Intel Build of Asteroid Rally
Finishing up the updates to my older games, I have just put up an Intel build of Asteroid Rally. This makes the game run better on Intel-based Macs, which is almost every Mac sold from 2006 onwards. I also updated the contact information.
The original PowerPC build of Asteroid Rally is still available for older Macs.
Asteroid Rally is far from my best game but can be kind of mesmerizing to play it full-screen with the in-game music. Or, if you prefer your own music, I recommend picking something ambient. Enjoy!
Intel Build of WordBeGone
I have just put up an Intel build of WordBeGone. This makes the game much more efficient on Intel-based Macs (almost every Mac sold from 2006 onwards.) Other minor changes:
- removed the option for slow transitions (bo-oring!)
- updated contact information
The original PPC build of WordBeGone is still available for download as well.
Intel Build of Black Cube
An Intel build of Black Cube has been released. This makes the game much more efficient on Intel-based Macs (almost every Mac sold from 2006 onwards.) Other minor changes:
- fixed a problem that could cause sounds not to play
- updated contact information
The original PPC build of Black Cube is still available for older Macs.
Unity iPhone vs. Apple’s Developer License: Time to Worry?
For those of us using Unity iPhone, Apple's new developer licensing terms are cause for concern. Specifically section 3.3.1, which states:
3.3.1. Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).
This has widely been interpreted as an attempt by Apple to prevent developers from cross-compiling Flash and/or Google Android games for iPhone. John Gruber has a good analysis of this which is somewhat sympathetic to Apple's position. For unsympathetic opinions, simply swing a dead cat to hit a few. 
(If Gruber is correct then I have to take issue with Apple's thinking. If a company like Adobe tries to create their own platform on top of Apple's, I believe Apple's best defense is to keep adding popular features. That forces middleware companies to either support those features and become more Apple-like, or fall behind. But that's a topic for another day.)
So should Unity iPhone developers be concerned? Yes, of course. Unity Technologies is urgently trying to get clarification from Apple on this. But until we know the score, there are many reasons to be hopeful for a favorable outcome.
1. Many of the top iPhone games are from companies like Popcap who release cross-platform casual games all the time. Many of these companies do not write their games from scratch for every platform. They target their own internal framework which itself supports multiple platforms. Apple is going to have a real problem if companies like Popcap and Telltale aren't allowed to do this.
2. Unity Technologies is heavily invested in this issue. If in the end comes down to a matter of what language the game is scripted in, or some other technicality, they are probably going to find a way to get around it.
3. Disallowing middleware like Unity isn't straightforward, particularly for games. If the final project is built in XCode, and follows the UI guidelines appropriate for that app's category (e.g. utilities are generally expected to follow Apple guidelines and use the Cocoa controls; but games almost always use a custom user interface) then the product becomes indistinguishable from "native" code from the user's point of view. It's hard to imagine that Apple would reverse-engineer games in order to distinguish Unity iPhone games from others.
Of course, Apple has been willfully arbitrary before, so this argument doesn't hold THAT much water, but it's a point to consider.
4. People who use Unity are well-positioned to jump to another market if Apple locks this one down. It's hard to overstate this point. Competing platforms like Android are going to have a field day with this, as it reinforces their message that Apple's closed system is bad for developers. Google would welcome disenfranchised iPhone developers with open arms. And an Android edition of Unity is already in the works.
The burden is on Apple now to clarify or possibly revise the policy. Personally I think they are going to interpret it narrowly or possibly even retreat from it. It seems to me like a classic case of lawyers reflexively setting up something that in retrospect is difficult to enforce and hurts Apple more than it helps.
Here's hoping the situation gets resolved quickly.
Isometric vs Perspective Camera
Recently I've been experimenting with using an isometric camera for Pawns for the iPhone.
Isometric views have always felt a little cheesy to me, for historical reasons. In the old days it was often used to fake 3D. Since things don't get smaller as they move further away from an isometric viewpoint, you could use 2D sprites instead of drawing true 3D objects. This was useful when the graphics hardware was only good at drawing sprites. (For example, old arcade games like Q*Bert or Zaxxon painted their 3D graphics this way.)
The iPhone is of course perfectly capable of rendering true 3D. And with Unity I don't gain any speed just by switching to a isometric view. Even so, the isometric view has a few advantages.
Firstly, the squares near the rear of the board are the same size as those in front, making it easier for the player to place arrows. Pieces in the back are also more visible this way.
I can also optimize the appearance of the 3D pieces. Under perspective it's hard to make out the crosspiece on top of the king, for example, depending on the angle. In an isometric view the king's rotation relative to the camera is always the same, whether it is on the left side of the board or the right. So each model only needs to look good from one angle.
This isn't just a matter of aesthetics, or covering up my mediocre artistic skills. Pawns will not be fun on the iPhone unless each type of piece is instantly recognizable despite the small screen.
For that matter, with care I could improve the graphics by prerendering high-resolution chess models to make 2D sprites. This might improve their appearance- I've been having wrestling with lowering the polygon counts without having the pieces look too crappy. (A topic for a future blog entry, perhaps.)
Of course, if I go to billboarded sprites I can't simply reposition the camera or lights whenever I feel like. And after seeing Pawns in perspective for so many years, I'm having a hard time getting used to the isometric look. Still, I'll leave it this way for a while longer and see if it grows on me.