Chapter 1: Introduction to Game Development with Gamesalad

In This Chapter You Will Learn:

•What game development is

•What Gamesalad is

•How to install Gamesalad

•How to start a new game project

•How to navigate the main Gamesalad interface

This chapter focuses on a discussion about what game development is, what it takes to develop a mobile video game, and how Gamesalad will help you do just that. We will look at the two licenses Gamesalad offers and you will download and install your copy of Gamesalad Creator. Once it’s installed, you will learn how to create a new project and begin to set up the basics of a game project, choosing a platform for publishing and setting up a few more initial settings. Finally, you’ll take a look at the full Gamesalad interface. This chapter, like this whole book, is intended to be hands-on, so make sure you download and install Gamesalad while reading along.

What is Game Development?

At the simplest level, game development is the process of creating a video game. One person, or a group of people (sometimes up to a hundred or more at a large game studio), can undertake game development. For this book, I will assume you are a single “indie” developer or are working as part of a very small group of two to three people. There are many roles in game development, but as an indie developer, you will likely need to cover several roles all by yourself. Many developers perform all tasks themselves. All game projects will need some combination of game designers, programmers, artists, level designers, sound engineers, and testers. And let’s not forget that once the game is complete, someone will need to publish it for the chosen platform(s) and market the game possibly by building a website and contacting the press.

While that sounds like a lot of work, modern game engines, like Gamesalad, really help streamline the entire process.

What is Gamesalad?

Gamesalad Creator is a modern 2D game development kit (GDK). Over 750,000 developers in 189 countries around the world use it and it has been used to make 70 of the top 100 games in the U.S. Apple App Store.

One of the highlights of Gamesalad is that you DO NOT need to learn how to write traditional computer programming code to make your games. Gamesalad offers a simple, yet full-featured, drag and drop interface that lets you build commercial-quality games much quicker than learning traditional programming. Once you are familiar with Gamesalad, you will be able to prototype a game in a few days and complete the entire project in as little as a few weeks instead of the typical months or years it could take to develop a game with another GDK.

Downloading and Installing Gamesalad

For the purpose of this chapter, and the rest of this book, it is assumed you are downloading and using the free Basic version of Gamesalad. If you do purchase the Pro version, you will likely see a few additions to your interface and options, but you can just ignore those while doing the exercises in this book. When you are ready to download Gamesalad, follow these steps:

•Download the Gamesalad installer from the Gamesalad website at http://gamesalad.com/download.

•You’ll need to enter an email address and verify that you are at least 13 years of age to download the installer.

•While the software is downloading, you might want to create an account with Gamesalad. This will give you access to Gamesalad’s forums, which are a great source of information. Gamesalad staff and many other helpful users support the forums.

•Run the installer and follow the prompts.

•Once the software has finished installing, open the application.

Gamesalad System Requirements

Gamesalad can be run on either a Macintosh or Windows PC computer. Both versions of Gamesalad are able to create the same games; however, the interfaces of the two operating systems are somewhat different. The screen shots in this book are taken from the Macintosh version of Gamesalad. Your computer must meet the minimum system requirements, below, to run Gamesalad.

Macintosh:

•Mac OSX Lion or later. Xcode 4.6 with Command Line Tools and iOS Support. Android SDK for Android support.

•Core 2 Duo or later CPU required. Minimum of 2GB of RAM recommended.

Windows:

•Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8. Android SDK for Android support.

•Core 2 Duo or Later CPU required. Minimum of 2GB of RAM recommended.

Note–Internet Links: All links to the internet are current and working at the time of this writing. However, URL locations often change. If a link no longer seems correct, a quick Google search will likely lead you to what you are looking for.

Getting to Know Gamesalad Creator

Now that you have Gamesalad Creator installed and running, let’s take a look at it and see what it has to offer. Gamesalad Creator is a single piece of software that you will use to bring all of your game’s elements together. Sounds, sprites, backgrounds, behaviors, animations, etc. are all assembled in Gamesalad and later published for play on any of the devices that Gamesalad supports. During the publishing process, you will also use Gamesalad’s online publishing portal, which we will examine later in this book.

The Splash Screen

The first window you’ll see, after opening Gamesalad, is the splash screen (see Figure 1.1). From this splash screen, you can create a new project, open recent projects, and learn more about Gamesalad.

In addition to creating a new project, Gamesalad has several sample projects listed that you can review and learn from. Double-clicking on the project’s name (under the create a new project heading) will open any of the sample projects.

As you work on projects in Gamesalad, a menu of past projects will be created under the open recent projects heading. To open any past projects, double-click their name.

