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开发者分享如何创造一款优秀的iOS游戏

发布时间:2012-10-04 08:35:54 Tags:,,,

作者:Neil Long

创造出《Temple Run》的夫妻团队在高峰时期每天能够获得“好几万”美元的收益;《新星足球》开发者Simon Read也一度攀上每天收益5千英镑的好成绩。这些成功的案例都暗示着,对于充满抱负的游戏开发者来说,App Store是最容易且最赚钱的营销平台。我们邀请了《Warhammer Quest》开发工作室Rodeo Games的成员以及《Greedy Bankers》独立开发者Alistair Aitcheson与我们分享创造iOS游戏的秘诀。

iOS development(from cultofmaccom)

iOS development(from cultofmaccom)

必要的技巧

Rodeo Games创意总监Ben Murch——当提到iOS时,我们需要同时涉及多个学科而非死守于自己的学科。我们的团队规模远远不及大公司,所以对于我们来说“综合”技能便非常重要。就像我就是我们的游戏《Hunters》中唯一一名美术人员。我的专业是环境设计,但是幸运的是我之前频繁地接触了角色和UI设计,所以我很清楚自己该如何做。否则我们最终可能只是为角色创造出一些华而不实的背景!

虽然同时涉及多门学科很有帮助,但是我们也必须突显某一特定学科。Valve将这种员工称为“T模式”雇员,即熟悉多个领域的内容并且特别擅长于某个特定的内容。就像在《Hunters》中,因为我们创造出了非常出色的场景,从而能够吸引更多媒体和玩家注意到我们独特的游戏风格。

Alistair Aitcheson——程序员的能力非常重要,这能够帮助整个团队更好地解决各种技术上的挑战,包括来自不同的设备类型,工具包以及技术的挑战。作为个人工作室,我很幸运地拥有了美术技能,能够亲手为《Greedy Bankers》创造所有图像和动画。而如果你具备创造性思维,那么即使只拥有绘画能力也能够帮助我们创造出合适的视听体验,

我是基于Cocos2D框架并使用Objective-C去开发游戏,如果你曾经使用过其它对象导向语言,你便能够很容易掌握Objective-C。当然也存在其它替代方法,如C++便是一个很好的选择,基于该语言我们可以很容易将游戏移植到其它平台上,而Unity和Flash开发工具也因为其简单性和可移植性深受众多开发者的欢迎。

iOS软件工具开发包(SDK)

Rodeo Games技术总监Richard Brooks——iOS SDK真的非常棒!对于新手来说这应该是学习图像和游戏编程的最简单也是最明确的方法。而对于资深游戏开发者来说,这能够帮助他们更快速地创造并运行游戏。

该开发包拥有最顶尖的设备和工具能够支持Xbox和PS3游戏开发。SDK使用的是OpenGL ES 2.0,所以你便能够获得着色器。你同时还能够获得一个强大的数据库,其中包括了向量,矩阵和四元数等能够提供给ARM芯片最佳优化的数据。除此之外还包含了具有完整性能的UI解决方法和完整的动画支持,能够将游戏外观更好地与OpenGL框架整合在一起。你可以直接在iOS设备上进行游戏创造而无需使用特定的开发装备或任何昂贵的设备。

对于新手,我希望他们在开始创造前能够先温习下Objective-C的相关内容。虽然Objective-C与C/C++十分相似,但是在内存管理方面它们却具有根本的差别。同时你应该获得一台iMac或MacBook Pro,并基于Xcode(免费的)环境开始开发游戏;不要试图在PC上做尝试。你只需要将所有内容置于Xcode中而让它们自动运行于Mac上便可。

Alistair Aitcheson——关于你该使用SDK中的何种功能主要取决于你所制作的游戏类型。我总是建议开发者去使用游戏库,如Cocos2D或Cocos2D-x(如果你是基于C++语言的话)。游戏库总是能够以更加简单的方法去处理各种功能,从而让你可以不用直接访问SDK功能。而对于那些不存在于你所选择的游戏库中的内容,你便需要好好地理解Objective-C,因为它能帮助你更有效地执行相关内容。

