Austin-based Gendai Games has been operating mostly under the radar with their innovative iPhone game-creation software GameSalad. According to AustinStartup, the wait is now over and we all can try our hand at creating the next big iPhone game, even if we don’t have elite programming skills. And that’s the strength of GameSalad – you don’t need to know how to code in order to prototype your game idea.
According to the site, GameSalad gives you all the tools you need to develop a fun game without having to write a line of code. In fact drag-and-drop is used extensively in composing the scenes, actors, audio and script actions. Games can be played without having to compile first and also edited while running. Game variables, rules, and other items are all controlled through menu items that can be collapsed and re-ordered. And all of this can be done on an ordinary Intel-based Mac running OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or newer.
Without having made a game ourselves yet, we can only guess that it will still be fairly challenging to make a fun and addictive game, as we have seen plenty of games made the ‘old fashioned way’ that aren’t all that great. But with the rapid development time and greater accessibility that GameSalad offers, we can see it becoming popular for making more niche games, say for example a custom game for a friend’s birthday, or a game that celebrates an event, like a company anniversary.
