GameSalad Creator is an authoring tool developed by GameSalad, Inc. (formerly Gendai Games) aimed primarily at non-programmers for composing games in a drag-and-drop

Drag-and-drop

In computer graphical user interfaces, drag-and-drop is the action of selecting a virtual object by "grabbing" it and dragging it to a different location or onto another virtual object...

 fashion, utilizing visual editors and a behavior-based logic system. It is used by consumers and creative professional

Creative professional

A is a person who is employed for the extraction of skills in creative endeavors. Creative professions include writing, art, design, theater, television, radio, motion pictures, related crafts, as well as marketing, strategy, scientific research and development, product development, engineering,...

s such as graphic designers, animators, and game developers for rapidly prototyping

Rapid application development

Rapid application development is a software development methodology that uses minimal planning in favor of rapid prototyping. The "planning" of software developed using RAD is interleaved with writing the software itself...

, building and self-publishing cross-platform

Cross-platform

In computing, cross-platform, or multi-platform, is an attribute conferred to computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented and inter-operate on multiple computer platforms...

 games and interactive media. The application runs on Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

 and can produce iPhone

IPhone

The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...

 , web browser-based content in HTML 5, and mac applications.

On December 21, 2009, Macworld Expo

Macworld Conference & Expo

Produced by Boston-based IDG World Expo, Macworld | iWorld is a trade-show with conference tracks dedicated to the Apple Macintosh platform. It is held annually in the United States, usually during the second week of January...

 partnered with Gendai Games

Gendai Games

GameSalad, Inc., formerly Gendai Games , is an American computer software company that designs and develops authoring tools and web services for game creation. Their flagship product is GameSalad Creator, a game creation system for creative professionals that enables non-programmers to create 2D...

, the developer of GameSalad, for the Macworld 2010 GameSalad Challenge to promote Mac and iPhone game creation before and during the Macworld 2010 conference.

On November 20, 2010, GameSalad unveiled a new "Free to Make" model, making basic membership free to all users, including iOS publishing. The price of their Professional account was lowered to $499.

Behavior system

GameSalad provides a graphical user interface

Graphical user interface

In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...

 for describing the rules and the behavior of game objects, called Actors, without knowledge of programming or scripting language

Scripting language

A scripting language, script language, or extension language is a programming language that allows control of one or more applications. "Scripts" are distinct from the core code of the application, as they are usually written in a different language and are often created or at least modified by the...

s. Behaviors are components of an actor that can either instantaneously or persistently affect the actor depending on rules that compose them. The application comes with a library of behaviors (for movement, changing attribute states, affecting collision, saving, etc.) that can be inserted into rules and other behavior groups to create new behavior.

Other major features

• Apple-Platform publishing - GameSalad has one common dialog-based interface for publishing to multiple platforms such as the iPhone, HTML 5 or mac. (Note: Mac OS X Safari Required, thus not cross-platform compatible)

• Real-time editing -- Users can edit a scene while the game is running. The initial state of actors can be toggled to be displayed translucently to show their original orientation when the scene started playing.

• Game preview -- GameSalad has a specific preview mode for debugging and testing the performance and memory usage of games on the desktop and the iPhone. A viewer application can be installed separately onto an iPhone so that users can click a toolbar button in GameSalad to upload games onto the iPhone over a wireless network.

• Scene editor -- Users can place and manipulate actors in a scene. Actors are added to the scene by dragging and dropping. Actors in a scene can be organized into different layers to change how actors are visualized (rendering order, parallax scrolling
  Parallax scrolling
  Parallax scrolling is a special scrolling technique in computer graphics, popularized in the 1982 arcade game Moon Patrol. In this pseudo-3D technique, background images move by the camera slower than foreground images, creating an illusion of depth in a 2D video game and adding to the immersion...
  
  , etc.).

• Dashboard -- With the dashboard, users can browse uploaded games, run tutorials, message other GameSalad members, and download shared templates upload by other GameSalad members.

• Integrated physics -- GameSalad is utilizes a rigid-body
  Rigid body
  In physics, a rigid body is an idealization of a solid body of finite size in which deformation is neglected. In other words, the distance between any two given points of a rigid body remains constant in time regardless of external forces exerted on it...
  
   physics simulator for handling realistic motion and collision. Users can manage and optimize how objects collide by organizing actors with tags
  Tag (metadata)
  In online computer systems terminology, a tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information . This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching...
  
  . Users can choose to have an actor collide with a group of many other types of actors.

• Expressions -- For advanced users, GameSalad has an expression editor to define complex behavior and state changes with mathematical expressions
  Expression (mathematics)
  In mathematics, an expression is a finite combination of symbols that is well-formed according to rules that depend on the context. Symbols can designate numbers , variables, operations, functions, and other mathematical symbols, as well as punctuation, symbols of grouping, and other syntactic...
  
   and a library of functions
  Function (mathematics)
  In mathematics, a function associates one quantity, the argument of the function, also known as the input, with another quantity, the value of the function, also known as the output. A function assigns exactly one output to each input. The argument and the value may be real numbers, but they can...
  
  .

• GameSalad Website -- The gamesalad website, http://gamesalad.com , has a marketplace for users to buy and sell sprites, graphics, and more content that appears in the bottom left hand corner of the creator. The forums are a place to ask for help, answer people's questions, announce your game etc. The cookbook is an site to look up a question if it is already asked or ask a question if the question is not asked.

External links

• GameSalad Website Official Web site
• GameSalad Video Tutorials Official Tutorials