentinel 2- (iTunes) Although I usually prefer free form tower defense games over ones on rails, Sentinel 2 is a masterpiece. Every level looks beautiful and is a blast to play. My only complaint was lack of updates… perhaps some extra dlc levels or weapons would keep me playing to this day.
Sentinel- (iTunes) Every bit as good as Sentinel. Like S2, Sentinel is a tower defense game on rails.
Robocalypse- (iTunes) If you are looking for a good real time strategy (a’la Starcraft) Robocalypse is one of the best for the iPhone. Not only did they nail the controls, the writing, humor, and art throughout the game are surprisingly well done (though a little long).
Blimp- (iTunes) I used to think any game that used the accelerometer as it’s primary means of control would be terrible… but then I played Blimp and my mind has totally been changed. Blimp is a Choplifter/Fort Apacolypse style side scroller that requires picking up passengers or cargo and delivering them to other sites while avoiding obstacles. The handcrafted art is great and the constantly changing levels make the game repayable, but what really makes Blimp shine is how well the tilt control works.
Eliss- (iTunes) Every video game system needs a flagship @#$%le… a game that is so strong and so perfect for that device, that you need to beg/borrow/steal one of those devices just to play it. Eliss is to the iPhone what Tetris was for the Gameboy. The perfect casual game for touchscreens and a great way to kill time.
Samurai- (iTunes) Samurai is a clever top down adventure game that uses a minimal control scheme to great effect. There is no d-pad or "kick" @#$%on, all the interaction comes from using one motion to point or make simple swipe motions. It really needs to be played to be understood. It should also be noted this game has a gorgeous art style.
Galcon Labs- (iTunes) Not much to say about this. Everyone loves Galcon. This is the same great game, but with more more more.
DrawRace- (iTunes) A truly original casual game that’s great to play with nearby friends. The game uses a drawing mechanic that is usually used for time management games (like Flight Control). Each contestant draws a path on the course for their car to go and sets their cars speed by how fast they draw. What really made me love this game was the pass to play feature. It’s great for bus rides with my girlfriend, but it would be cool to have added multiplayer options like bluetoof or online.
Boggle- (iTunes) Let me start off by saying EA really @#$%ped this game out. It’s got bugs, missing features, and can be difficult to navigate.. but as far as the actually gameplay goes, they totally nailed it. Boggle is even more fun to play on the iPhone than on an actual game board. This game got tons of play on BART rides because of it’s awesome pass to play feature. Other iPhone games, such as the popular Words With Friends, should definitely take note of how well pass to play can work.
IsoWords- (iTunes) A great twist on Boggle. Each letter can only be used up to 3 times before the block disappears, thus encouraging players to be frugal with their letters, while still trying to knock out tons of words. Fun for 1 player, but like EA’s Boggle, the "pass to play" feature is what warrants tons and tons of late night word battles.
Soft Freak Fiesta- (iTunes) The most fun uber-short gameplay, perfect for playing over bluetoof with nearby friends. The core gameplay is a twist on marbles. Set the direction and velocity for your "marbles" then wait to see how it plays out.
Minigore- (iTunes) The best looking dual stick shooter for the iPhone. This game is uber-stylish, but can get a little repetitive… but for some reason I keep playing it anyways. More levels, or variations, would be nice, but the developers are slowly rolling out various tweaks.
Horror Racing- (iTunes) An addictive top down racing game with monsters, missiles, and landmines. Like an updated version of the classic Ironman Super Off Road.
Shift- (iTunes) A platform styled puzzle game. By hitting the "shift" @#$%on the world flips upside down and everything that used to be open space is now solid. Shift was originally released as a free flash game, but the controls and portability are perfect fits with the game.
MinMe- (iTunes) Originally created as part of the Experimental Gameplay Projects "Bare Minimum" theme, MinMe is an addictive puzzle game that works great on a touch screen. The basic levels are a bit too easy to figure out, but they guide you into the gameplay well… and luckily the developer has added level expansion packs through dlc that are totally worth an extra buck (for about 30 levels I think ).
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Review by E. Kim for Beginning iPhone Games Development
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INTRODUCTION
Last year, I had gone through Stephan Kochan’s excellent Objective-C 2.0 book and then followed that with the other Apress beginner’s book on the iPhone SDK (by Mark and LaMarche). I became comfortable developing apps that utilized the UIKit using the standard tab bar controllers, navigation controllers, UITableviews, etc, but wanted to venture into game development. There were very few books on the subject, and the reviews of the very few other books (which also only became available recently) were terrible. I suppose I had high hopes for this book based on the Apress Mark and LaMarche beginner’s book.
CHAPTERS
Here’s a list of chapters, since I didn’t find this listed in the Amazon description:
01 pg 001 A Revolutionary Gaming Platform: Games for Everyone, Anytime, Anywhere
02 pg 013 Developing iPhone Games: Peeking Inside the iPhone Toolbox
03 pg 021 Moving Images on a Small Screen –UIKit Controls
04 pg 079 She Shoots, She Hits, She Scores!
05 pg 137 Flipping Out and Sweeping Away with Core Animation
06 pg 161 OpenGL Basics: Wrapping Your Head Around the OpenGL API
07 pg 203 Putting It Together: Making a Game in OpenGL
08 pg 261 The Next Steps: Atlases, Sprites, and Particles–Oh My!
