iPhone games seem mysterious and complicated to build. They require coding, developing and even registering as an official developer with Apple. But like always, appearances are deceiving. Here are four easy steps to creating a game for your iPhone or your iPad. Happy developing!

Learn Some Code

In order to develop an iPhone game, you’ll have to know a little bit of coding. The principles are based on Objective C, a language Steve Jobs developed at NeXT. If you’re familiar with coding, making the jump to using it won’t be too difficult, since it’s similar to C/C++. If you don’t know any coding whatsoever and you’re willing to spend a while developing your game, go ahead and grab a “Coding for Dummies” book that will get you started. You won’t need a full it degree, but you can take a class or two to beef up your skills and make the developing process easier if you feel like it might be something you’re interested in.

…Or Not

Luckily, there are a ton of great programs for developing apps and games. GameSalad doesn’t require any knowledge of programming languages and will transfer to the iPhone, iPad or even a Mac. They also have an arcade of games available on their website, so users can see and support other budding iPhone game developers’ works. The system works off of HTML 5, which is a text-based animation programming language. What that means is that you can put your game anywhere that uses regular HTML coding. This means you can drop it in an e-mail or even post it on a forum.
If GameSalad doesn’t work for you for some reason, just do a little searching. There are plenty of programs out there for free and minimal costs that will let you build and showcase your game.

Write A Program

Once you know how you’re (or how you’re not) developing your game, it’s time to come up with an idea. Many first time developers choose to mimic an already-popular game like Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja. It’s not a bad idea to get used to the mechanics and create something that you and your friends are guaranteed to enjoy.

If you’re creating an original idea, remember that most iPhone games work best when they’re somewhat simple. Think of Angry Birds. There are only a handful of bird types and structures. The variety comes from the developer combining those simple elements, which puts the weight of creativity on your shoulders. You’re going to want to keep the controls simple too, which will add another layer to your job. You have to create an engaging, varied game with a few pieces and a few user movements. Don’t be afraid to ask friends for ideas and collaborate with them.

Publish and Share

You’ll need to sign up with Apple as an official developer since they’re not an open market like Android. You’ll have to pay $100, but it will allow you to test your game on an actual iPhone, which could be well worth it. If you’re charging even a dollar for your game, you’re almost guaranteed to get your money back.

Sharing your game is almost as important as even publishing it. You need to spread the word that you’ve created a great game so people will know what to look for. The more you talk about it online, the more people will recognize it and download it.

We’re giving iPhone game developers of all sizes the opportunity to do a developers diary blog on iPwnGames every now and then. We know that most iPhone game developers have their own personal and corporate blogs, but by posting something about their iPhone developers experiences on our site they could reach some new gamers and lead traffic to their own personal blogs as well. It would also help us to give our site the content it deserves and to get some hardcore iPhone gamers to the site that might be interested in writing for us!

I’ve sent out emails to a large part of the iPhone game developers community, but I’m sure I missed a whole lot of good iPhone game developers so shoot me an email at info [at] ipwngames [d.ot] com if you’re an iPhone developer who’s interested in doing some sort of developers diary at iPwnGames!

The most recent iPhone SDK’s allow developers to output apps via Video Out to a screen. Freeverse has modified its iPhone and iPod Touch game Moto Chaser so that it can be played on a TV screen. Normally the game runs at 26 FPS, but the TV-version of the game runs at only 20 FPS. Let’s hope that Apple will allow developers to use this cool feature in all of their games.

via Ars Technica

A Spanish advertisement for this JoyPod add-on shows that it has eight buttons, audio output and a dock connector for power and syncing so that you don’t have to get your iPhone out of the accessory to sync or charge it. It’s not clear whether this JoyPod will also support the iPod Touch or not.

• In-game microtransactions and billing
• Profiles, buddy lists, leaderboards and so on
• Real-time and turn-based tournament multiplayer options
• Various matchmaking capabilities and game lobbies
• In-game voice and text chat

“John is pretty disappointed we didn’t have the manpower and resources to have a game for the launch of the” app store, id CEO Todd Hollenshead said.

The in-house developers team for mobile games is just too small and had not enough time to get a game ready for the launch of the App Store. At this moment they can only develop one game at a time and they will probably have to gather up with a publisher:

“It appears that at this point that given the size of our team, we can only work on one mobile game at a time. We are probably partner up and the first (iPhone game) will be one where we work with a publishing partner.”

They would like to see both Wolfenstein RPG and and Doom 2 RPG on the iPhone, but they don’t know when those games could be heading to the iPhone. To finish up Hollenshead compared the Nokia N-Gage with the iPhone:

“The iPhone is cool, and the n-Gage was a nerd device,” Hollenshead said. “The iphone is a pretty damn awesome phone, it’s a great business device, it’s one of the best portable mp3 player you can buy, it can play videos. There’s a lot of reasons to have that device and it has the power to play games as well. It’s a cool device that you can play games on and they can be awesome games.”

Source