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Post by Samson on Sept 30, 2003 4:10:19 GMT -5
Somebody help!
I'm a graphic designer, ie. Mac user. Short of running out and buying a PC, can anyone give me any advice on non-programmer-friendly game creation environments on the Mac? I'm not put off by having to learn some programming, but I don't have the time or inclination to learn C or C++. I've looked at GameMaker [not Game(space)Maker], RealBasic, FutureBasic, and Flash as possibilities so far. GameMaker's out of the picture--the games look like ass and play worse. I've seen some okay Flash games, but they generally leave me cold. Also, using a vector-based program to create a pixelled game seems pretty inefficient. RB and FB seem like legitimate 2d game development environments, but I haven't really seen many RB/FB games out there. I'm thinking of an iso or Zelda-esque type of adventure game. There's no cash for programming/art so I'm trying to do this myself. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Danke!
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Post by Krazex on Sept 30, 2003 4:28:38 GMT -5
Somebody help! I'm a graphic designer, ie. Mac user. Short of running out and buying a PC, can anyone give me any advice on non-programmer-friendly game creation environments on the Mac? I'm not put off by having to learn some programming, but I don't have the time or inclination to learn C or C++. I've looked at GameMaker [not Game(space)Maker], RealBasic, FutureBasic, and Flash as possibilities so far. GameMaker's out of the picture--the games look like ass and play worse. I've seen some okay Flash games, but they generally leave me cold. Also, using a vector-based program to create a pixelled game seems pretty inefficient. RB and FB seem like legitimate 2d game development environments, but I haven't really seen many RB/FB games out there. I'm thinking of an iso or Zelda-esque type of adventure game. There's no cash for programming/art so I'm trying to do this myself. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Danke! try ColdStone.. |
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Trowa
Junior Member
Posts: 65
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Post by Trowa on Sept 30, 2003 4:40:04 GMT -5
Flash is actually pretty handy with bitmaps, as long as you keep them external you can knock up a high frame rate. have you thought about using director?
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Post by Samson on Sept 30, 2003 4:42:05 GMT -5
Yeah, I saw some stuff on Coldstone at the Beenox Studios page, but was a little intimidated, figuring that if it's good enough for Ambrosia to use, it's probably over my head. I'd be thrilled to find out that wasn't the case, though.
Also, I thought about my post and realized it's maybe not so appropriate to this forum (or maybe just more appropriate to another forum) so here's a link (http://home.earthlink.net/~marktroup/geminiwip.gif) to an early wip of some pixelly goodness that I'm working on for a web site about old movies. It's 800x512, 6 colors, and dithered to hell (and back). Lemme know whatchoo think. Thanks.
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Post by N1NJ4 on Sept 30, 2003 7:25:18 GMT -5
I HIGHLY disagree with that, because from what i can tell you are making assumptions of what you have seen on a few websites. I, myself program with GameMaker and only the first games i made looked and played like crap because i didnt know what i was doing. Now I could do just as much as you could with games in C++. And btw, you wouldnt be able to use it anyways because its widows only.
