Want to create iOS games on a budget from the ground up? (Potentially £356 or less.)

Well, I've found a great way to do so. This guide assumes you already have MMF2. Although I'm not an iOS developer yet, I've found a pretty good method to do this without having to get an expensive Mac. You may have guessed it by now. That's right: a Hackintosh. But there are risks with that, right? Many Hackintosh projects require good experience with computer hardware, not to mention that your configuration might not work properly. However, what if you bought a system that already is fully compatible with OS X? That's what I've just done for only £80 delivered.

That £80 purchase I made was for a HP netbook, the HP Mini 1000. Whilst I'm unsure how far it can be upgraded to (in terms of OS X version), I do know it is fully compatible with Snow Leopard. Take a look at this guide. You might need to be patient to find a netbook such as the Mini 1000 to appear on eBay since it's slightly old, but it goes for a good price. You'll need a friend who has a Mac to install OS X, but fortunately I have one. You will need a Snow Leopard license but I've seen retail copies going for £28 new and sealed on eBay.

The next thing you'll need, of course, is a device you wish to produce your game for. Although an iPhone is tempting, I've seen many developers here recommend an iPod Touch due to its lower price tag and the fact that you probably won't need the phone-related features the iPhone has for game development. I've seen the latest iPod Touch model that has a nice screen resolution go for less than £100. So let's just say there's one for £95 with a few scuffs. If you don't plan to use it regularly (I have a Galaxy S2 so I don't need anything else with regards to portable entertainment) and just for game development purposes, a few cosmetic markings shouldn't be a huge deal. As for the iPad, I'm not really going to comment on that since I don't know when I'll intend to buy one. I think it's a secondary device to get if you're on a budget though.

Obviously, you'll need to purchase the export module from Clickteam which currently is £89. Overall, this isn't going to be cheap, but it's much cheaper than buying a Macbook. Let's summarise now:

~£80 for Hackintosh netbook
£28 for Snow Leopard
£89 for iOS MMF2 module
£95 for latest iTouch
£0-3 for help from a friend who has a Mac for Snow Leopard netbook installation - £3 assuming you buy him/her a beer (optional)

Current total: £292

But that's not all. Once you've paid for this, if you're still working on a game, you can rest assured you probably won't need to make another purchase for a while at least. Apple will allow you to test your games on your iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad without a charge. However, when your game is ready for distribution you'll need a developer's license.

The developer's license is hopefully (if extra extortionate UK prices aren't applied) £64 per year.

Final total: ~£356

That's around the same price as most Snow Leopard Macbooks (second hand) alone! Since you'll probably only use the OS X netbook for simple things and compiling your games via Xcode, this is a great price. It should be noted that the most important thing is to search online to see if the netbook you have in mind is compatible. Only a select amount are, but since I heard great things about the Mini 1000 and its near-perfect compatibility, I decided to go ahead and get it. I still have to buy some of the things on the list, but I know I'll be on the road to iOS development pretty soon. Coupled with Android, I'm confident the future is bright.

I hope this guide has been useful. :) I'm hoping I haven't missed anything.

Hey....taking advantage of this topic that talks about spending, no one here register the name of the software in the laws of the country???

If I make a game I don't need to register it?

Trademarking is expensive. You'd be better off if you're a new developer just choosing a name that you don't believe is already trademarked. (You can probably find a trademark search website for your own country.) Although unlikely, if there is a trademark clash that would cause legal issues, you'll probably be able to come to a settlement and/or alter the name of your game. This is why many games have different names for different regions of the world. At least, this is all what I gather anyway.

Also, if you buy a domain name for your game, that helps a little bit but can add up quickly if you have a bunch of games you are releasing. It will be cost effective to just add a sub domain to your main website though. Example supercoolawesomegame.clickteam.com would be a subdomain of www.clickteam.com

For the USA, you can add the (TM) symbol to your product name if you are using it in commerce or commercially. To get the (R) circle symbol rights, you have to register it with the US Trademark office.

As of early this year you need a system that will run Lion (the most recent version of OSx) to run the latest version of Xcode. You need that version of xcode to run on the most recent iOS (since 5.1 I think).

Lion needs a core2 64-bit processor so I'm not sure the mini 1000 hardware will be enough to run it. I had to upgrade from my old macbook earlier this year for this reason :(

Well..but if you sell your game without register....someone can register the name if you game make success and you will need to change the name....

I'm from Brazil....I will register my app here and it's not too much expensive....some around USD100

That is money you can use elsewhere, in my opinion. There are more important things to worry about.

