For my first steps, I’ve chosen to go with some basics:
- OSX 10.6 “Snow Leopard”
- XCode 4
- iPhone SDK 4.3.x
- TextWrangler
- Evernote
- Word 2011 for Mac
This will set me up to develop my game for both Mac and iOS right out of the gate, and by running a Windows VM and BootCamp I’m going to keep the door open for a possible Windows port down the line. For now, however, I’m going to keep that as a back-burner option.
I’ve decided that one of the big differences between this and some previous projects (both professional and non) is that I’d like to maintain a robust note system. Keeping track of thoughts when I’m not actively working on the project (especially a project like this in my ever-shrinking “spare time”) is going to be a very important factor in the success of my endeavor. After reviewing my options, I elected to go with Evernote over a close-second MS OneNote primarily because of the slight edge in multi-platform support and much better web interface. This should allow me to have the best access to my “remote brain” from pretty much anywhere there’s electricity… at least access to WiFi or a cell tower.
The rest of my options are pretty standard (for the Mac platform), with the possible choice of Word over Pages.