Multi-platform indie game development

Davide Coppola
Lowpoly Studios
Multi-platform indie game development

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Davide Coppola – davide.coppola@lowpoly-studios.com – Lowpoly Studios

Intro: the speaker

 Graduated in Computer Science at Federico II (Naples, IT) - 2008
 Master thesis was a GPGPU project about creation and erosion of heightmaps
 Coder for Curve Studios (London, UK) - 2008-2010
 Started Lowpoly Studios working in his spare time (most of it) - 2009
 Got crazy and decided to work full-time as Lowpoly Studios – 2010
 Took part in Codemotion as speaker - 2011


Intro: the company

 Started in London in 2009
 Main project still under development: The Undergrounder
 Made some experiments using Flash
 Created Flash games portal www.AskFlashGames.com
 Developing a secret project for the mobile market


Intro: the talk

Part 1 Part 2
 Indie gamedev  Example: The Undergrounder
 Philosophical marketing  Working environment
 Commercial solutions  Libraries and Frameworks
 Free/Open Source solutions  Managing the code
 Custom solutions  Future


Indie Gamedev
INDIE = UNSTABLE


Why developing multi-platform?

 More distribution channels
 Pretty simple from a technical point of view
 Pretty cheap (working for the desktop market)
 Why not?


Why developing for Mac OS X?

In the 2009 the Mac market was a niche market, then...


Why developing for Linux?

 Niche market
 Catalyst for different markets
 Full availability of tool/framework
 More dedicated website
 Supporting the rising of the platform


Commercial solutions

 Engines: Torque, Unigine, Unity, …
 Professional products
 Documentation not always perfect
 High costs not affordable for all
 Controlled by productors and licenses


free/Open Source solutions

 2D engines: Allegro, Clanib, Love, ...
 3D engines: Crystal Space, Irrlitch, Ogre 3D, Panda 3D, …
 Multi-platform (desktop)
 Mostly oriented to rendering
 Long development times
 No commercial support


Custom solutions

 Made with your project in mind, so flexible
 No needs to learn new (third-party) thechnologies
 No fixed costs
 Less dependent on third party technologies
 Give you more experience
 Developing proprietary technology


Proposed solution

 Follows the Custom model
 C++ code
 Multi-platform: Windows, Mac, Linux
 Based on free/Open Source frameworks and libraries
 Custom, but be flexible...


A real example

http://www.the-undergrounder.com


Hardware

 Linux and Windows: PC
 Mac Os X: Mac mini
 Mac + Bootcamp?
 Virtualization: Virtual Box, Vmware, etc...?
 Optional: laptop and netbook


Multi-platform working environment

Code::Blocks Eclipse CDT Qt Creator

http://www.codeblocks.org http://www.eclipse.org/cdt/ http://qt.nokia.com


Working environment on Linux

Kdevelop SCONS

http://www.kdevelop.org http://www.scons.org


Working environment on Mac

Xcode

http://developer.apple.com/technologies/tools/xcode.html


Working environment on Windows
MinGW
Visual Studio Express

http://www.mingw.org

http://www.microsoft.com/express/Windows/ Cygwin

http://www.cygwin.com


Managing multi-platform code

 Some low level code may depend on the specific platform
 Compile different files for each platform
 Use pre-processor directives
void FrameTimer::Start()
{
m_fElapsed = 0.f;

#ifdef WIN32
QueryPerformanceCounter(&m_T1);
#else
gettimeofday(&m_TV1, NULL);
#endif
}


Coding for Windows

 No changes needed when using MinGW + Cygwyn
 Some changes to low level system code when using VisualC++
 Examples available on UNIX Application Migration Guide:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms811903.aspx


Coding for Mac Os X

 Mac Os X follows the POSIX standard
 Only difference: path of the .h files used by the frameworks
#ifdef MAC
#include "OpenAL/al.h"
#include "OpenAL/alc.h"
#else
#include "AL/al.h"
#include "AL/alc.h"
#endif


Base code

http://www.libsdl.org http://www.sfml-dev.org


Graphics

http://www.opengl.org


Audio

http://connect.creativelabs.com/openal/


Fisica
Box2D

http://www.box2d.org

Chipmunk http://bulletphysics.org

http://code.google.com/p/chipmunk-physics/


Tools

 Gimp (2D bitmap graphics) - http://www.gimp.org/
 Inkscape (2D vector graphics) - http://inkscape.org/
 Blender (3D graphics) - http://www.blender.org/
 Audacity (audio editing) - http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
 Kdenlive (video editing, Linux e Mac)- http://www.kdenlive.org/
 Virtualdub (video editing, Windows)- http://www.virtualdub.org/


The future

http://www.w3.org/html/ http://www.khronos.org/webgl/


Contacts

http://www.lowpoly-studios.com

http://www.facebook.com/LowpolyStudios http://twitter.com/LowpolyStudios
http://www.facebook.com/m3xican http://twitter.com/vivaladav


Questions?


Multi-platform indie game development

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