推荐资源,教程和服务

Ben Murch——你必须养成自己研究技术和过程的习惯。你可能觉得这么做很奇怪,但是有时候最简单的方法便是最佳方法。你能在YouTube上找到许多有帮助的教程。Stackoverflow.com和苹果开发论坛也是我们的程序员较常使用的一些网站。谷歌图像搜索为我们寻找各种图像创造了便利。但是也有些领域是我们难以触及的,如音乐和音效。这时候我们便会与一家优秀的公司,即WhiteWall合作。

Alistair Aitcheson——Cocos2D是我想要强烈推荐的一个游戏库。我们能够在网络上找到无数相关教程(特别推荐Ray Wenderlich网站上的教程),并且我们也可以在Cocos2D论坛上搜素到许多相关内容。我同样也会使用TestFlight(游戏邦注:一个开源工具,通过自动化应用分布和文件保障而让iOS平台测试变得更加容易)——为测试者提供了简化的测试过程。最后便是能够创造出粒子特效并能够轻松地运行于Cocos2D游戏中的ParticleDesigner。

提交应用的过程

Ben Murch——一开始我们并未意识到这一点,即我们可以先提交应用并在之后才真正发行游戏。这一点非常重要,因为这意味着你将经历审核过程(大约需要花费2周时间),并尽早明确苹果是否满意你的游戏。如此你便有时间再次提交一款经过完善的游戏。就像《Hunter 2》在以其它形式正式发行前便已经在App Store待了1个多月了。与苹果的合作其实非常直接,如果他们有意推广你的游戏或其它内容,他们便会主动走向你。而对你来说最有效的方法便是大力推销自己的游戏让苹果能够注意到它。

Alistair Aitcheson-—–老实说,整个过程非常简单。苹果将会公布他们在一周内会审核多少应用,你便可以以此评估你的应用何时才会出现在App Store中。这时候对你来说最重要的便是在更多不同的设备和玩家身上测试游戏。如果苹果未能发现你的游戏中的漏洞,玩家也有可能找到。而如果你的游戏在某些设备中崩溃了,你的App Store页面上便有可能出现各种负面评价。

想法突显你的应用

Alistair Aitcheson——对我来说整个过程中最复杂的环节便是吸引公众的注意。你需要不断寻找新的机遇,回顾现有产品的发展过程并明确如何才能吸引公众的注意。要为游戏的发行积攒信誉,你需要吸引更多人对你的作品感兴趣。你必须让潮人注意到你的游戏,你必须让看到游戏新闻的读者知道你是谁以及你的游戏有何价值;你必须让别人被你的项目所吸引或因信赖这一项目而愿意去讨论它。这是帮助你获得更广泛关注,获得苹果推荐以及获得潮人宣传机会(进而吸引到更多用户注意)的方法。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Making iOS games

By Neil Long

How To Make A Game continues with a look at iOS and the App Store. Is Apple’s marketplace a good fit for your first videogame?

Temple Run’s husband and wife team were making “tens of thousands” of dollars per day at its peak. New Star Soccer’s creator Simon Read’s income reached around £5,000 per day at one point. Tales like these suggest that the App Store is the easiest route to market – and riches – for the aspiring game developer. We asked Warhammer Quest studio Rodeo Games, and Alistair Aitcheson, the one-man indie behind Greedy Bankers, for some behind the scenes insight into how to make iOS games.

Required Skills

Ben Murch, creative director, Rodeo Games When it comes to iOS, you really need to be broad rather than specific. The teams are a lot smaller than bigger companies, so ‘general’ skills become very important. For instance, I was the only artist on our Hunters games. My background is in environments, but luckily I’d tinkered around with characters and UI enough to know how to get things done. Otherwise we’d end up with really nice looking locations and red squares for characters!

Having said that, it’s very useful to be broad across but deep in one discipline. I think Valve refer to it as the ‘T-Model’ employee. Someone who has a grounding across multiple areas, and is really good at one particular thing. With Hunters, our environments really sang, which helped us come release time to attract a lot of press and fans to our unique style.

Alistair Aitcheson Programming ability is the most important, as makes it easier to solve the technical challenges, often specific to different device types, toolkits and technologies. As a one-man studio, I’m quite fortunate to have the necessary art skills as well, creating all the artwork and animation for Greedy Bankers by hand. But there are always ways to create an effective audio-visual experience with little drawing ability, so long as you can think inventively.

