We are looking to create a crossword puzzle game and I'd like to see how we can help our client reduce development time by using an iOS SDK. We are looking for the game interaction (loading words, dragging letters to board, word validation, etc)
Look into Cocoas2D or there is Unity3D to assist you in creating games for iOS.
I believe you are looking for a 'Library' if what I understand is that you want an automated way of creating crossword puzzles. Unfortunately I do not believe there is any that would fit your needs.
If you are like me, create your own paper crossword puzzles and then make them on iOS.
A great book to get on how to make games for iOS would be 'Learning iOS Game Programming" by Michael Daley.
I bet with the resources on that book and good logical planning you will have your game made in no time.
Related
So I am rather experienced with OpenGL on the desktop platform and am trying to integrate it with my iOS development experience. I have created several large scale iOS applications so I have a good understanding of that process as well. I was wondering if anyone knows of any useful techniques to integrate iOS UI components with an OpenGL scene, or if that is even possible. I apologize if this is to general. I can refine it if necessary.
For example, say you have an iPad application that has a table and whatnot on the left, and you want to add a little 3D OpenGL window on the right. (Perhaps a chart or something that the user can interact with?) This would not be for a game or anything, but more for my understanding on how to smoothly integrate the different platforms. Any advice or links that the community could provide would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
GL-Views do not have to cover the entire screen. A great and very easy to understand example is the sound=recorder SpeakHere iphone app within the iOS SDK.
This example uses a small GL-View for displaying a peak-level-meter of the audio signal; GLLevelMeter.
Hope this helps...
I'm looking for an intro into designing and making a custom and dynamic UI on mobile specific platforms. As I understand Nokia(Qt), Android, and iOS all use OpenGL ES (2.0?). I haven't looked into Windows phone 7 yet so not sure what that uses. So I think OpenGL would be a pretty good place to start. While OpenGL is mostly about 3D, I'm also open to 2d ways of creating dynamic UI.
I've never really been big on designing interfaces or coming up with cool concepts but now I have an idea for a mobile app that really needs a good looking user-interface. It's sort of a half app, half game type of thing. It really targets people in the gaming community who I think are used to a bit more polish and advanced UI. I could still probably get away with a simple UI(simple not being a bad thing) but I think I at least should learn some design techniques for future reference.
Of course I realise that excessive eye candy which hurts usability, like bloated graphics that slow down the mobile, are of no use at all. I'm trying to make a sleek UI that while looking good allows the user to interact well with the app effectively.
Any suggestions, resources, experience you can share would be most helpful.
EDIT: While I'm looking for ways to use 3D graphics, I'm more concerned with how to come up with a sleek UI in a mobile. I come from a mostly web developer background, with some experience in Photoshop(CSS is the furthest I've gone in designing). I have never really had to design a dynamic interface that reacted to touch and moved all around the screen with some laws of physics attached. There are lots of such effects, such as the carousal effect, which gives the user an enhanced experience. I have no idea how to incorporate these effects into a mobile device. For example, one of the things I need this app to do is take a glassy circular object(a button) that moves around, then turn it into a sort of convex glass lens so it's sort of zooming in on the image underneath to make it look like its actually a magnifying glass. I looked around and this effect is created by a "grid warp" or a "mesh warp". Suffice it to say I have no idea how to do it.
This will help you not only with Windows Phone 7. WP7 uses DirectX 9, but not directly, you must pick XNA or Silverlight(no other options). Also these blog posts I find quite usefull.
For game, game related app I would stick to one design, and as you said start with OpenGL.
I have been searching since yesterday and thought I'd add some links for anyone interested.
Although I'm dividing them up by the platform the articles refer to, with some elbow grease the ideas should be cross-platform compatible.
Qt
Carousal animation in Qt
Shadow effect Qt
Qt Kinetic Scrolling describes kinetic scrolling algorithm in Qt(self descriptive really)
Qt OpenGL Nehe tutorials converted to the Qt environment
Iphone
OpenGL from the ground up - expansive list
Flow Cover tutorial.
Android
Android 3d Tutorial
Another Android OpenGL tutorial
Yet another Android OpenGl ES tutorial, seems people have gone open-source mad.
