Comments on: Allegro Game Framework

By: Make Mac Games » Blog Archive » Book Review: Game Programming All In One, 2nd Edition

Sat, 20 Aug 2005 13:19:24 +0000

[...] Before starting this book, I had partially read at least half a dozen game programming books over the past ten years. They covered topics ranging from simple game programming to 3D engines mostly for Windows on the PC. Since my switch to the Mac shortly after Mac OS X Jaguar was released, I’ve been looking for resources on game programming that would target the Mac, or at least not be so directly tied to Microsoft’s DirectX framework. Finally, this book was what I was looking for. Basic 2D game development using the cross-platform game framework, Allegro. [...]

By: Make Mac Games » Blog Archive » Distinctly Mac

Make Mac Games » Blog Archive » Distinctly Mac — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 15:59:38 +0000

[...] So, I’ve changed my focus, or rather I’ve widened my focus to try and include features that I have not seen before. I’m now looking for features that are very much Mac centric, I’m now trying to embrace the Mac feel and the Mac experience. As Ian pointed out in a comment on my Allegro Framework entry, a game played on a Mac should feel like it’s being played on a Mac, not like it was ported or copied from another platform as a second thought. [...]

By: Matt Breckon

Matt Breckon — Sun, 03 Jul 2005 11:50:52 +0000

I used to use Allegro but never actually developed a full commercial game using it. I developed an experimental game as part of a university course which worked in both Linux and Windows.

We used gcc on Linux and Microsoft VS6 on Windows for development. The impression I got from this exercise was that you need to develop simultaenously on both OS’s. There were all sorts of issues that arose, mostly due to using different compilers but I seem to remember a few minor Allegro issues too.

Allegro seemed like a good library to me at the time and I agree that it is worth checking out. It will save some of the learning curve at the cost of some flexibility.

By: Jon Trainer

Jon Trainer — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 18:55:23 +0000

I have been thinking along those same lines as well. I am still leaning heavily towards Objective-C, but I just want to explore my options before commiting.

I also found a very intersting book on game progromming that uses this framework. I’ll be using the book as a means to evaluate the framework as well as bone up on some game specific things. I’ll have a review of the book when I’m done. By the end, I still expect that Objective-C may win out, but in the meantime I think it makes sense to explore this avenue and maybe learn a few new things in the process.

Like you mentioned, designing games to be “macish” may give me an edge and I will keep that in mind.

By: Ian

Ian — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 18:31:13 +0000

As you’re thinking about this you should probably also consider that most Mac games currently seem to be ported from Win. In my experience those games suck. They’re almost always unstable, look terrible, and generally feel unmacish. I could see using Objective-C and making a 100% mac based game as a big marketing advantage down the road. It will also probably let you do more cool Macish things like have automator actions in the game or whatever.