I develop in Objective-C with the Cocos2D framework, which is fairly simple to learn if you’re experienced with other object oriented languages. There are, however, a lot of alternatives available now. C++ is well-supported, versatile and easy to port to other mobile platforms, and Unity and Flash development are becoming increasingly popular for their simplicity and portability.

The iOS SDK

Richard Brooks, technical director, Rodeo Games The iOS SDK is fantastic.  For graduates, it’s one of the easiest and cleanest routes for learning how to program graphics and games.  And for experienced game developers, it’s lightning fast to get things up and running.

It has all the top end facilities and tools you are used to from Xbox and PS3 development. The SDK uses OpenGL ES 2.0, so you’ve got shaders.  It also gives you a great maths library that has vectors, matrices and quaternions, all optimised for ARM chipsets. And a fully-functioning UI solution, with a complete animation support, which integrates beautifully with the OpenGL framework. You can deploy builds straight to your iOS device and you don’t need special dev kits or expensive equipment to get going.

For someone starting for the first time, my advice would be to brush up on your Objective-C. It’s very similar to C/C++ but has some fundamental differences when it comes to memory management that you need to get your head around before you get started. Also, get an iMac or MacBook Pro and get going with Xcode, which is free; don’t try and struggle on with a PC. There are too many hoops to jump through just to get things running that Xcode handles for you automatically on the Mac.

AA Exactly how much you need to directly use the SDK’s functions will depend on the kind of game you’re making. I’d usually recommend using a game library such as Cocos2D, or Cocos2D-x if you want to work in C++. A game library will handle a lot of the functionality in a simpler way, so that you don’t need to access the SDK’s functions directly. For anything that’s not in your chosen game library, a good understanding of Objective-C will help you implement it successfully.

Recommended resources, tutorials and services

BM You really have to get into the habit of researching techniques and processes for yourself. It sounds weird, but sometimes the simplest places are the best. YouTube generally has a lot of great tutorials for almost anything you’re doing. Stackoverflow.com and the Apple dev forums are used a lot by our coders. Google image search is extremely handy for the art side of things. There are some things we just can’t do, for example music and sound effects. We use a great company called WhiteWall for that.

AA Cocos2D is a well-featured game library that I’d highly recommend. There are hundreds of tutorials for it out there around the internet, Ray Wenderlich’s standing out in particular, and you can find a lot by simply searching on the Cocos2D forums. I also made good use of TestFlight, a service which hugely simplifies the process of sending out betas to testers, which can be a bit of a hassle otherwise. Finally, ParticleDesigner is a simple, well-featured and hugely affordable tool for creating particle effects that can be easily implemented into Cocos2D games.

Apple and the submission process

BM We didn’t realise this the first time round, but you can submit your App and hold it for release until a later date. This is extremely useful as it means you can go through the approval process, which can take up to two weeks, and find out early if Apple don’t like anything in there. You can then re-submit a new build which replaces that first one. Hunters 2 was actually in the App store about a month before it came out in some form or another! Dealing with Apple is very much a one-way street. They’ll come to you if they want to promote you or anything. The best way to make that happen is promote the hell out of your game and hope they notice you!

AA The process is fairly simple, to be honest. Apple gives statistics on what percentage of apps are being reviewed within 7 days, so you can estimate fairly easily how long your app will take to appear in the store. The most important thing is to test your game throughly on as many devices and with as many players as possible. If there’s bugs in your game they might not get picked up by Apple, but they definitely will be by players. If it crashes on certain devices, for example, you’re likely to pick up a few negative reviews on your App Store page.

Getting noticed once your app is live

AA By far the hardest part of my whole business has been gaining publicity. You need to be constantly on the lookout for new opportunities, looking back at your existing products and working out what you need to do next to capture the public’s imagination. You need to get a bubble of interest behind your work in order to get the credibility required for a successful launch. You need to be visible to tastemakers, you need to make sure that people viewing the games press know who you are and why your game is important. You need to get people talking about what you’re doing because they find your project fascinating, or it offers them something to believe in. That’s what gets you noticed by a wider audience, that’s what gives you the credibility to get spotted by Apple, and that’s what validates you to enthusiastic tastemakers who recommend you to a wider audience.(source:edge-online)


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