Learning iPhone Game Programming – available on Safari Rough Cuts
I’m really pleased to announce that my book “Learning iPhone Game Programming: A Hands-On Guide To Building Your First iPhone Game” is now available in Safari Rough Cuts.
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Posts Tagged ‘Game’
Book Update
I’ve had a number of people ask about progress with the book, so I thought I would do a quick post about it.
First of all I’m really excited about getting the book completed and into peoples hands. The great feedback I’ve had on the blog has really helped push this project forward and it would be great to get it out to everyone. I’m currently working on the last few chapters and the plan is to have the book up on Safari Rough Cuts in the next few weeks. This will allow people early access to the book and a way to provide feedback before the book is finally published.
The game that accompanies the book, Sir Lamorak’s Quest is also almost finished as you will have seen in SLQ Update post. I’ve just got a little tweaking to do on some AI and then finish the map.
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SLQ Video Update
I’ve created a new video of SLQ to show progress. The game is almost complete now so I wanted to show everyone how it was looking. There are a couple of small areas to still fix. I’m still tweaking some sound effects for example and also working on the final map.
So, I hope you enjoy the preview and a chance to see the game being developed with the book I’m writing.
Mike
Bitmap Font Update
I’ve been meaning to update the bitmap font code for a while. I made a number of changes to this code for the book as I found problems with the rendering of characters for some fonts. This was done to bugs in my code that positioned each character rendered. I fixed these for the book code and I’ve just updated the Tutorial 4 project code with the same fixes.
If you were seeing odd alignment of characters then the fixes in the Bitmap Font tutorial code should sort them out. It also ensures that the point provided when rendering text is used as the bottom left hand corner of the first character.
Hope this helps people and let me know how you get on.
Mike
Sound Manager Update
Hi all
By the end of this weekend I will post a new version of the Sound Manager. I’ve been introducing music into SLQ and found that there were some features missing from the SoundManager class that would be handy such as named play lists, fading music etc.
I’ve added these features now as well as fixing memory leaks that had been reported. I just need to work on a couple of areas over the weekend and I’ll then post the new version. I just wanted to keep you up to date.
Mike
The sound of music with Vincent Webb
I’ve been hunting around for a while for the sounds and music I can use for Sir Lamorak’s Quest. As I’m working to a tight budget i.e. nothing, I had dropped the thought of ever getting music created for SLQ specifically. That has changed.
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Project 72
I came across a site yesterday which is documenting in real time a team of four guys who writing an iPhone game in 71 hours, hence the name of the project.
They all seem to have experience already and hence thought they could create the entire game in 7 days, with the actual game coding being done in 71 hours. Their website is tracking a countdown timer and also has a live web cam of them working away. It also has regular video updates of their progress on the game which is not looking bad at all.
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LetterWriter: Oceans
Why should learning to write your ABC’s be boring? Unsatisfied with existing iPhone letter writing apps for kids, we decided to make our own. Swim through the undersea ocean to choose a letter, and then practice writing the letter using guided strokes against a backdrop unique to each letter. Watch an eerie nautilus float by as you draw a “N”, or watch a volcanic undersea vent erupt as you draw a “V”.
Quote from the developer:
Just wanted to let you know that thanks to some of your tutorials, especially on the sound engine stuff, we’ve been able to launch a game to the App Store.
App Store Link »
Developer’s Website »
iPhone Game Programming – Tutorial 2 – Image Class
I have finally been able to upload the second tutorial on writing a game on the iPhone using OpenGL.
This Tutorial has turned out to be longer than I thought and comes in at around 1.5 hours. It covers the creation of an Image class which wraps around the Texture2D class and functions which I think would be useful in a game such as scaling, rotation and applying a colour filter and alpha etc. This image class will form the basis for the next tutorials where we will create a class for handling sprite maps, animation and bitmap fonts.
This Tutorial also gives you a quick look at some of the other classes we are going to cover in action, so not only how scaling, rotating and colours work but also animation and bitmap fonts.
iPhone Game Programming – Tutorial 1
OK, so I have finally managed to get my first video tutorial done for writing a game on the iPhone.
This Tutorial will cover the basics of taking an OpenGL ES Application template available in Xcode and making the changes necessary so that we can use it for writing out game. The game I am going to be creating is a 2D game to keep things simple as I’m still learning myself :o)
I have found some very using sites for learning OpenGL on the internet. Its important to remember that the iPhone use OpenGL ES which is different to normal OpenGL. For our needs it should not present a problem, but it something you need to be aware of. I’ll be mentioning in the Tutorials where I come across the differences.
A couple of sites I have found useful are:
I am sure there are many other sites out there that can help as well.
The basis for my learning to write a game on the iPhone so far is the CrashLanding exmples provided by Apple. This is something I refer to in the video and also something we will be taking some classes from so its worth having it to hand. It should have been included with the SDK or can be downloade from the iPhone portal.
I hope you enjoy this first Tutorial. It is my first so forgive any mistakes or poor style. I hope it will improve over time. Please post any questions or comments you may have.
Mike
