Mac appStore

#1 Huh? Why the hell should that be a requirement? And why the hostility towards ObjC, anyway? Other platforms require you to start using other minority languages ;)

#2 haha... Fear is the my only hostility for objC.
I'll give the Mac appStore a shot and hold you personally responsible if it doesn't get approved.
Glad to see you are still roaming the forums :)

#3 Roaming when I'm not ill :)

It's actually recommended to just do the bits you want fastest in C/C++. The generic glue code in ObjC is the same for all projects anyway. Maybe a screen resolution selection is the most you'll add for a game, for example. Using a pre-made engine saves you from having to think too much about that, anyway.

Got links to your Big Fish games?

#4 well... I've uploaded the game. lets see if it passes.
Here's some links to bigfishgames I've made

http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/8939/astro-bugz-revenge/index.html

http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/6344/sushi-to-go-express/index.html

http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/3512/yard-sale-junkie-game/index.html

#5

Quote:just wondering if they accept TGB as is, or if you have to implement some stupid objective C BS?

I believe that they also accept smart, well-written Objective-C. So no, you don't have to write stupid Objective-C. :-)

#6 Smart and well-written objC is a bit out of my skill set. dirty bug-driven torque script is the way to go :)

#7 LOL! Whatever works. :-)

Seriously though - please let us know how it goes. I'm sure others are interested too, and as the author of CamelBones (a Cocoa/Perl bridge framework), I have a keen interest in how well "alternative language" apps might be received over there.

#8 I'm not sure if they'll accept everything with Cocoa bindings, but that would be neat, because Apple include 2-3 sets of bindings which they maintain (Python and Ruby, and possibly a third).

@Eyal: Was there much work to get the games accepted for each platform on Big Fish? Blog about it if you can ;)

#9 Ronny, I'm not much of a blogger but I'll be more than happy to answer any questions.
I've distributed my games in pretty much every big and small casual portal, and big fish games(BFG) is my favorite. very personal developer relations, always answer promptly and treating you as part of their business, as oppose to a money maker screw in a big machine. The QA department is awesome and same goes to localization.
As far as getting TGB games in is very easy. you just have to follow some simple rules. start the game as full screen and allow options for window mode. save this options in a savefile. pause all music and game while application looses focus. allow alt-tab, alt-f4, esc, etc... fairly easy.
If you decide to send them a game, I can dig up some QA reports so you can see where I originally failed.
I've also did PC/MAC DE,ES and FR for them. they did localization for me. In my experience BFG is by far the best company to do business with.

#10 Nice. If they help with localisation, they're very interesting if I have something desktop-worthy :)

(My current project is destined for a projector far away from either of us o.O)

#11 @Eyal,
Can you let us know how the process of uploading your tgb game to the mac app store went once you've gotten it approved? Thanks!

#12 There's another post where Aun mentions some fixes for resolutions. Not a huge change, but required due to a rejection. TGB is fairly finished, but I've had to hack away at the portions which select directories to store the log (if you decide to leave that active; probably a good idea) and other data.

I think that a change should be made so that compiled scripts that TGB creates are also stored in ~/Library/Cache/, but I haven't been in the mood to hunt down that yet. Cache is most correct, but Application Support is also acceptable, so everything goes there with my version of TGB.

#13 Hi, the following is my first impression of working with TGB and Mac App Store.

A few days ago LawnMowerKids was released on the Mac App Store. But of course we discovered some bugs and a ”first day patch” was needed. After a long day of coding we had a patch sent to Apple. That patch is currently waiting for Apple's approval.

The process of getting the game initially uploaded to the Mac App Store was pretty straight forward. We got rejected once because the game wrote to a file which was not located in ”user/library/application support/gamename”. It turned out to be the console.log which I had forgotten to disable.

#14 For me things went very smoothly, maybe because I already went through all the QA process at BFG.
I pretty much compiled in xCode without code signing. then after it's build you go to command line and add the following:

codesign -f -s "3rd Party Mac Developer Application: Sudden Games LLC"
Astro\ Bugz\ Revenge.app

productbuild --component "Astro Bugz Revenge.app" /Applications --sign
"3rd Party Mac Developer Installer: Sudden Games LLC" upload.pkg

after uploading I waited for over a month, when the game was "in review" and a day or two before xmass I got it approved.
I do believe that I've set the log to 0 so there is no log.

#15 Not doing any internal receipt validation, Eyal? It will be very easy to copy that way.

Codesigning and packaging can be done from within Xcode now. Build & Archive, open Organizer, select the project, share, swear at Apple for making the archive an uncompressed app bundle that interferes with your testing of the package. Ahhh, nothing like Apple's .0 releases :)

#16 The reality is that about 1 hour after a game is released on BFG, it is cracked and released on every torrent site.
I've learned to accept it :)
A word of advice, if you have a casual game. Aim to sell it on BFG first and not on the Mac AppStore.

#17 You can delay them a day or two. I guess one automated method works against BFG DRM, but every MAS game is somewhat custom. And don't aim to make it impossible to copy, just make it act *wrong* ;)

#18

Quote:
For me things went very smoothly, maybe because I already went through all the QA process at BFG.
I pretty much compiled in xCode without code signing. then after it's build you go to command line and add the following:

codesign -f -s "3rd Party Mac Developer Application: Sudden Games LLC"
Astro Bugz Revenge.app

productbuild --component "Astro Bugz Revenge.app" /Applications --sign
"3rd Party Mac Developer Installer: Sudden Games LLC" upload.pkg"

So in this way I can sign a game made with TGB (not pro version)?
Or I need to compile my game with xCode?

#19 err... darn I think I forgot to change the console.log directory. -_-''

Let's see if I get lucky and get approved.

Edit** Darn! I really forgot to change it.

#20 I've systematically hunted down the company names and ensured they're my own. Paths are hopefully all the right ones now. There's an unfortunate problem that a config file decides where to store data AFTER loading the first preferences, so you really need to edit away the TorquePowered/GarageGames names in the source.

Yes, you will be rejected if your game claims to be both from GarageGames and your company. The whole config loading system in TGB needs some serious looking at, since logs and other temporary data SHOULD NOT be written before a location has been configured with the appropriate company name.

I'm moving everything into a header eventually.