AppTalk: iPad Thoughts From Seven More iPhone Developers

AppTalk: iPad thoughts continues with seven more iPhone developers' thoughts. Be sure to check out yesterday's AppTalk if you haven't done so. I asked each developer the following: What are your intentions for xxx, to let it run unmodified doing simple pixel double, or to make your old game more iPad friendly to take advantage of the larger processor and screen size. Also what are your plans for the future, are you going to make iPad specific versions of your future games, or stick with the iPhone/iPod touch exclusively, or even an iPad only version? Anthony Joo - On5 (Charadium) We think that the iPad is a really great device, and it is a surprise that many experts underestimate its abilities. It's a very good platform for developers, because it is iPhone OS—a perfect base for gorgeous and highly responsive multitouch apps—and it has a large screen. And yes, we definitely will be developing for iPad. In fact we are already working on iPad-enabling Charadium, but there is very little detail I can share about it at the moment. We have some good news coming, and we will be posting the updates on Twitter (@charadium). Ville Mäkynen - TouchFoo (Soosiz) Soosiz might not be a game that will fully utilize the potential that the iPad has to offer, but we will certainly update it to run full screen without 'pixel double'. It would be silly to miss on the opportunity, considering the fact that it will need only minor modifications. We have a way to rebuild our art assets in higher resolution with minimal effort, but this will mean that we will either have to include two different versions of all our graphics in the app, or make a totally separate iPad-only version. Currently, we are thinking about doing the latter. Unfortunately, people will have repurchase if they already have the iPhone version, but all things considered, this seems like the most sensible thing to do. It is also very likely that we will experiment with alternative control schemes that might suit the larger screen better, but that will have to wait until we get the actual device in our hands. The iPhone and iPod touch will remain to be the main focus for our next game, but it will of course support the iPad natively. There might also be some iPad-only features that will only make sense on the larger screen. The iPad has potential to be a great gaming device, but the motivation to develop for it exclusively depends largely on how popular it becomes. Gavin Bowman - RetroDreamer (Sneezies, Eyegore's Eye Blast) It's safe to say the iPad will be in our plans now. We'll definitely be doing something Sneezies related on it, I think it would be a great fit for the device. We really want to get a hold of the thing, so that we know how physical interactions work with the device, we can speculate all we like, but we're not going to know how best to optimize games for it until we've held it and played with it for a little while. But it'll definitely be coming, and we'll be thinking, working, testing and playing with ideas a lot over the next 60 days. Bogdan Iliesiu - Angry Mob Games (Guerilla Bob) We’ll definitely be bringing Guerrilla Bob to the iPad. The larger screen could offer even more action, as we could zoom out and have lots of enemies attacking Bob from all directions :) Maybe we’ll even reinvent the dual-stick shooter, by getting rid of the virtual sticks :) We’re working on a really cool update for the iPhone version, with a brand new game mode, where you collect some kind of currency and use it to buy all sort of weapons (the full range, about 8 of them, all with upgrades). There will also be new levels and some really cool new bosses. I’ll let you know when we’ll have something new to show you (it could be a bit more than a month to add all the new content). Phil Hassey - (Galcon) I'm waiting until I get a device in my hands to make any decisions. I think the 'feel' of the device contributes a huge amount to how you create a game for the device. I will most likely be porting Galcon Fusion (PC/Linux/Windows, coming Feb. 11 www.galcon.com/fusion) to the iPad. Fusion is designed to work on hi-res devices, where as the iPhone versions of Galcon are customized to fit the iPhone exactly. Depending on how I decide to do things, it may be a game where the iPad users will be playing against PC/Mac users. Or maybe not, much of that is going to depend on how the device feels when I have it in my hands. Luxe Ryan - TrueAxis (Jet Car Stunts) At the moment, we have a wait and see attitude with the iPad. It seem very unclear weather the device will become a popular gaming device or not. We are still considering weather we will do an iPad friendly Jet Car Stunts update, however, we will hopefully be releasing the iPhone port of Space Tripper sometime soon, and considering that game was originally designed to run at higher resolutions and faster processors, making that iPad friendly really makes a lot of sense for us. Alexandra Peters - Firemint (Flight Control and Real Racing) We have announced that we are bringing a re-imagined version of Flight Control to iPad (ie more than just upsizing the graphics), and also posted some more extensive thoughts on what the iPad means to gaming on our blog: http://firemint.com/?p=760 ***Hopefully you enjoy the developer's thoughts on the iPad. Who else is as excited as me drawing images in Charadium on a 9.7" screen? Note that this has been game centric because game developers have responded, and app developers simply haven't. That may mean something, and may not.

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