Multiplatform Development

Benjamin Nitschke CTO Delta Engine &

exDream & MobileBits

MobileBits GmbH

Lerchenstrasse 28

22767 Hamburg

Benjamin@DeltaEngine.net

MobileBits GmbH

Who is MobileBits?

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• Founded 2009 by Holtz, Griga, Nitschke & Wysk

• Focus on Mobile Games

• Developed many smaller Mobile Games

• iSkat, ZombieParty, FlightSchool, Ewe Doodle, ..

• Also is developing www.DeltaEngine.net

• Allows developing games and apps in Windows

• Deploys with one click on many platforms:

• iPhone, iPad, Android, WP7, Xbox 360, Windows,

MacOS, Linux, and many more

Who is MobileBits?

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• Same team as exDream, known 10+ years for:

• Twork (1997), WebWars (2000)

• Rosho: Games for Kids (2001)

• EuroVernichter (.NET, 2003)

• Arena Wars (RTS, first commercial .NET game, 2004)

• Armies of Steel (Prototype, RTS, 2005)

• Rocket Commander (Open Source, 2005)

• XNA Racing Game (Xbox 360, first XNA game, 2006)

• Arena Wars Reloaded (RTS, 2007)

• Fireburst (PC, Xbox 360, PS3, UE3, 2009/2011)

• ZombieParty (iPad Party Game, 2010)

• SoulCraft (iPhone, Android, WP7, 2011)

• Many smaller iPhone Games and other projects …

• Developed to create

games for all AppStore

platforms at once

• High quality 3D RPG game

SoulCraft to demonstrate

the capabilities and speed

• MobileBits cooperates with

companies like NVIDIA,

EA, Chillingo, Microsoft,

Bigpoint and more

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What is the Delta Engine?

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What is the Delta Engine? Develop with .NET for all AppStore platforms

No need to learn different and dated languages for different

platforms such as iPhone, Android and WP7

Easy to learn and to build

Use your favorite Windows-tools, check out our examples

and just press the magic button to build for other platforms

Lightweight and fast

We did the hard work to optimize performance for all

platforms - just include the parts you need for your game

Teamwork made easy

With our advanced content management system, editors for

game designers and full support of all your favorite tools

Assets and code are Open Source

The Delta Engine and our example games are Open Source

and you are invited to participate or to integrate other libraries

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Early version of the Soulcraft Tech Demo in January

2011 at the CES in Las Vegas with NVidia

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Soulcraft Tech Demo

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Demo Time!

ZombieParty runs already on many Platforms

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October 2010

Why Multiplatform?

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• Past: Only Windows Game Development

• Recent: Shift towards Consoles, iPhone

• Present: One platform or all platforms

• Most teams still focus on one platform

• Or you need an engine to be on many platforms

• Examples:

• Unreal Engine 3 (Consoles)

• Unity (mostly iPhone)

• XNA Framework (mostly Xbox 360)

Why Multiplatform?

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23%

20% 57%

2011

PC Consoles Mobile

66%

31%

3%

2003

PC Consoles Mobile

53% 30%

17%

2009

PC Consoles Mobile

Why Multiplatform?

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1 bn USD (2009)

10 bn USD (2015)

Why not just develop iPhone Games?

• Mobile game market is shifting towards Android and WP7

• And growing on all platforms and devices (e.g. tablets this year)

Most apps are games (iPhone, Android,

WP7), but usually costs only 99 cents.

Sell many apps on many platforms!

Why is our engine different?

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• Most other engines are either:

• Black boxes (Unity, UDK, Editors, Modding)

• Just graphic frameworks for specific platforms

(DirectX, XNA, OpenGL ES)

• Or huge native code engines with high license costs

(only suitable for big teams: Unreal, CryEngine, etc)

• We like .NET, it allows more rapid development!