For a global game, do a Google search, and use some other search engines for names you are wanting to use and see what comes up.

Try using a Thesaurus for similar names if others are taken. Try using alternate spellings, as an example see my profile name here. says "shadow".

Even if you do register your name in one country, someone can try and mimic it in another (and many times it will be). Taking someone to court is expensive. Many times, someone clones or steals a game and changes the name anyways. This is inevitable, especially if you have a hit game.

That is another reason why I suggested buying a domain for your game if you want to secure it, because it is harder for someone to claim a name is theirs for their game when you have owned the domain for a few years with the original game.

yeah...buying a domain its a really good option.......taking advantage of this topic......how works the appstore payment system? they pay to paypal? because I'm from Brazil and I want sell my game in all appstore country

Let's please focus on the topic of discussion now. Paobrasil, you should create a new thread if you wish to further discuss this.

colej_uk: Aw, are you kidding me? Way for Apple to monopolise as much as they can. Why should it require the latest OS just to compile a little game? Frankly, I think it's quite ridiculous since I'm sure a lot of developers for iPhone/iPad have been content with using an older system. It just sounds to me like another way for Apple to rake in more money. Well, there goes any value this thread has, any value my recent purchase has (I don't really need the netbook for anything else) and my motivation to develop for the platform. Surely some third-party programmer has come along (even if it's a legal grey area) and provided a way to use the latest Xcode for Leopard?

Hell, you can probably run a usable Visual Studio on Windows 98 (it's an exaggeration but I wouldn't be surprised if it's true), but this is very disappointing. I also suggest somebody edits the sticky requirements thread since it has misled me into buying a paperweight.

Yep, there's no good reason for it as far as I can tell. You might be able to build a hackintosh that runs Lion, but you will likely need a core2 processor in the machine you do it on. As for running recent versions of Xcode on Snow Leopard, I couldn't find any way to do it but don't let that stop you searching.

You can still run an older version of Xcode which will deploy on iOS 5.0 or older. I can't remember if it exporter still works with that version or if they updated it to require the latest one?

Developing for iOS is not an especially cheap thing to get started with if you don't own an ipod/iphone/ipad or mac yet. Maybe if you're looking at into going into mobile development start with Android or Windows Phone, then when you make enough money use that to invest in the stuff you need for iOS?

Well, I found a thread on an iPhone dev forum with a programmer who has a method which, and I quote, "allows you to build on a 5.1 device with xcode 4.2 on snow leopard without installing xcode 4.3.1". This is the link to the thread. I must warn you though, Google Chrome flagged it as having malware. The site, however, appears clean. View at your own discretion. Still, the method seems a little risky with regard to submitting apps to Apple. Despite this discovery, I might just send a message to the guy on eBay who I bought the netbook from (I bought it a little before the evening today) and request cancelling the sale, paying him a little for his troubles.

I saw this whole thing as an opportunity to get into iPhone development cheaply since I'm only on a very low income right now and I'm just starting resuming my MMF2 development. I know iPhone apps usually generate more income than Android, not to mention this runtime presently has more support and functionality than Android's currently does. I guess colej_uk's advice is sound with regard to moving to iOS later on. Right now, it's bringing me more stress than anything.

I know the feeling. I'm on a really tight budget too. I bought a second hand macbook off ebay this time last year (no battery charge left, slightly damaged screen) as it was pretty much the absolute cheapest option. I looked into doing the Hackintosh thing but just decided to go the official route in the end as I didn't want to run into any set backs.

When I had to upgrade earlier this year, I just sold that machine on ebay and bought the next model up. It cost me another £100 or so on top of the selling price of my old one. I fully expect to have to do it next year as well. But since last year I've managed to make enough through my games to justify this. iOS is, as you say, a good market to be in. It's a crowded one but there's a lot of opportunity for good games to make money.

If you are unsure or just saving up to be able to afford the stuff to get it working, you can always design your game now with regular mmf2. I did this when I was waiting for the iOS exporter to be released- just make a game with the right resolution, use only the extensions that work with your desired platform.

Shaun..unfortunately you will need a MAC....the mac mini it's a good option....

I got a used mac mini on craigslist for $250 bucks. I'm sure you could sell a few android games in order to make that much cash, then invest in a mac.

I was running xCode on a 11" netbook Hackintosh a few months ago. Ran fine, just took longer to compile and using the simulator was pretty horrible on the smaller screen.

Using the simulator is pretty horrible on any screen.