game for smartphones

[Anonymous]

hi folks
I’m studying application development and as part of my course I’ve been asked to build a game for smartphones (iOs and android). I have no idea where to even start as gaming is not covered on the course and there’s no one to get advice from. The game concept is a platform game in which the main character has to jump up on objects to collect medals and avoid moving objects. There will be 8 levels.

here are my questions:

what platform would you use?
can i import the images of the background, character, moving objects etc?
how long(hours) would it take to build if you had limited experience of java, html, xcode and were a total beginner?
how long would it take if you weren’t a beginner?
do you know any good resources/links to tutorials/ documentation anything to help get started or learn more

thanks in advance

[Anonymous]

Hi there welcome to the forum.

what platform would you use?[/quote:cb246e029f]

To make your life easy use either Android or Middleware such as Marmalade or Unity. I don’t recommend Marmalade as if you have device specific problems with it they can be a pain to fix. Nto sure about Unity as I have never used it but I assume the same applies.

Personally, in your position, I would pick one Android device that you have acess to and specifically target the game only to that device. You won’t have time to get it up and running on other devices.

Android is free to set up and works on Mac, PC and Linux and has a decent IDE. iOS you have to have a Mac, pay for a developer licence and use the horrible XCode.

can i import the images of the background, character, moving objects etc?
[/quote:cb246e029f]

Of course.

how long(hours) would it take to build if you had limited experience of java, html, xcode and were a total beginner?
[/quote:cb246e029f]

If you have a lot of learning to do I reckon six months to a year depending on how intensely you study it and how much time you have to study it. Depends how much you like coding too. Also, you’d be wanting to look at Objective C and C++ for iPhone dev.

Xcode will just frustrate you if you are a beginner. It is one of the worst pieces of software I have used in my life.

how long would it take if you weren’t a beginner?
[/quote:cb246e029f]

An experienced team could prototype this in a week of intense work.

do you know any good resources/links to tutorials/ documentation anything to help get started or learn more
[/quote:cb246e029f]

Google Search "Android Tutorials"

OpenGL ES Tutorial for Android

Hope that helps and good luck :)!

[Anonymous]

HI Amethyst
Thanks for your reply. That is sound advice to pick either android or iPhone but not both. Unfortunately I’ve been asked for both and I think it’s a case of produce both or nothing at all.
if I develop the game using android will this work on both android and iOs platforms?

[Anonymous]

Android and IOS are completely different operating systems, and require completely different build files. So if you want to publish to both, get yourself a middleware license for Unity or similar. That’s the only way to avoid having to build from scratch, twice in a row, for both platforms.

[Anonymous]

@md – If that is the case then, like Richard Sneyd says, go for middleware like Marmalade or unity.

There are issues with using middleware too – you are not in control of the engine unless it is open source. If there is a bug in the engine, there is a bug in your game.

[Anonymous]

@md – If that is the case then, like Richard Sneyd says, go for middleware like Marmalade or Unity.

There are issues with using middleware too – you are not in control of the engine unless it is open source. If there is a bug in the engine, there is a bug in your game.

You are at the mercy of the middleware developers.

[Anonymous]

also, I don’t know what your preferences are in terms of coding, but you can use stuff like GameMaker or GameSalad to make the game pretty quickly without need for much code (although GameMaker is buggy as all heck sometimes)

GameMaker exports to iOS and Android now I think.

[Anonymous]

Have a look at Corona SDk, its free to use until you want to publish your game to a device and will allow you to build for both iOS and Android. Its based on Lua so if you are familar with javascript its not a big leap from that. It has an inbuilt physics engine also and a load of api’s. The game you are aiming to make is a good fit for it so I would recommend it.

[Author]

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