Rocco Bowling has recently posted an article on iDevGames that disseminates his journey through Mac game development up to the point where he created and published Vortex NG. Readers may remember IMG's mention of Vortex NG after it was released back in May 2001. It's also worth mentioning that it was the winner of the Independent Games Festival Student Showcase.

Though the article is listed as a postmortem for Vortex NG, Bowling digresses from focusing specifically on his game's technologies, diving into his experiences as a student developer of Mac games as well as his perspective on game development itself. The article goes through his early development, noting that he started with HyperTalk before branching off into C/C++, with knowledge of OpenGL and Open Transport coming later.

He also mentions his experiences with the Student Showcase, from the method of entry all the way through the festival itself. He also looks at design triumphs and mistakes he feels he made with the development of Vortex NG, including an interesting look at the pros and cons of early Mac OS X development.

Anyone interested in game development should definitely give Bowling's article a once-over. It contains a minimum of tech-speak, so even non-programmers should be able to enjoy it. The article itself is a good look into the skills, requirements, and hurdles of game development and design.

iDevGames - Vortex NG Postmortem

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