In July 2008, Apple revolutionized mobile entertainment. They brought us the App Store. This was not only incredible for those who owned "iDevices" (iPod Touch, iPhone, and so on), who could now download apps and games to make their device even more entertaining, but it opened up a new scope for developers. The incredible new technology of the iPhone and iPod Touch made it possible for developers to create apps and games in which they could incorporate multi-touch controls, make use of the accelerometer and even allow the user's music to be played in-game. To date, the Apple App Store has over 425,000 apps available worldwide, and Apple has paid out billions of dollars to developers.
Apple also made it easy for individuals to become developers; anyone with programming knowledge and a Mac could become a developer, create apps and have their creation released around the world. The SDK (XCode) gave users the ability to create visually using the Interface Builder, and code everything within a uniform software development kit.
If you are like almost everyone else in the world, you don't know any programming language, nor do you have the time to sit down and learn one. That's where GameSalad comes in. What is GameSalad you ask? GameSalad is a fantastic, powerful creation tool that allows you to develop iPhone games! The best part about it is there is no programming involved whatsoever! With a simple drag-and-drop user interface, and behavior-based development, putting together an awesome game has never been easier! It is possible to create a fully playable game in less than half an hour! This book is going to cover the ins and outs of game development, sprite creation, planning, and all you need to know about GameSalad.
Chapter 1, You Need A Plan!, teaches you the basics of planning a game. You will learn how to think of an original idea, use storyboards, and create design documents, which will streamline your development phase by planning your game.
Chapter 2, Getting Started with GameSalad, guides you through GameSalad's user interface, creating a new project, working with actors and adding simple controls to a game.
Chapter 3, Add Zest to your Salad, teaches you how to create sprites (or images) for your game. Then we will import those images and some sound effects to add some more "zest" to our games.
Chapter 4, Starting Simple: Ball Drop Part 1, starts you off by creating a fully-fledged game, with physics, a menu system, and touch controls.
Chapter 5, Starting Simple: Ball Drop Part 2, continues the creation of our ball drop game. By the end of this chapter, you will have created your first game in GameSalad!
Chapter 6, Space Defender Part 1, creates an Asteroids clone. We are going to create a good user interface, create smart enemies, and more!
Chapter 7, Space Defender Part 2, completes our Asteroids clone by setting up Game Center leaderboards. We will also test our game on our iOS device.
Chapter 8, Metal Mech Part 1, explains the creation of a large game that will have multiple large levels, make full use of the iOS (can also be used for Android publishing) accelerometer, and intelligent AI. In this chapter, we are going to create our user interface, smart enemies that will detect you as you approach, and button/accelerometer controls.
Chapter 9, Metal Mech Part 2, continues to work on our Mech game. In this chapter we are will add sound effects, particle explosions, jet trails and smoking, burning wreckage.
Chapter 10, Metal Mech Part 3, covers the creation of our level bounds (so the player can't walk through obstacles), turrets, weapon overheating, scoring, mission briefing (for a cool-looking User Interface!) and we are going to create the accelerometer controls!
Chapter 11, Metal Mech Part 4, teaches us to prepare our game for the iOS App Store. We will create iAds for extra revenue, Game Center Leaderboards, and we will deploy our app on to our device for testing. Then, we will upload our game to the App Store.
Appendix A, Getting Started in iDevelopment, covers the technical aspect of iOS development. We will discuss creating a developer account, provisioning profiles, installing Xcode and the iOS SDK, and more.