09 pg 315 Introduction to Core Audio
10 pg 353 Making Noise with OpenAL
11 pg 423 3D Audio–Turning Noise into Game Sounds
12 pg 463 Streaming: Thumping, Pulse-Quickening Game Excitement
13 pg 537 Networking for iPhone Games: Introduction
14 pg 543 Going Head to Head
15 pg 583 Party Time
16 pg 637 Connecting with the Outside World
17 pg 649 Putting It All Together: Now Comes the Fun Part
I’m currently on chapter 6 and can say that this book’s more than adequate for somebody of my beginning level. Nevertheless, there are some definite negatives that I noticed so far.
CONS
1. The text has the familiar format of taking the reader through the development of a single app (an Asteroids-like game). There are times in which the author(s) really hand-hold and explain every line of code, and then there are other times in which the authors will inform the reader of what code was added to the app, but gloss over any explanations. You may be thinking that perhaps the authors assumed some of the added code should be obvious to even beginners, however, the code they do not provide explanations of are not anything that a beginner or maybe even intermediate-level (non-gaming) programmer would know. Sometimes, the author will just say something like “If it sounded really confusing, don’t worry, it is!” and just basically tell us to accept the code and don’t worry about how it works. I got the feeling that the author(s) for some of the chapters truly do not know themselves or understand portions of their code expertly.
2. Although I do indeed remember the fundamentals of linear algebra, having taken a course on it in the past, the authors make little effort at explaining anything about transformational matrices to those who may know less than me. They use transformational matrices, of course, but I got the distinct impression that the author(s) themselves had no real idea of the fundamental principles behind the use of transformational matrices. Yes, I understand that the APIs do provide some level of abstraction, but they are still low-level enough that the reader should be given some general review of what transformational matrices do and look like mathematically. The APIs do not provide tremendous abstraction.
3. There is a moderate number of errors and you must use their website for the errata. Some of the errors are not obvious to catch. As an example, a previously used class is later subclassed, but the subclass assumes methods exist in the parent class which the text omitted when first describing the parent class previously. This may surprise you, but I don’t find this too objectionable. The Mark and LaMarche beginning iPhone SDK book (first edition) was plagued with errors, too.
PROS
1. It’s probably the only decent book out there for iPhone game development for beginners based on the lousy reviews of the two other books on Amazon.
2. Seems to have a lot of information on sounds, which I hadn’t seen in other books or blogs regarding game development.
3. It’s very comprehensive. Please see the earlier chapter listing.
4. You can buy the PDF version for $10 from the Apress website. You are given a certain amount of time to answer a question from the website about the book and if you succeed (proving that you own the book) they will send you a full book version in PDF for $10.
CONCLUSION
Like some of the other reviewers have commented, this book has frustrating moments, is uneven in its chosen level of hand-holding throughout the development of the Asteroid app, and has some difficult to spot errors, however, I still like it a lot. It’s good enough and you have to give the authors a lot of credit for at least making a book for beginning game developers. I never expect a book to be the “bible” of its subject. It will allow me to throw away the book once I read it and move on to Apple’s documentation and excellent blogs, like Matt Gallagher’s excellent Cocoa with Love and forums like Apple’s developer forums, the iPhone/iPad forum of the MacRumors website, and iPhoneDevSDK.
I will of course update this review as I finish reading it (on my iPad using the PDF).
Review by R. Worsfold for Beginning iPhone Games Development
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I am nearing the end of the 4th chapter of the book and I had to get on amazon to review this because I am so frustrated. This would have been a great book except the code examples are littered with typos and mistakes that will prevent your code from compiling if you are following along. I am new to Objective C programming and i was literally spent an hour trying to figure out why my code wouldn’t compile just to realize the book made a mistake. I mean i’m only on chapter 4 and it is driving me crazy.
a few examples:
p129 it tells you to import “TextView.h” when it should say “TextSprite.h”
p121 where it tells you to use mario.jpg instead of mario.png (included in their source files) but this file looks nothing like their example and i assume they really meant to use the included file called walk.png.
p106 it reads CGFloat vectorScale;7
Review by F. Ng for Beginning iPhone Games Development
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I am new to game development but not on obj-C and C. If you know obj-c pretty well this is a good game development for you. I haven’t finished reading the book yet. I am on chapter 7. I like it that it doesn’t just tell you how the SDK works. It shows you how to use Quart2d, OpenGL ES, OpenAL with examples. For example, the Asteroids game project was really fun. There are some errors, typos in the book but you can go to their support forum for help. They are very helpful at explaining if you have questions. I would love to see a sequel.
Review by George A. Walker for Beginning iPhone Games Development
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This is a programming book. Little margin for error. To Many Mistakes. Just in the first 100 pages there are major screw ups. I was so looking forward to this book. There are websites on-line where people have found the same mistakes. Here is a error from page 100.
-(void)updateBox
{
CGSize bsize = box.size;
bsize.width = width;
bsize.height = height;
box.size = bsize;
}
5 lines of code. This is to much to leave out. This is just one of the many errors. They left out this entire line. How would somebody know?
Random “#” sign on page 100 too. A radom “7″ hanging out on page 106
Review by Reader for Beginning iPhone Games Development
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This book is a fantastic collection of detailed code examples for getting all kinds of stuff done in game programming. I had been shying away from the more complex (OpenGL ES) game development myself but this really opens the door now. It is going to jump-start some project ideas I had. The book is worth it just for the audio and OpenGL ES coverage alone, but it also has a complete game that is developed throughout the book, and it’s awesome! Note, as with ANY technical book, it’s always good to check the errata page especially for a cutting edge book like this. As to the other reviewer who mentioned mistakes, I would take that review with a grain of salt – maybe a rival author, because they haven’t reported any of the “mistakes” they claim to have found on the errata page (at [...]). This is a really thick and heavy book, super dense, with great explanations of the topics, and solutions you can use right away. Sweet book, I am very glad to own it.
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