This blog will still exist for the sake of Don’t Dial, Mom’s Voice, and future Cuttlefish machinations. Just no more engine talk here.

And my personal blog will still be updated, but it’ll be more about code, the game industry at large, and all the other things I might feel compelled to write about that are so off-topic and irrelevant that not only are they outside the realm of the Cuttlefish Engine (which is where 99% of my time is going now anyway), they’re clear outside the topic of Cuttlefish Industries!

As for the engine itself – progress continues to be made! I’m just horrible at updating. Partly because I’m busy, but mostly because I dislike hyping something before it’s ready. Once the first releases are out and people are starting to use it, I’ll be more active online.

That said, at GDC, and since, I’ve gotten three new common questions that I’m going to answer here.

- Is there going to be a Mac version of the designer?

I’ve had to scale back my plans for this a bit. I was originally hoping to have one at or shortly after initial release, but I simultaneously underestimated the complexity of this, and overestimated the demand. A mac version of the designer is pretty far off on the horizon. But there’s always Parallels.

- What about social media, achievements, etc?

We’re looking at what it would take to integrate a framework for this. I spoke to many people at GDC; it seems like a lot of companies are making a play to be “the” provider for achievements, social networking integration, and serving up ads. I kind of want to see how this scene shakes out a little more before I make a commitment to any one particular platform (or roll my own), but it is on the radar.

- How do you handle the tremendous differences between devices?

It is a tough problem. The designer lets you say, “hey, I just authored this game for iPhone.” So it knows which resolution and platform all the assets were created for. If your assets are all iPhone, and you tell the designer to kick out an iPad build, it’ll simply scale everything up and build the game with those. That’s a good starting point, but nobody wants to ship an iPad game that way. So the engine also allows you to provide variations for each asset, based on platform. You can replace the 32×32 PNG you used for iPhone with a bigger one for iPad, and you can do the same thing with all the other kinds of content, including map layers and game objects. Also, you can create map layers that only apply to a particular platforms, so in a given level, you can keep the same set of base layers, but if you want to provide a more detailed background, or additional particles and effects, you can. Same idea with game objects – if you want them to have richer visuals, that’s easy too.

As for the other differences – the general philosophy is that Cuttlefish exposes everything, and trusts you not to do silly things. For example, you can script a response to a keypress event, even though there’s only physical keys on some of the Android devices. When the designer generates iPhone, it’ll include the code, but that code won’t ever get called. Same thing for multi-touch. There are things you can do in script to see what phone you’re on, and there’s build configurations, and each config can have its own set of #defines you can check in script.

In summary, for different platforms, the designer doesn’t eliminate all the pain, but it dulls it considerably, and the big idea is definitely not “support only the lowest common denominator.”

That’s it for now. More soon!

In the meantime, if you haven’t seen the new Cuttlefish Engine site, check it out!

I’m sorry I haven’t been able to respond to everyone’s emails personally, there’s just no time. But I can answer what is lately the biggest question: “What is up with Cuttlefish and iPad?” The short answer is that we’re on it. I am pushing very hard to make sure that Cuttlefish is not only one of the first engines out there for the iPad, but also one of the most comprehensive and compelling. It won’t be like, “oh yeah here’s an engine that was built for iPhone but hey happens to work on iPad.” The Cuttlefish Engine is already multi-platform aware, which means iPad support isn’t going to feel tacked on. You will be able to use the engine to create compelling, iPad-centric games.

Anyway, check out the new site, and if you haven’t done so already, sign up for our email announcements.

Q:  When will it be released?

A:  Roughly this winter.  I’ve shuffled some priorities around to get something out there fast.  In the next couple of months you’ll see the site go online, with tutorials and such.  This will be followed by a formal beta period where the engine will be free to download, but will only run games in the simulator (by this I mean the simulator in the Cuttlefish Designer, not the iPhone simulator). Here’s the exciting part – you’ll be able to start developing your game during the beta, and you won’t have to start over when beta’s done.  If you’ve built a running game in the beta version of the designer, when beta ends you’ll load your project into the release version, hit a button and you’ll see your game on your phone.  If your game is ready when the beta ends, you will definitely be able to submit your game to the app store or to the marketplace the same day the engine’s released.

Q.  Great, when’s beta?

A:  How about an announcement of when I’ll announce beta? The exact beta date will be revealed when the full Cuttlefish Engine site comes online here in a few weeks.

