GameSalad: Free HTML5/iOS game creator for Mac | Hacker News Reader

GameSalad: Free HTML5/iOS game creator for Mac

gamesalad.com

58 pointsinstakill15 comments

"No coding. Ever."

That's supposed to be a feature? It just means I am limited to whatever functionality is built in.

No thanks.

Agreed. These kinds of things are not only greatly simplified and more powerful with a basic scripting language, but it's a great chance to expose people (especially kids) to programming.

While I understand this reaction, I must say that the range of games being shown is pretty impressive. I think it depends on what are the actual limitations (the limitations that a poet accepts can lead to greater creativity, for example).

It's not just about the limitations present in this solution, it's about developing reusable skills. Incidentally teach a standard scripting language to somebody and they have a powerful tool they can reuse outside of this platform.

Gamesalad is probably aimed at turning game ideas into profit in the app store. I don't see a problem with this.

Offering embeddable, shareable HTML versions of games in the browser that are available in the App Store seems like a great way to boost iOS sales.

Has anyone used their Creator app for Mac? How does it compare to building 2D apps with cocos2d/Xcode?

It doesn't compare at all. We tried it out as a way of prototyping iPhone game ideas, but it didn't even have the concept of arrays, which made anything beyond the absolute most simple game state impossible.

You can't build serious games without a powerful programming language.

Is there anything like this for android? Other than Google's own app inventor, which frankly is still a bit rough IMHO.

Game Maker is currently implementing Game Maker Studio that will allow iPhone, Android, HTML5, and Win/Mac executables. It's meant to be finished this year and allows you to make games without coding. However, there is a scripting language built in (GML) which can be used with the non-programming functionality or replaces it completely.

We've also got the App Game Kit coming soon http://www.appgamekit.com/

Game Maker is the software that introduced me to programming. Assuming it has kept its roots as a learning tool (it's been 5 major releases since I last used it), I can't recommend it enough.

corona is cross platform http://www.anscamobile.com and is more flexible/higher performance. (disclaimer: I work for them)

Congrats to Michael and Tan on all the recent success. They've been building Gendai for a long time starting in Austin. Lots of sweat, blood, and tears went into this product. Great team, dedicated and innovative.

http://www.monkeycoder.co.nz/

This thing offers cross platform game development with code, and comes with full source.

... in Basic

Bad name.

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