The document outlines challenges in cross-platform game development, collaboration, and speed of iteration. It then introduces Co+Pilot, an application framework from Augernaut that aims to address these challenges. Co+Pilot uses a real-time syncing publish and subscribe database called PubSubDub, supports development in JavaScript, and allows cross-platform deployment. It is designed to get more creators involved in the process more quickly through specialized role-based tools. The presentation concludes with a live demo and Q&A section.

2. In the next 60 minutes
• Who we are (1)
• Challenges (5)
• Co+Pilot (10)
• Live demo (30)
• Q&A (15)

3. who we are

5. who we are
Myron David
@myronm @goldbuick
Partner at Cymbal Interactive Lead UX at Promethean, Inc.
• Designed, produced, and • GDC Austin Speaker
contributed to 40+ mobile titles • Creator of Reflexion (iOS)
across 3 major mobile platforms
• World of Goo (iOS port consultant)
(iOS, Android, and Hiptop)
• Snapshot (OSX Port)

6. augernaut
At augernaut we develop a suite of tools designed from the
ground up to empower Javascript game developers with an
easier way to collaborate, continuously create, and distribute
fun cross-platform games more quickly.
Augernaut Co+Pilot is the application framework that allows this
magic to happen.

7. challenges

8. Original photo by: Navaneeth KN
http://www.flickr.com/photos/navaneethkn/

9. Challenges
• Cross-Platform Development
• Collaboration
• Time to fun
• Flow

10. Challenge: Cross-Platform Development
• Challenging to make cross-platform games
• Asset creation for multiple platforms is
time-consuming and costly
• Programming languages and frameworks are
generally not optimized specifically for game
development

11. Challenge: Cross-Platform Development
Construct, Stencyl and MMF2 all use visual coding that
gets very hard to debug and read as the project grows.
And using Unity to make a 2D game is like
trimming a bonsai tree with a chainsaw.
Tom Grochowiak:
Cinders, Magi, Co-Op

12. Challenge: Collaboration
• How do you capture a Game Jam?
• Different contributing roles are locked in silos
• The best talent may not be local
– But working with remote people is difficult

13. Challenge: Time to fun
• Long time to market from prototype to production
• Difficult to know if/when a game is fun, and when
to cut investment

14. Challenge: Time to fun
“Man a faster iteration time on touch screens
would be super great.”
Adam “Atomic” Saltsman
Canabalt, Wurdle,Gravity Hook

15. Challenge: Time to fun
• Interruptions and dependencies that interrupt flow
and being in the “zone”
• Frustrating and time-consuming Change, Compile,
Deploy, Run, Test, Repeat… cycle

16. Problem: Flow
“Making games for me is all about just feeling
the FLOW on what to work on…”
Kyle Pulver
Offspring Fling, Snapshot, Bonesaw, Verge

17. co+pilot

18. Original photo by: Jeremy Seitz
http://www.flickr.com/photos/somebox/

19. co+pilot
Augernaut Co+Pilot is the application framework that allows us
to magically solve these issues.

20. PubSubDub
• What: A real-time syncing publish and subscribe
database
• Why: It is the heart of Co+Pilot; enables and makes
it easy to write real-time multi-user applications
• How: It manages the network connectivity,
manages messaging in the data structure

21. Javascript
• What: Uses Javascript and JQuery syntax
• Why: Allows developers to use a commonly known
and easy to learn language and programming
paradigm regardless of target platform or game
type
• How: Native game engine has hooks from
Javascript to native device calls

22. Cross-platform support
• What: Deploy to th most popular platforms
(currently – Mac/PC, iOS, Android; soon – HTML 5)
• Why: Fragmented market and app stores require
developers to create for multi-platforms in order
to reach most users
• How: Co+Pilot engine is written in portable C++

23. Asset Flexibility
• What: Scalable design to deal with multiple screen
shapes and resolution
• Why: Helps to future proof games, extend targets,
and reduce redesign and asset optimization time
and special device edge-case code
• How: Use of global world units/smart asset
resizing and optimization/typography
management/ responsive design paradigms/ and
tools to create multi-resolution assets

24. More people into the process, more
quickly
• What: Reduces dependencies and bottlenecks, and
allows more creators into the process more
quickly
• Why: Development has artificial gates and
dependencies;
– it is very linear and require tasks to be complete before
handoff.
– This limits collaboration and increases down time for
creators in different roles

25. Role-based tools
• What: Tools designed for different roles in the
game creation process (developers, producers,
designers, artists, testers, musicians, level editors,
animators, etc.)
• Why: It is easy to target for people to work in small
targeted tools .
• Allows for simplicity and elegance
• How: Allow users to focus on talents and tasks
while still collaborating

26. World/Room/Layer/Object
• What: Rather than mixing many different kinds of
things into the same container, you group objects
of like functionality into common layers
• Why: To streamline the process, and to abstract
out common game tasks to specialized layers

27. …and all the game stuff
• Physics
• Sprites
• Animation
• Sound
• Interactions
• Tile maps
• GUI
• Multiplayer
• Hooks for monetization and other goodies

28. let’s play!

29. Q&A

30. Thank You!