Custom UI on Android
One finger zoom tutorial at Sony Ericsson Developer World
3D list at Sony Ericsson Developer World
OpenGl/ES
OpenGl tutorials at NeHe, there are tons, I read through the first one (on light) and it was really informative.
TheRedBook intro to OpenGl
Books
Books list at Design4Mobile, these do not cover the technical side rather covers the things to keep in mind when designing mobiles, I think the O'Rielly one should be pretty good.
Inspiration
10 beautifully designed Iphone Apps - for a touch of inspiration
All rounder
Mobile TutsPlus sort of a gathering of tutorials for android and iPhone
That's I found in the last four or five hours, as I find more I'll add it on. I've also made this a community Wiki so others can correct any mistakes I've made here, or to add anything they feel relevant.
Can anyone tell me what should i use to make games for iPhone...
Actually i am a simple application programmer ...but never made complicated high graphics games...
i have made some games but only simple one...
Which tool is good for me to start....
i am aware of OPenGL...is it good to start with this ??
I'd say if you're reasonably competent with iOS & Objective-C, then it might be worth taking a peek at the likes of Cocos2D. There's also the iOS port of Flixel (which you can grab with the source to Canabalt which is sitting on Github), but compared to Cocos2D - it's a little less polished due to it only being recently out there.
Unity's great if you're familiar with C# or JavaScript and interested in wanting to do 3D games - and if you're not as interested in going the full-hog with learning OpenGL ES.
Corona is the best thing for you start looking into.
I'd suggest a trip to the bookstore, to find a book which speaks to you, regarding iPhone Game Dev. A quick look at Amazon reveals quite a number.
There's a lot to consider when making games, it's a huge topic.
You should check out Unity 3D.
For someone new to iPhone development and game dev in general, I'd say start with Cocoa Touch as it is simpler than OpenGL and you can create simple games (for example words games) with it. And even if you decide to develop an OpenGL app for the iOs you still need to work with Cocoa so there is no escape from learning it.
Once you get your head around objective-c/cocoa/xcode and iphone development in general, then start looking at OpenGL.
Have looked so long for a library specialized in dealing with iPhone Accelerometer but couldn't find anything.
I have made some few sample apps, but none reaches a level of accuracy as in Labyrinth games for example, so any idea about a library for that? Or maybe an open source app?
Would be better if it's integrated in a Physics library
UPDATE: I didn't mention it, but i don't want to use game engines. Specially now, that their future is still unknown. ObjC libraries or tutorials would be better.
I highly recommend looking at tweejump. It's basically an open source version of games like Doodle Jump. It really helped me learn how to use the accelerometer to control an object on the screen.
Although you said you didn't want any game engines, this is powered by the Cocos2D library. However, Cocos2D is written in Objective-C, so there shouldn't be any issue getting anything powered by Cocos2D passed Apple.
Best of luck!
It seems that it may just be easier for you to use a game engine that works with iPhone if you are looking to make a game. Here are 2 engines that export to iPhone GameSalad or Unity 3D
What are people using mostly to build iPhone games with? I'm learning iPhone programming. Currently I'm watching all the stanford vidcast, doing the assigments and going through the beginning iphone development apress book. I want to get into building games and want to know if developers are buidling everything with opengl es or are they using pre-existing game engines?
Depends how graphic-intensive the app is.
If it needs a lot of graphics, go with a pre-existing engine.
If not, many use OpenGL ES
I believe most people are simply using Apple's APIs. Other than that, I think cocos2d is pretty popular.
You can find a bunch of suggestions here:
learning iphone game development
Which technologies/concepts do you suggest I learn before creating an iPhone game?
I used Unity. There's been a lot of great games (even in the top 10) that used it. You don't even need to know objective-C. The code is written in scripting languages using C#, Javascript or boo and then compiled. It is expensive. It will cost you a minimum $600 for an indie license to do iPhone apps. unity3d.com
It's tough to get up to speed writing a game with all the APIs to learn and few good game examples (especially if you are new to Objective-C). I ended up tracking down the old crashlander source, which is notoriously hard to find since Apple pulled it.
There are probably half a dozen iPhone game programming books in the pipeline. Until then, the learning curve is pretty steep.
I'd suggest starting with an OpenGL 2D sprite-based game. Start by learning OpenGL ES, the touch system, then the audio system.