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GDC 2014: Ubisoft shows off its Divison-powering Snowdrop engine
Ubisoft Massive showed off a three-minute trailer focused on its Snowdrop game engine at this week's GDC event in San Francisco. The first title powered by the new tech is UM's MMO shooter The Division, which also features heavily in the clip's behind-the-scenes footage. "Working with the engine is kind of like solving a puzzle," explains environment artist Jill Jarlestam. "The elements are already there so it's just a matter of how you combine them together." You can watch the full video by clicking past the cut.
Shoot Many Robots gets M rating, peek behind the developer's curtain
Demiurge's still dateless Shoot Many Robots may be closer to release than it seems, as the Metal Slug-esque shooter has been granted an "M" rating by the ESRB for sexual themes, strong language and the use of alcohol. Now, we're not going to put the onus of that rating squarely upon the shoulders of a certain fruit-fetishist robot, but all of those things do sound right in his wheelhouse. The rating was revealed by the above trailer, which details the game's rendering engine and the various effects that can be achieved by removing certain layers of the game's visuals. While developed primarily for debugging purposes, some of these effects may make it into the finished product as bonus levels or unlockables. Personally, we're keeping our fingers crossed for the Lighting Mode shown at 02:11 and the "Limbo mode" at 02:32.
appMobi XDK delivers free cross-platform dev environment to Chrome Web Store
The Chrome Web Store welcomed a new arrival today, and it goes by the name of appMobi XDK. While the addition is targeted squarely at developers, it's entirely free and packs quite a doozy -- cross-platform HTML5 software development from within the web browser. As you might expect, the tool is perfect for making applications to run within Google Chrome, but get this... it's also capable of creating native apps for submission to Apple's App Store and the Android Market. Like any competent development environment, it features a full set of debugging tools, along with the ability to test your apps via on-screen emulation and directly from your target device. Hardware integration is accomplished with JavaScript hardware abstraction, which enables access to the camera, GPS, accelerometer and the like. Further, the platform boasts full compatibility with PhoneGap, which means you can easily transition if you've got a project in the works. If you're already hooked, be sure to check out the PR after the break, which describes such goodies as in-app purchasing and secure user authentication, which are made possible with appMobi's cloud services.
PhoneGap 1.0 lets devs write apps for seven platforms (video)
Until now, mobile app developers have followed a pretty predictable MO: develop for iOS first, Android second, and everyone else after that. Since last year, many of you code monkeys out there have been tapping into Nitobi's PhoneGap, a project that makes it easier to churn out apps for almost every OS, all at once. It's been picking up steam, with about 40,000 downloads per month, 600,000 in total, and a steady stream of donations. That all culminated this weekend with the release of PhoneGap 1.0, which lets devs use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to write and deploy apps for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, webOS, Bada, and Symbian. That's a long list indeed, but we see one glaring omission: Windows Phone 7. Hit the source link to download it for free and check out the promo video below for an oh-so quick overview. Update: Oops! Looks like WP7 is included! Our apologies, and feel free to celebrate accordingly.
Development courseware updated for Xcode 4
Shiny Development has updated all of its training courses following Apple's release last week of the latest version of its development tools, Xcode 4. "We have been working with Xcode 4 for a while now and I am very pleased to announce that all of our training courses are now fully updated with materials that are written specifically to target the new version of Xcode," says Dave Verwer, owner of Shiny Development and developer of several successful iPhone and iPad apps. "All of the slides, lab notes and sample code have been updated to be compatible with all of the new tools included in Xcode 4."
