Hello everyone, I'm new here but i'm not a newbie^^; I'm a mod in several forums and I have some experience into game programming. I have lots of experience with RPG Maker 2003 at the moment for I am working on a game that I hope to finish by new years or so.

I have been thinking about switching to the Mac platform and getting a Powerbook. My only concern is what kinds of Game creation software is available for the Mac OS. I've searched this forum and found one thread similar to my question but I hope to get a more recent answer to this. I've looked in some threads about starting game programming in the Mac platform and it seems like Cocoa is a popular choice. I don't really know where to start looking in this forum to begin reading or getting the very basics of GP (game programming) for the Mac.

I have several interests about entering the Mac world, but really the only thing hesistating me a little is this. I've heard of Coldstone and saw their site, so I hope to hear some advice from you guys.^^

Well that was a little long winded there...anyway any help would be greatly appreciated^^ Nice community you guys have here

Hope this is in the right section for this question/intro kinda post...

Coldstone is cold stone dead. I don't think its available for purchase anymore, since its about 3 system upgrades behind the curve.

Unity, dim3, Antiryad GX , and Power Game Factory are four of your mostly non-programmy options at the moment, (search forums, google, mac software download places like versiontracker.com and macupdate.com for info on these)

If you want to get into programming there is also Arcade Engine for Revolution/Dreamcard which is cross platform and very easy to learn, even I understand it.

Then there is always Flash, which is pretty good for small games.

Well theres plenty, loads in fact.
xCode is comes with mac os x and its for making application and games from scratch. You can use various BASIC implimentations (METAL is a good one). You can use one sad cookie's RBuild (a very nice tool) to write games with OpenGL using Ruby scripting language. You can write mods for q3a (I wanna find the MOD SDK again its was fun!).

Is your intent to make a RPG?

Welcome to iDG and Mac game development.

Stay far, far away from Coldstone. It's dead and buried.

Are you looking for a game-maker type thing, or will you be going full programming? Either way, be sure to check out Unity.

igame3d Wrote:Unity, dim3, Antiryad GX , and Power Game Factory are four of your mostly non-programmy options at the moment, (search forums, google, mac software download places like versiontracker.com and macupdate.com for info on these)

Ahh I will look into that

unknown Wrote:You can use one sad cookie's RBuild (a very nice tool) to write games with OpenGL using Ruby scripting language

I have some RM XP experience and I'd like to learn more on Ruby. So i'll consider that.

Leisure Suit Lurie Wrote:Is your intent to make a RPG?

Well not just an RPG, but ANY kind of game. Like Something simple, shooter, adventure, puzzle. Anything really. This will be my last RPG game I make. So i'm really going all out for my game, CMS and CBS...all of my RPG 2000 and 2003 experience i'm planning into this game.

Josh Wrote:Stay far, far away from Coldstone. It's dead and buried.

Are you looking for a game-maker type thing or will you be going for full programming?

So I see, well I will take your word for it^^; Either preference works with me. It can be all precoded like Game Maker and still you can add your own pieces of codes. It can be pretty much point and click commands like RPG Maker. Either route doesn't bother me. I do think though that it might be better to learn a language while i'm at it. I have BASIC experience, C I know is a big langauge. Cocoa i've heard a few times but again, i'm not in the Mac realm just yet^^

Thank you for all of your replies so far, if there's anything else you'd like to know, then feel free to ask. Oh and I will check out the Unity site Josh. Thanks again^^

Oh forgot about Blitzbasic, thats been around on the PC for ages, so you should be able to try it out today (same with antiryad), then finish whatever you start on the PC on your Mac, when you finally make the leap.

How serious are you in making games? If you are just looking for a hobby to do every once in a while, I'd recommend one of the scripting/BASIC utilities that are being mentioned. If you are serious in making games as an extensive hobby, I would really recommend learning compiled programming languages. C isn't a large language. There are a lot of libraries, but the language itself is rather small. With regard to the libraries, there are only a few that you need to learn about, and it is very easy to look up information. C++ and ObjectiveC (used with cocoa) are more complicated and larger languages, but better suited for very large projects, so are also worth learning. If you find that you get the fundamentals and enjoy programming, you might decide that it's the way to go. (don't discount it just because it's unfamiliar!)

I agree, Programming is just a hobby for me and though time ive picked up peice of almost every language I know of, If you start small you knowlege will spread quickly to other areas.

@GamerTech: if you choose to go down the C/C++ route, I'd suggest you look into SDL and it's derivative libraries (SDL_image, et al), which are cross-platform (Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, and a lot more) libraries of functionality for visuals, audio, event-handling, networking, et al

@unknown: I would recommend against Metal BASIC – aside from it teaching lousy coding habits, Metal is no longer being updated, and although it still runs at the moment, there's no guarantee it will still run after the next OS update.

@GamerTech: as another suggestion, you might want to look into Processing – the Processing IDE is cross-platform (with Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux clients) and it can compile to Java applets (it can also supposedly compile to Java applications with a bit of hacking, but I've never properly investigated.)

I posted a cool link on Processing at iDA: http://www.idevapps.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5263

GamerTech, first, a big welcome to you to our forum. You said you were thinking of entering the world of Mac, did you already purchase a Mac?

Also, you posted:
>Cocoa is a popular choice
You understand that Cocoa is an API on the Mac, right? http://developer.apple.com/cocoa/

And to further confuse you, I'll add a few (tools) to the list:
http://pipmak.sourceforge.net/screenshots.php
http://supercard.us/
http://agentsheets.com/products/trial/index.html (This was given during uDG 2004, how about a review.. someone?)

Oh thats a shame, I never wrote anything with it and dont even have it installed anymore. I just liked the demos that came with it and seen a few games too and because it was BASIC I thought it might be a good start, but thats a shame its not being updated.

akb825 Wrote:How serious are you in making games? If you are just looking for a hobby to do every once in a while, I'd recommend one of the scripting/BASIC utilities that are being mentioned. If you are serious in making games as an extensive hobby, I would really recommend learning compiled programming languages.

Well, it is a hobby for me so yes it would be something for me to do now and then. Also I was thinking of taking this skill with me as my second career choice.

Carlos Camacho Wrote:You said you were thinking of entering the world of Mac, did you already purchase a Mac?

Not yet, I've been researching for one as of last month. I saw that Student Union thing going on till Sept 24th so I was thinking of taking advantage of this so i can get an ipod Mini^^ I currently attend the Art Institute so i'll get the student discount for it and my dad said he'd help pay half for my laptop as well. I might get either the 15" or 17" Powerbook. If i get the 15", i'll add the 128MB DDR option.

Also I did have a 2D fighting game idea in mind after I finish my RPG game. So I was thinking about making a 2D platform style game as well with one of those engines.

If you get a Mac go for the absolute maximum RAM you can get, that goes for PC's too.