Archive for the ‘Airplay SDK’ Category

Worcle Update

Friday, June 11th, 2010

Those of you not on my beta team might be wondering what’s happening with Worcle… it has been rather quiet on the development front I know. I’m pleased to say that it is progressing nicely and I’m ever hopeful that I’ll get it all finished before the end of the summer :)

I have both game modes working nicely, so you can choose whether to work along at your own pace scoring as highly as possible, or fight against the clock to get your words made. I have highscores working (though name entry only on Android and iPhone at present). I have neatened up the graphics, though I’m still not 100% happy with them… they are much better than they were :)

I still have a long todo list… some bug fixing, a reworking of the dictionary system, and a few more features to put in (like trophies, and maybe some form of social network integration). But the end is in sight, my todo list is shrinking, and there’s nothing huge and scary left to add :)

So today I have finally paid Apple the $99 to become a proper, paid developer, and those of you with iPhones, iPod Touches or an iPad (real iPad support will be in Airplay at the end of June, but for now it should work just in iPhone resolution) should register on here if you haven’t already and then email me your UDID :D I only have limited places, and I’m more likely to give you a slot if I know you but leave me a nice message here and I might add you even if I don’t! You also have to promise not to share the game with anyone (less easy to do on iPhone anyway).

Thanks to finally finding a job, I’m only working on Worcle one or two days a week. I’m trying to get updates out on a Friday to give weekend play time :) This means I am hoping to get a new beta up this evening for everyone to play, and if Apple play nice (i.e. email me back quickly) and you’re speedy with your UDID, then you might get to play for the weekend! :D

Thoughts on Airplay SDK

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

A couple of weeks ago Alex from Tuna Snax recommended I take a look at Airplay.  The basic idea of the SDK is that it enables you to write once in C++ on a Windows machine and build across all the mobile platforms you can think of – iPhone, Windows Mobile, Android, Blackberry and Symbian.  This really appealed to me as I’m confident in C++ and am used to working within an SDK.  Plus, the only Mac in my house recently decided it had had enough, so I’m a little stuck with no way to develop for iPhone at present.

The download (of the 30 day trial) and installation was fairly painless and didn’t mind working with Visual C++ Express.  There was a slight issue with Windows 7, but a quick search of the forums found someone else with the same problem and a solution from one of the developers which did the trick.

The SDK comes with 3 full game examples, which I had running in a simulator very quickly and even on my Windows Mobile phone without much difficulty.  The documentation is well written and there’s lots of little demo apps to illustrate how to use the various functionality.  Their simulator is well equipped to mimic the functionality of many devices, and even has means by which to test accelerometer controls with just mouse and keyboard!

Conveniently, Bryan had just come up with an idea for a game, so I decided to try out Airplay to create a new prototype.  I was impressed by how quickly I got something up and running.  Within an afternoon I managed to go from “Oooo, I wonder how to use this new SDK” to having something with basic functionality running on their simulator.  Then after spending the following evening having a few arguments (mostly due to not realising that one of their forms doesn’t auto-refresh) I managed to get it running on my device too.

It feels a little strange trying to work with 2D graphics in a system which is clearly intended for 3D work, though it is perfectly possible.  I’m hoping to try out the 3D side soon, although I think Bryan would like me to turn this prototype into a full working game first! :)

Overall I am very impressed with Airplay and I suspect I will be purchasing a license when my evaluation runs out, since Bryan and I both have Windows Mobile phones, so we’d rather be able to build for that (if you only want to do iPhone development there’s an entirely free version!)  If you’re considering mobile game development and are comfortable with C++ I would highly recommend you take a look, it certainly beats having to convert your code for each of the platforms you want to support!