After a few months of design, we have finally started development on our first iPad strategy game, code named "The Fleet". The game is set in the arena of World War 2 naval battles and will allow players to control opposing navy fleets in hotseat multiplayer and single player campaigns. The Fleet will be first released as a 2D top down iPad only game.
Future updates will include an iPhone version, online multiplayer, more ships, more missions, and more more.
After creating a prototype of the combat system using the game development platform GameSalad, we have now moved onto creating the full game in the Unity3D game engine. If you haven't heard of GameSalad yet, it's a great tool for rapid prototyping or even creating full (but simple) 2D iOS games. GameSalad is a completely drag and drop platform (and FREE), so there is no real coding or language you need to learn to use it, which is great if you are new to programming, but not so great if you want to create a more complex game. If you are thinking of getting into iOS programming, definitely give it a shot as it might get you inspired to move onto more sophisticated platforms like Unity, Cocos2D, SIO, UDK, etc...
The reason we decided to use Unity 3D for a 2D game was mainly to get comfortable with the Unity system as we plan to use it for future games which will be designed in a 3D environment. Unity3D is a very flexible system that allows you to easily port your games to additional platforms (Mac, Windows, XBox, Android, etc..), so that fact really appealed to us. There are of course some tradeoffs in not using the Apple iOS SDK directly, for example if you want to add features that are built into the iOS SDK like GameKit (bluetooth & wifi multiplayer) or GameCenter or the iPhone Camera you have to either buy a 3rd party plugin or really know your way around both Unity and the iOS SDK to make them work together. More on this coming in future posts.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for weekly updates on our progress and impressions of working with Unity and iOS development in general. If you would like to contribute to Project ISG, check out our the full page for details.
