The iOS-blog published an article I’ve written for everyone who wants to start making games. I’m talking about some of my experiences as a teacher and a developer and maybe my conclusions can be helpful for you.
http://ios-blog.co.uk/resources/games-and-carrots/
cheers,
-finefin [import]uid: 70635 topic_id: 13110 reply_id: 313110[/import]
@FineFin - Great article, left you a comment there too.
I agree with starting small (a tree house) vs trying to make a large complicated building (empire state building).
I have a lot to say on this subject, but will keep it trimmed down:
As a person who never programmed anything beyond an html website (which wasn’t that great lol), no idea what an API was or a function was or a table, etc etc…really a super duper EXTRA NOOB, I found myself wanting to make games.
10 weeks ago and a couple days (Counting the first day I installed CORONA SDK) I had no idea where to begin I had this “Great Idea”. It had everything I wanted to do for a game, I felt really good about it…
I realized there was so many moving parts so many things to learn how to do it would take me forever to do it.
So I scrapped that project, made notes about what I wanted to do and came up with another idea. Problem was this was too complicated too!
Then, I decided to spend a day and go through every tutorial I could and take a sample, then change things and COMMENT THE CODE ENDLESSLY to explain to myself “Ok when I change this, it does this but also affects this” This helped a lot…but still wasn’t making my game.
Then I said ok I want a game that requires one hand. Check. I want a game that has tilt controls. Check. I want to control an object using Tilt. Ok triple check.
Now, I am working on my game submitted a name to itunesconnect and I have about 69 days left to upload binaries. It’s a simple game, but has lots of physics in it and is within the bounds of what I can do.
I worked WITH the limitations instead of trying to get around them. This really helped me out and get things done! Yes, there are things to learn and to get better at, but I am building my “Tree House” and it’s not a bad little tree house if I do say so myself!
Great article, and I can TOTALLY relate - I made these mistakes too! Start small build up on what you know and things will come together!
-Nick G “g$”
[import]uid: 61600 topic_id: 13110 reply_id: 48148[/import]
Thank you very much
“Start small build up on what you know and things will come together!”
Exactly! The treehouse-metaphor also involves something you describe very well: keep looking for materials to use (wooden planks, tutorials, templates) and keep on building. It’s the experiment that brings forth knowledge. And sometimes those ‘first projects’ that started as experiments come out as little masterpieces.
It’s more the “doing” than the “thinking” – particularly when you do your first steps. Everyone who has kids knows that and would agree, right? 
cheers,
-finefin
[import]uid: 70635 topic_id: 13110 reply_id: 48152[/import]