The learn section contains links to more detailed instructions located on the Gamesalad website. This section will be great reading once you have completed this book. It will be especially useful if you are looking for more information and are wondering what to do next with your game projects.

Figure 1.1: The Gamesalad splash screen.

Creating a New Project

Let’s create your first Gamesalad project! You can either Double-Click the new blank project option under the create a new project heading on the splash screen or use the top menu bar and chose New from the File menu.

Either way, once you have created your first project, you should see a screen like Figure 1.2.

This is the project info screen. The first thing you should do from here is save your new project by going to Save from the File menu. Make sure you know where you have saved your project so you can find it again next time you want to work on it.

The Project Info Screen

When you start a new project, the first screen that Gamesalad presents to you may initially look overwhelming, but never fear, we are about to fix that! I will give you a quick overview of this collection of buttons and tabs and in the following sections, we’ll look at each section in much more detail.

Let’s take a look at the fill out boxes and the drop down menu that this screen presents first, from the top down.

Figure 1.2: The Project Info screen.

•Title: This should be the name of your game. Typically, you should use the same name that you use when saving your file.

•Platform: This drop down menu lists all of the available platforms you can publish to when the game is complete. You should choose the platform you want to develop for BEFORE beginning a project. This choice will set some basic parameters for the project, such as the screen height and width.

•Resolution Independence: This check box is only needed (and visible) when you are developing for an Apple iDevice (iPad or iPhone). When you are developing for an iPad or iPhone, you should always make sure you have this option checked. I’ll explain why, in more detail, when we discuss graphics and images in another section.

•Description (Draft): This area is for your use only and does not affect or get used in the game. You can use this area for notes to yourself, instructions for team members, or leave it empty. It’s entirely up to you.

Note–Multiplayer: If you are a Pro-user, you will see an additional drop down menu on this screen. With this menu, you can choose to set up your own multiplayer server if you are planning on developing a multiplayer game.

All of these settings are specific to the project info tab. As you can see, there are several other tabs listed at the top of this window, along with a few other buttons and icons (see Figure 2).

•Back/Forward Buttons: You can use these two buttons, just like you would in a browser, as you move through the various windows and tabs of Gamesalad, to go back where you came from, or move forward through your previous window path.

•Home: This button will return you to the home screen of whichever main tab you are currently viewing.

•Scenes: This drop down menu is dynamically built. Once you have added one or more scenes to your game, they will be displayed under this menu. Choosing a scene from this menu will take you directly to that scenes stage.

•Tables: This drop down menu is also dynamically built. If you add tables to your project, they will be listed here. Choose a table from the list to view and edit its contents.

•Preview: Once you have created a project, pressing the preview button will run the game in the Gamesalad window, allowing you to play test the game within the GDK. Pressing the preview button will take over the entire Gamesalad screen and hide all other information from view during play testing.

•HTML5 Preview: Use this option to preview your game as an HTML5 project. You can preview the game within the Gamesalad environment or within any browser you have installed on your computer.

•Publish: Pressing this button will start the app publishing process and you will be directed away from the Gamesalad Creator application to Gamesalad’s web-based publishing portal.

•Feedback and Help: Pressing either of these buttons will send you to specific help pages, for further assistance, on the Gamesalad website.

•Project Info Tab: The project info tab acts as the “home-base” tab of Gamesalad. As you have already seen, this screen is where you establish some initial settings of a project.

•Scenes Tab: In this screen, you will add (or delete) new scenes to a game, organize those scenes, and name them.

•Actors Tab: From this tab, you can add new actors to a project, delete actors, name actors, and create groups of actors called “tags.”

•Tables Tab: Just like the other tabs, this tab allows you to add, delete, and name tables within your project.

•Sign In: If you are a Pro-user, you’ll want to sign into Gamesalad. This will grant you access to the additional features that you have paid for. If you are using the free version, this will make no difference.

•Project Size: To give you some idea of how large of a file your final game will be, Gamesalad keeps a running total of your project’s final size. This is just an approximation so don’t rely on it too much. It’s more of a guide than something that is guaranteed.

Note–Scenes, Tables, Actors, and Other Confusing Terms: A lot of this information may seem confusing and overwhelming so early in the book, but never fear! This is just an introduction to the main Gamesalad interface. In the following sections, you’ll look at each of these topics, and many more, in great detail. You’ll understand them all by the time you have completed all exercises.

Summary

In this chapter, you got your first look at Gamesalad Creator. You downloaded and installed the software on your computer and learned how to open and begin a new game project. You learned how to fill out the requested information in the project info screen and also learned your way around the main Gamesalad interface.