• Only recently possible on all platforms

• Xbox 360, WP7, Windows -> Microsoft

• iPhone, Android, Linux, Mac -> Novell

Platforms and Languages

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• Most platforms have specific frameworks and usually only

support 1-2 languages well:

• iPhone: Objective-C (not very pretty)

• Android: Java (lots of config files, can compile C too)

• Windows Phone 7: Only C# (Silverlight or XNA)

• Xbox 360: Native C++ (XDK, or C# with XNA, Xbla)

• PS3, Wii: C++ (have their own frameworks, ES)

• Linux: Mostly C++ (gcc), Java, also .NET (Mono)

• MacOS: Objective C and C++ mostly

• Windows can do everything (.NET, Java, Scripts, …)

C++ vs C# (setup graphics)

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Unity Editor

Game

Code

Game

Assets

Unity Engine Modules &

Features (not customizable)

Unity3D: Closed Model Delta Engine: Open Model

Delta Engine Framework

Game Code Game Assets

Delta

Engine

Modules

Third Party

Engine

Modules

Custom

Modules

Black Boxes (Closed) Customizable (Open)

Open Source vs Proprietary

Extremely Open Engine

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• Source code available for free (starting July 2011)

• Develop and publish your games on Windows

• No costs for you!

• If you want to deploy on any other platform than Windows:

• You need a Delta Engine Multiplatform license

• Access to easy to use tools (Launcher, Simulators)

• Which will be cheap or royalty based, no worries

• One click deploy, fast and easy with the Launcher

Launcher Addin for VS

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e.g. Start Unit Tests

• Directly integrated into Visual

Studio 2010

• Also available as Standalone

App for Testers

• Starts programs, games, tests,

tutorials, samples on all

supported devices

• Also shows lots of information

about your project (Tests,

Assemblies, Todo-List, etc.)

Content, Content, Content

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• Today's games are mostly content driven

• Especially on Consoles and PC

• You usually have a powerful engine ready to go

• Sharing content between games was almost impossible in

the past, formats changed too often

• The Delta Engine makes all content always available and

will always work on all supported platforms

Content, Content, Content

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• Example with XNA on Windows Phone 7

• Artist saves .png image file or 3D Model

• Content pipeline converts all files to .xnb

• .xnb is the only format allowed for WP7

• Images are best stored as DDS files

• XNA’s content pipeline does the

conversion for you

• 3D Models or Levels often need custom

importers because of different needs

Content, Content, Content

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Step 1: Add Content file to Content Project

Step 2: Load and use content in code

Content, Content, Content

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• Many content files depend on each other usually

• With the Delta Engine it works very similar and on all

platforms, content is just not needed at compile time!

• Things get more complex if you add more platforms

Content, Content, Content

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• When testing on Windows needs 1-2 files per content

• Makes no sense to keep all formats for all platforms.

• Converting formats takes time. For example a single

2048x2048 iPhone PVR Texture takes 30-40 seconds to

save on really fast PC with 3.6Ghz (we got hundreds)

• So content is only converted when you actually need it

and it has been changed (cache)

• Content is processed on Servers in the Cloud (currently

one server can handle everything, but this will be

expanded as more demand is needed)

Content, Content, Content

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• Content is always automatically requested and build, there

is no button to do it and a human will make too many

mistakes choosing options anyway.

• Instead the build server decides all this and makes sure all

content files work together, optimized as much as possible

• Unused content is removed, Atlas textures are

generated, content is optimized by the shaders used

• Crazy compression rates of 100:1 and more, which is really

required for mobile games (ZombieHockey 2.8MB on WP7,

6 MB iPhone, PC version is 40MB, uncompressed >120MB)

Content, Content, Content

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Example Atlas Textures (generated automatically, 2D & 3D)

Delta Engine Release

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Questions? I hope you liked the presentation and the Engine.

Delta Engine Release

July 2011 (v0.9)

v1.0 coming end 2011

www.DeltaEngine.net

Already working on Windows, MacOS, Linux, iPhone, iPad,

Windows Phone 7, Android, Android Tablets, Nvidia Tegra,

Xbox 360 and more soon

Thank you for your attention

Benjamin Nitschke CTO Delta Engine &

exDream & MobileBits

MobileBits GmbH

Lerchenstrasse 28

22767 Hamburg

Benjamin@DeltaEngine.net

MobileBits GmbH