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Ive only dabbled with GLBasic so know its pretty comprehensive in what it can/can't do.

I have built a game in the past with Corona. Lua is a great little scripting language and once you get the hang of it you can be really productive with it. I was on the beta for corona and used it back in the day before it really grew popular.

One thing many people don't like is its 'build in the cloud' where you submit your code and get an app. When I was using it you could get your app built straight away but later on I heard alot of horror stories of it taking 24 hours just to get your app built, not good. There's also suspicion that as they build your app it is built with analytics and 'phones home' so to speak.

As above as its now free its worth a look but I would check out the build time.

If you do go the Lua route then you might want to check out Gideros http://www.giderosmobile.com/ as this targets iOS and Android, uses Lua but you build locally. What happens is the IDE can spit out an XCode project for iOS or eclipse project for Android. It also supports native code plug-ins and has a very active community. Its not free but you can download, build and test apps and only pay when you want to submit to the app store.

Gary

I had some spare time at the start of the year so jumped into iphone development and have done 4 apps now mainly in spare time whilst doing a day job *and* with a family.

Without wishing to be too nosey, how have those apps done finacially? Have they basically given you a bit of beer money, or have they brought in a reasonable amount of cash?

I've made about just shy of £200 from the app store but one of them works with an accounting system (Sage) and needs a server component which is £100 a pop and Ive sold about a dozen of those too.

So in reality beer money from the app store. They are all utilities, hence why I'm here as I am keen to do a game so looking for the best tool for the job!

I'm not entirely sure which way to go; I might stick with ObjC and use Cocos2D, Ive done a couple of games with Gamesalad but they dont run great once on the device. I've also paid for Corona which lets you create stuff in Lua but its quirky language and I did years of BASIC back in the eighties.

Gary

[2gb ram]

I bought a mini Mac intel 2ghz 2gb ram hd250 with broken DVD at 375 € on eBay.
Only for iPhone compiling. Installed vmware+xp just for glbasic. I didnt have a portable computer. So 2 machines in one.

I suggest to you to try PARALLELS instead vmware, anyway CHECK the system requirements before..(maybe 2Gb RAM for XP are good).

(...it's a bit expensive, about 79€ but work very well!)

Paolo

Ive used both and found performance to be on pretty similar. My experience is VMware is slightly quicker but there are those that would say Parallels is the king.

I ended up actually going for bootcamp as I wanted maximum performance. I can still see the bootcamp partition from OS X so its fine.

Gary

Can you not do it in your spare time?

Less risky financially?

I had some spare time at the start of the year so jumped into iphone development and have done 4 apps now mainly in spare time whilst doing a day job *and* with a family.

Good luck, just go for it!


Gary

download the [GLBasic Programmers Reference Guide.rar ] on the first post, extract it and there you are.

Cheers! I didnt see it the first time.

Well smack me for being a dumb mother f****r

O and do you know when the hard copy will be available? Call me old school but still like the physical books.

My new book is now finished - 430+ pages (without index) of lovely GLBasic technical goodness.

If you could have a look at the PDF file and let me know if there are any errors and/or omissions, that would be useful

where can I get the PDF from please MrT?

Mines just coming up for renewal but I think it was pretty much straightaway, well after paying anyway!

I started with a Sinclair ZX81 too! 1k memory, wow!! Upgraded to a Commodore Vic20 then the C64 followed by the Amiga 1200 which is now stuffed in a draw. Have used ZX81 and C64 buit in basic but the Amiga never had a rom basic. Used AMOS and Blitz Basic on it. Tried several different compilers on the pc. My current pc is a Acer Aspire 5536 laptop. Quite comfortable with GLB although I need to learn a few more bits and pieces. Long live BASIC. Shunned by many for its "simplicity" but an easy way to get your ideas and dreams on a pc. Oh, and it's fun too.

Ha the exact same route I took, hours spent typing in listings rom your computer into my zx81 with dktronics 16k ram pack, remember 3d monster maze? awesome game at the time. I then got a Vic20 which was great having a real keyboard, although 3.5k ram and 22 characters per line was always abit weird!

After that a C64 and then, bizarrely an atari ST and an Atari STE which were never as popular as the Amiga. I had done a few years basic by now and some 6502 assembler. Then into the big bad world, some more basic programming on PCs (gwbasic and basica) then onto xBase, Clipper and FoxPro and then Delphi (pascal) from about 95 which I still mainly use today coupled with ObjC on the mac.

Gary

Hi guys

I've been playing with corona for a while now (I got in at the beta stage when it was $99) and the android support is lagging behind iphone somewhat. That said it is improving all the time but if your main target is Android its probably not quite ready for primetime.

I maninly target iphone and for that its pretty good. I'm looking for a decent game development platform for iphone and really not sue what to go with. I've done 4 apps on the app store, all utilities so have somewhat gone through the objC pain but game development is something else which I guess is why I'm here, weighing up glbasic vs corona or to put it another way use basic which I used for years in the late 80s/early 90s or Lua which I hadn't even heard of until 6 months ago!

Another thing you might want to check out is google app inventor, abit noddy but a drag drop system for building apps.

Gary