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Post by Nemesis42 on Sept 30, 2003 8:13:37 GMT -5
METAL Basic. I've been fairly well-known in it's user base, and it's ideal for game programming. Despite being BASIC, it's reletively fast and powerful, not to mention I have been able to do 3D stuff that works well. Even better is, that soon (or maybe not soon... but sometime) the creator will be releasing an update that will make it cross-platform, and support OOP and OpenGL. Plus, it will supposedly run even faster. In other words, I can't say enough about METAL. www.iit.edu/~sarimar/GDS/and there is a forum for METAL at: www.idevgames.com/forum/ |
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Post by Slainte on Sept 30, 2003 8:24:35 GMT -5
enix project also has a mac port, though our version maintainer is away for some time and the latest binary distrib for mac is a bit outdated... anyway compiling the new one should be not too difficult on GCC... Fenix is a 2D oriented game devel suite based on it's very own scripting language, you mostly reduce logic to game objects and loose all contac with the low level inners on game programming... suport for parallax scrolls, blitting with effects, path-find, collisions, sound, mouse, keyboard, joystickj is hard coded into a very simple interface library
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Post by GenesisYoshua on Sept 30, 2003 9:13:58 GMT -5
To Samson My best advice would be to use Macromedia Director (Shockwave). I think that it's available for Mac. You can actually download a Trial Version from www.macromedia.com.au and test it out. To see some good examples of games made with Director check out www.nonoche.com or www.robotduck.com or my own website at jmn-web.tk. Thanks, hope I helped! |
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Post by Samson on Sept 30, 2003 13:08:35 GMT -5
Ok... let's see. First things first... NINJ4: GameMaker (a one-word program for the Mac) creates games that most certainly do look and play like ass. Game_Maker (a two-word PC-only product, with a less-than-original name) does make nice-looking games that I cannot create or play on my Mac. See the difference? Ah, yes. Nemesis: METAL sounds interesting. I will check it out. I thought you were at least a part-time Mac user, glad to hear from you Trowa and others: Flash and Director are both solid possibilities. I found an interesting little iso Flash adventure game called Gold Yard that, while not pixelled, is very similar to the type of game I'd like to make (http://www.goldyard.net). I've heard some scary stories about Lingo's learning curve, though. Krazex: I downloaded the Coldstone engine, update, and tutorial last night for about 3 hours (I love dial-up, heh) and plan to check it out today. It looks like a pretty powerful environment. Some websites said it's a little past flat-out beginners like me, but I'm giving it a shot. Programming aside, did anyone check my pixels? home.earthlink.net/~marktroup/geminiwip.gifIt's unfinished, but pretty interesting I think. 800X512 grayscale pixels with much dither going down. It's only 47k, but I decided to link it so it wouldn't mess up the tables on the forum. Thanks all for your help. |
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Post by Nemesis42 on Sept 30, 2003 15:04:50 GMT -5
Yup, use Mac's whenever humanly possible. Which isn't as often as I'd like... anyway. I've coded pixel games and all that jazz in it, it's simple and good.
Nice pic, BTW... its very retro, and I like it. The amount of dither hurts my head a bit though, but I guess theres not much alternative. ;D
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Post by Samson on Sept 30, 2003 15:35:59 GMT -5
Nenesis42: Checked out METAL web site but came away unsure if the games created will run on PCs. I need to create the game on a Mac, but I sure would like PC users to be able to play, too.
And, yes, that dithering in the pic is over the top like Pacino in Scent of a Woman. I'm still experimenting. I like creating small pieces of the scene in Photoshop, using Save for Web to limit colors and play with dithering, saving the pieces as gifs, and reassembling them in Photoshop again. Sounds silly, yes? Try it, it's fun! I think I'm going to also add non-pixelled elements to the picture to see what that does.
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Post by N42 on Sept 30, 2003 16:07:46 GMT -5
Yeah, right now it's Mac only... cross platformity should be addressed sooner or later, but nobody knows when the update will come out.
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Post by monteboyd on Sept 30, 2003 19:16:54 GMT -5
Just want to second the iDevGames link: www.idevgames.com/Mac specific game programming site and forum. Lots of helpful people. |
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Post by Samson on Sept 30, 2003 22:54:28 GMT -5
Sorry to bump this again-- I know that this forum is mostly PC folks who could give a rat's ass about Mac game creation.
Just checked idevgames.com. Seems like the people there who aren't writing C/C++ are mostly using TNT Basic, METAL Basic, or Coldstone. BTW Nem, they have a message board just for METAL. Seems like a real friendly place, and interestingly enough, there are some people there who are kicking around the idea of doing a Coldstone-ish project of their own called SEUCK, which would address all aspects of game creation (graphics, sound, programming, levels) in a drag-n-drop interface. I feel like I've gotten some great feedback here, so thanks to all who have helped me out.
Enough research for now.
IwannatalktoSamsonFlymetothemoon...becauseit'shardbeingblackandgiftedSometimesIjustwannathrowitalldownandgetlifted...
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