A new direction…. With support from the Partner….

02/12/2008 by Taz.

OK, as you all guessed I haven’t spent much time doing things as of late. My Invaders clone efforts came to an abrupt stop as time kept running out to do any coding on a regular basis. The dream, however, is still alive and has manifested itself once again now that winter has arrived.

What kicked the desire to code games off again this time, I hear you ask, well it happened with the help of a few stories on iPhone Application Development and the new App Store for iPhone. Looking at the details leads me to believe that it will be a lot easier to write iPhone/iPod Touch Applications and Games than any other mobile phone or games console.

The main point in all this is that you ‘know’ what you are coding against, previous mobile devices never had a standard functionality or screen capabilities, thus making it very dificult to code for.

So I now have a new focus, I also have a stronger promise of support from the wife, this came around because I could show some statistics from other developers on how much they have made from a few months of sales. I know this doesn’t reflect with all apps/games being sold, but a chance for some extra pocket money is always welcome, and you never know where it all could lead.

So I’m back on the horse as they say, I’ve bought myself a new Apple MacBook Pro, as it’s the only place you can write iPhone games. I’ve installed the  XCode Development Environment as well as the iPhone SDK, both free from Apple and purchased a few books on Apple Mac and iPhone development.

The current task is to read as much material as possible on XCode, Obejective-C and iPhone. From this I already have the framework for my first game up and running, this has so far taken me about 4 weeks to do. The next step is to start on the ’meat’ of the code and hopefully, no that’s the wrong word, ‘I will’ in a few months have something to show for all my efforts.

This time it all feels more possitive, I have a great deal of enthusiasm and determination to get something finished. I’ve also, so far, have even stopped myself plonking down in front of the TV with all its distractions.

At the same time I’m also monitoring the progress of Google Android based phones as they also have the same store and release mechanism as Apple, thus making it easier to sale apps and games. Just under a different framework and coding language, but I’m confident it should be easy enough to port across too, as I already a good knowledge of Java.

So, wish me luck in this new round, until next Time,

Taz

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