If you thought for just a second that RIM wasn't serious about having the best tools for developers to create games and applications on the BlackBerry platform, then lets hope this post instills some confidence regarding their stance on mobile gaming.
Today RIM has announced an update to their open-source game development platform designed for indie developers called gameplay. Version 1.2 is being made available for download and brings along a few really cool features and additions.
New features in gameplay v1.2
- Newplatforms now supporting: BlackBerry Tablet OS 2.0 and BlackBerry 10 ready!, Apple iOS 5.1 for iPhone and iPad, Google Android 2.3+, Microsoft Windows 7, and Apple MacOSX
- New shader-based material system with built-in common shader library.
- New declarative scene binding.
- New declarative particle system.
- Improved physics system with rigid body dynamics and constraints.
- New character physics and ghost objects.
- Improved animation system supporting animated skeletal character animation.
- New declarative user interface system with support for declartive theming and ortho, and 3D form definition with built-in core control classes such as Button, Label, TextBox, Slider, CheckBox, RadioButton. Also includes Layout classes such as Absolute/Vertical and FlowLayout.
- New cross-platform new game project wizard scripts.
- New game developer guide.
- New game samples and tutorials.
Gameplay allows developers to build with cross-platform in mind. No longer should a developer have to commit to one platform when there is money to be made across all, and why should they have to choose? The gameplay platform is fully open-source and is available via the GitHub online community, allowing developers to use open-source assets in their games to build realistic 3D environments and gameplay. It's kind of interesting to see what direction RIM has planned with this development kit as they list gaming controllers from Wii, Xbox 360, and other Bluetooth controllers as being supported in future versions. To get the full details hit up the InsideBlackBerry blog or the BlackBerry GitHub development page.
Reader comments
RIM launches gameplay v1.2 - a cross platform development framework for indie developers
Awesome!
Good job rim
Good news and I'm sure more to follow all week leading up to BBW!
RIM getting ready for BB10 \=D/
Wow, this is huge actually.....
Kinda funny that really awesome news posts like this get... 15 comments?
Must be too hard to flip this to be a negative against RIM.. lol
Nice!
When I look at all the stuff RIM has been rolling out in the last twelve months I think wow.
This continues to show their ability to adapt and compete and I like the attitude of "lets all Play" and not just being dependent on one ecosystem.
Nice work, glad to see RIM on top of its game again. !!
Maybe it's because of the post-work vape, but this is amazing news - this news right here. I'm not much of a gamer but this... Just. Feels. Right...
MFLB for the win! ;)
Yay for forward motion!
Sent via Blackberry 9900
Does anyone else think that the cross platform aspect is because BlackBerry not enticing so they hope to get it to be used for iOS or Android development and then it just runs on BB.
Well I think thats the point, so then if most popular games are on all platforms, all thats left are the OS integrations. So it wont be a matter of choosing the Iphone because they want to play the same games as everyone
I would like to hear some Developer comments.
If the developer does a game development for the "other platform", the kit should force them to render a version for the Playbook. That way, there will be no excuse for non-development to the Playbook platform.
Exactly. RIM should only allow developers to use these tools if they sign an agreement to release their games on the BB 10 platform. It's great that they want to make a set of cross platform tools but if they aren't going to charge for it then they should at least get an agreement out of the development using it that they will publish to App World.
When developer is forced to be restricted by some conditions he most likely ... will drop this platform. Why would I develop app for iPhone using BB (non-native to iOS) tools? Same for Anrdoid. Common, be realistic!
This is good news!
Not "wonderful", but really good news.