Palm Pre, webOS and iPhone

I was advised to look into the Palm Pre as yet another mobile platform for which I could develop my games.  After looking into the Palm Pre’s webOS, and it’s Mojo Framework for development a little bit (I’ve only read the O’Reilly chapter available for free at the moment) I’ve discovered that the Palm Pre’s development framework is entirely ‘web app centric’, meaning that the Palm Pre’s webOS is a glorified web browser based operating system which simply exposes some additional ‘system level’ elements to the JavaScript driving the interactive portion of the web page.

The Palm Pre looks like a rather nice device, but, can it hold up to what the Apple iPhone is capable of? Can it ‘do everything an iPhone can do’, it does not appear so.  However, I have applied for access to become a Palm Developer, and would like to give the Palm Pre a fair shot at game development.  The games I develop, are largely 2D based and could be ported to HTML/CSS/JavaScript fairly easily because of this, but … can the Palm Pre’s webOS handle the resource requirements of a 2D game with moving parts, we don’t know.

It does, however, appear to be more than capable of handling 2D puzzle games, in the genre of Bejewelled, and Sudoko, etc.

The iPhone, on the other hand, has access to OpenGL ES, and is essentially just a crippled version of Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.x), designed to run on a mobile platform.  This, allows the iPhone to do an unbelievable number of things … it’s great for viewing web pages, it’s great for productivity tools, and it’s one of the funner hand held game systems I’ve ever owned (compared to GB, GBA, NDS, PSP, etc).

So, will the Palm Pre really compete with the Apple iPhone … ? Perhaps in the corporate market, but … for the ‘day to day’ person, I believe the iPhone will continue to ‘rule the market’ so to speak.

I hope to eventually look into Google Android, as well as Blackberry Storm as well.  As the Andriod OS is comparative to the iPhone OS, and the Blackberry Storm is similar in nature as well (however, I’ve not yet looked into either … with the exception of seeing some advertisements here and there).

A pearl of wisdom, in a vast sea of writings…

I was digging through some messages this morning, trying to keep as up to date with my various Google Groups and Betas as I could, and ran across a post by the author of if {…} then {…} and dug through the blog, and found a handful of good readings.  The most notable of them is the ‘Loading Screen Example‘ which is useful in general, and with Cocos2D specifically.

I read through the example code, and learned a new trick … that little spinning ‘gear’ that Apple has made so popular for the ‘twiddle your thumbs for a while’ moments in life … is easily accessible with iPhone development, just by using the UIActivityIndicatorViewto display it.

It has startAnimating, stop Animating and isAnimating calls available … and runs on it’s own thread, so when you have code that is going to ‘stop everything’ for a moment, you can splash this up on the screen … and make people ‘feel better about themselves while they wait’.  We all love a useless gear that tells us … ‘everything is working as expected, just hold your horses and be patient’.

So, I thank the author of if {…} then {…} for showing me something new on Sunday morning.

Gearworx Productions on Twitter

Gearworx Productions is now on Twitter.  Check them out, follow there tweets and keep up to date on the latest Gearworx Productions news and releases.

Steve Adamson (GWPGearWorx) on Twitter.

PunkArts releases Chinese Obama.

PunkArts.com, one of my newest ventures in iPhone Development, has just released it’s first “Chinese Obama” episode to the world.  This video is the first in a series of episodes, each episode is embedded into their latest apps available on the App Store soon.

The ‘Ask’ series of apps, which contains these embedded Chinese Obama videos, are an amusing way to get a quick laugh … whether you love them, or hate them, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin and George W. Bush will answer all of life’s questions.  You ask, they answer, really it’s that simple.

Check them out over at PunkArts.com

Performing an Ad-Hoc Distribution Build with Unity iPhone

To make an Ad Hoc distribution build to send out to your beta testers, you first have to create the Mobile Provision Profile on the Program Portal.  Once you’ve created this profile, downloaded and installed it according to Apple’s directions, your ready to begin.

Launch Unity iPhone and open the project you wish to build.  Make sure that under Edit->Project Settings->Player the iPhone Bundle Identifier matches the App ID identifier in your profile (if your profile is something like SAD723.*, you may enter any “com.yourdomain.AppName” combination).  Now, set your stripping level and Script Call Optimizations as necessary.

Goto File->Build Settings, setup your build as you normally would for Desktop or Web distribution.  Select ‘Compress Textures’ and ‘Strip Debug Symbols’ (these are really not needed on the device, and only useful if you know what your doing).  Select the ‘Build’ option, not the ‘Build & Run’ option.

Once your XCode Project is available to select in Finder, replace the Icon.png with the icon you wish to use for your application.  The icon must be a 57×57 PNG image.  Optionally, you can select the appropriate Default.png by changing the name of one of the predefined splash images (required for iPhone Basic) or, alternatively using your own (iPhone Advaced required for custom splash).

Once you have done this, go ahead and open the XCode Project.  Under Project->Edit Project Settings, select the appropriate “iPhone Distribution: Company Name” code signing certificate under “Coding Signing Identity”.  Double click in the “Code Signing Entitlements” just above that and enter the value “Entitlements.plist”.

Now, close the project settings and right click on the project in the left pane.  Select Add->New File.  Under “Code Signing” select “Entitlements”.  Name the file “Entitlements.plist” (the same as you entered above).  Once the file is created, open the file with the Property List Editor and uncheck the “get-tasks-allow” option.

Now make sure that the drop-down on the top-left of the project window says “Device – 2.1 | Release”.

You are now ready to build, so let’s do that now by selecting Build->Build.  Do -not- “Build and Go”.

Once your project is built, drill-down into the Products folder of your XCode Project and right click on the “.app” file that is there.  It should be named the same as the last part of your Bundle Identifier (“com.yourcompany.YourAppName” – ie; “YourAppName”).  Right click this file and say “Reveal in Finder”.  Drag the “.app” file onto your desktop, and copy over the “.mobileprovision” file you downloaded to create this build.  Select both, and right click and tell Finder to compress them.

You may now distribute this archive to your beta testers for review.

Where I spend my day …

Slug Bug by AxoStudios Released!

Slug Bug, one of the hottest new games in the iTunes App Store was recently released.  Slug Bug is a classic retro remake of Frogger, and was executed in such a clean way, it just makes you want to pull out the Atari and hop your frog across that treacherous road.

The creators of Slug Bug took some creative freedom from the classic Frogger and replaced the frog with a cute lady bug.  The artwork is done quite well, and sticks to the classic ’8-bit’ feel. To move around, all you have to do is slide your finger in the direction you want the lady bug to move and … it moves.  The games simple, can be played with a single finger, and has Easy, Medium and Hard complexity levels for those gamers who like to be challenged, or just want to have a quick bit of silly fun while waiting in line at the grocery store.

I installed Slug Bug on my iPod Touch and then had to step out for an appointment, while in the lobby waiting… Slug Bug kept me entertained.

Slug Bug was developed by AxoStudios, a division of Axosoft. Axosoft has been a leader in Project Management and Bug Tracking software for quite some time, and it would seem they are now attempting to tackle the mobile gaming arena.  If they continue releasing games of Slug Bug’s quality and entertainment value, they will undoubtedly become leaders in mobile gaming as well.

Below, you can see the Slug Bug Title Screen, and one of the Slug Bug levels in action.