Mac Game Programming Roadmap Update for 2010

I’ve seen several questions on Mac programming forums recently looking for Mac game programming tutorials, which made me look at my Mac Game Programming Roadmap article. The article is three years old, and some things have changed in the past three years.

Avoid Carbon #

Unless you have an existing Carbon codebase, avoid Carbon. If you don’t want to learn Objective-C, use a cross-platform game framework like SDL, Allegro, or SFML. Another advantage of using one of these frameworks is you can support Windows and Linux without having to rewrite much of your code.

SFML #

SFML is a cross-platform game framework that has grown in popularity in the past three years. I have not used SFML, but go the SFML website and see if it meets your needs.

Unity #

Unity existed in 2007, but its Indie version cost $199. The Indie version is now free and lets you write games that run on Mac OS X, Windows, and the Web. If you’re interested in creating 3D games, I recommend Unity. You’ll finish your game much faster with Unity than you will by programming your game from scratch.