Q:  Is it open source?

A:  No.  Well, kind of – the designer spits out the full source code for your game.  That code is completely yours.  So in that sense, it’s open source.   But the actual code to generate that code (the metacode?) isn’t.  There will be a plug-in architecture though, and all the designer data files are XML, so it’ll be easy to write your own tools if that’s what you need.

Q:  Is it free?

A:  No, but it will be affordable.  There will be separate licenses for commercial game houses, and independent developers or those doing cell games as a hobby.  It will be cheaper than Unity – in my opinion as an independent developer, Unity is overpriced for what you actually get.  I’d encourage any indie developer thinking about dropping thousands on Unity to WAIT.  I don’t mean to pick on the Unity guys, they’ve got a great engine, but I started developing the Cuttlefish Engine after looking extensively at Unity and deciding it didn’t fit my needs.  Anyway, based on what limited hard sales data I’ve been able to squeeze out of my friends and contacts who’ve made cell games, at the final price I’m considering, most games will recoup the cost of the engine relatively quickly.  There will be no per-game licenses, and no backend or royalty shenanigans.  It’ll be “pay for it and make as many games as you want with it.”

Q:  Is it 3D?

A:  It will have some 3D features, but to get something out to you guys quick I’ll probably ship the first release with limited 3D support.  Think Flash, only done completely in OpenGL, so with particle systems, scaling/stretching/rotation, etc.  Most cell games, and especially most indie games, are 2D – I’d rather release early for the majority of you rather than hold the first release until 3D is ready.  So, full 3D – meshes, skeletal animation, etc, will come a bit later. However, the engine is built from the ground up with 3D support in mind, so it’s not going to feel tacked on.

Q:  Is your focus on Android or iPhone?

A:  Both.  The initial release will support both Android and iPhone, and the capabilities of each will be the same.  You will be able to make your game in the simulator without regard for phone type, and generate iPhone and Android versions seamlessly.  Blackberry is a close third, but it’s possible the initial release won’t ship with it (again in the interest of getting something out as soon as possible).  When (not if) Blackberry support arrives, you won’t have to make any changes to your game to get it to run.  It’ll be a button press.  The same goes for any future platform the engine supports (and there will be more than just these three phones).

Q: How is it possible to write the same code in ObjectiveC (for iPhone) and Java (for Android)?

A:  The engine works through code generation.  You write code for your game, and the Cuttlefish Designer looks at your code and massages it into the actual ObjC or Java code for the phone.  You then build your final game in XCode or Eclipse.  On the phone it’s all native code – you don’t have to worry about getting rejected by Apple for having “interpreted code,” and your game doesn’t take a performance hit when running your script.  Also, it is orders of magnitude faster than using built-in interpreted languages like Javascript (which is what a lot of cross-phone games rely on today).

Q:  Networking?

A:  Very much yes.  There will be extensive support for networked games, including matchmaking, and integrated simulator support so you can develop a network game using only 1 actual phone, and be very confident that what you ship will actually work.  Cross-phone networking (by that I mean iPhones and Androids in the same multiplayer game) is a consideration, but I need to nail down some things before I can say for sure what support there will be for that.  I’m hopeful, though.

Q: Physics?

A:  Again very much yes.  There will be a full physics simulator, with support for joints, motors, and so on.   You will be able to create everything from Peggle to Crayon Physics-esque games, all at high framerate.

OK I think those were the big questions, I hope I didn’t lose anyone’s interest by not posting more info sooner, it’s just that most days I’m busy actually writing the code and I only come up for air occasionally (though it will be more often as things get closer to beta!)  If you’ve got a question I didn’t answer, comment here or send me an email.

Oh, and finally – more screenshots – everyone wanted more screenshots, so here’s some quick ones… apologizes for the roughness of some of the UI, and rest assured in the final beta there won’t be any toolbar buttons with that ugly C# default image icon.

And yes, this means that Don’t Dial for Blackberry is close.  With any luck we should be able to submit by next week, and then depending on how quickly they approve us could have a version ready for sale by mid-July!

The Cuttlefish Engine is a cross-platform game engine and game designer for iPhone, G1, and Blackberry.  The idea is that you make your game using a GUI, and then the engine generates the code for that game.  Build for the iPhone with your developer key, and you’re ready for upload to the App Store.  Same idea for the other two platforms.

For more information, check out the new Cuttlefish Engine site!  http://www.cuttlefishengine.com.