In all the years I made my living with computers & programming, I made a hard & fast rule for myself. Don’t install any games - for fear of becoming addicted and/or distracted and not getting any work done.
Well, since I became a hobbyist programmer and now make my living elsewhere, I’ve often thought it would be fun to make a game or two. It wouldn’t be impossible with xojo, but the few attempts I made by utilizing the Canvas, it’s just seemed like way too many hoops to jump through. Plus, the results were not very satisfying.
Anyway, I’m still learning Swift to make macOS apps; with the biggest challenge being learning all the various required API’s. The Swift Language, relatively speaking, is quite easy. It’s deciphering the frameworks that is the hard part. Some parts are quite cryptic (obviously the result of legacy systems).
To break the monotony, I read Paul Hudson’s Dive Into SpriteKit and like WOW! It kinda blew my mind!
I don’t know to describe it, but the SpriteKit framework is really well designed, while also following the Apple conventions of protocols and delegate methods. Somehow, learning SpriteKit is helping me understand AppKit and other things, like the application life-cycle much better.
I’m now reading Apple Game Frameworks and Technologies: Build 2D Games with SpriteKit & Swift and it’s such a gas!
I know there’s not much money in 2D games, but it sure is a hell of a lot of fun compared to struggling with xojo to make a graphic move smoothly across a canvas - not to mention the built-in physics engine that comes with SpriteKit.
Swift and all the built-in frameworks like SpriteKit really make Xoojo look really… not worth the inflated price.
