iPhone Development Insights

In what was the only development-oriented session of the conference, Justin “Fic” Ficarrotta, game designer and programmer for Brooklyn, NY-based Freeverse, talked about developing games for the iPhone platform. You may also know him from the Best Damn Podcast Ever. He’s currently developing two un-announced iPhone titles and brought a wealth of information from his development experiences to share in his talk.

So what’s the upshot of developing for the iPhone? Well, perhaps you haven’t heard of the cool quarter-million Demiforce raked in from Trism on the App Store. That’s right, the simple answer is that the iPhone is still a hot gaming market for anyone who can get in before it starts to cool. Your entry ticket will run you $99 per app, and you take in a rather generous 70% cut on sales through the App Store - Justin of course couldn’t give many details of signing your app over due to NDA.

On the software side, Justin said that after downloading the SDK you’re up and running in minutes, and it’s completely free. He also proclaimed a low learning curve to programming for the iPhone, moreso if you’re already familiar with both OpenGL ES and OpenAL. You can also program using Mac-specific APIs but more than likely you’ll want to stick with OpenGL ES, which is an OpenGL subset equivalent to OpenGL 1.5, and OpenAL, which is the audio side of the OpenGL system.

There are several design considerations to take into account when developing for the iPhone. First, Justin cautioned that a lot of people play games on their iPhones because they have nothing else to do at the moment. So, waiting in a long line, on the subway, during a boring shift at work – the vast majority do not take out their iPhones just to play games. Remember that it is still a mobile device and focus on the byte-sized gameplay, letting people accomplish things in small sessions. If you try for any full immersion into a game it won’t have the same effect as people who dedicate time to a platform, like the PC or Xbox.

Love the accelerometer, but recognize that it has its limits as well. For example, don’t think of the iPhone as a Wii controller. It would be nice to have a golfing game where you swing the iPhone like a golf club to hit your shot – but there’s the small problem of not being able to really see the screen while you’re doing it. Oh and the iPhone has no wrist strap. Imagine breaking a TV and your phone. (though they are pretty damn durable) Still, there are many other cool ways people have put the accelerometers to use, as steering wheels, rolling balls through labyrinths, shaking dice to roll them, and having the orientation of the iPhone determine the force of gravity. The accelerometers track all three axis of movement.

Then there’s the multi-touch capability, which can be exploited in just as many ways including pinches, flicks, swipes, drags, taps, gestures and a variable number of fingers tracked simultaneously. Already games are using gestures (The Force Unleashed) and most commonly sliding or dragging (brickout clones). Along with multi-touch comes the issue of controls, and the iPhone has no buttons (none that you can use, anyways). Until iPhone game pads come along, you’re stuck with the following d-pad options:

• Mapping them to the accelerometer. Tricky to do without making the game too sensitive but at the same time allowing the player to still see the screen properly
• On-screen buttons. Better, but there’s no tactile feedback in the iPhone’s screen (yet) and the buttons will ultimately take up screen real estate (like in the NES emulators)
• Virtual joystick. The best option, if you have to take it. Wherever a player places their finger at any time is the center of the controls, and sliding left/right or up/down creates input based on that initial location. It feels more natural and still covers the screen, but not as much as buttons

Publishing, as mentioned before, is done completely through Apple and the App Store. There is a certification process, but nothing nearly as rigorous as, say, Microsoft’s XBLA process - which makes developers cry on a regular basis. Justin has been given approval the same day, other times it’s taken up to 2 weeks for Apple to push the game through, but on average the turn-around times have been around a week or so. Apple does not allow people to download priced games to try out, so the common practice is for developers to create a “Lite” version that they then sell on the App Store for free.

The Paid/Free options make up the breadth of the App Store, and you can choose one, another or both in which to publish your games (it was never mentioned by Justin whether publishing a free and paid-for version requires you to pay $198). iTunes also gives apps the normal exposure, like music, in terms of What’s New, What’s Hot and Staff Picks lists.

Since the app market is still fairly fresh, price wars are running rampant. One game, Cro-mag Racing, used to be $10, and since its release it’s quickly dropped to $5 and then to $2. Justin says that if there exists a sweet spot, it’s very low. As with any free-for-all market, he says, it’s important that you provide lasting value and that it gets into the hands and eyes of the players.

One notorious method of getting noticed as a paying app that Justin balefully spoke of was taking advantage of the fact that apps in the Top 25 list hold their place if they switch from paid-for to free or vice-versa. So companies have been releasing their apps for free until they climb to the top of the Top 25 Free Apps list, and then start charging $.99 and wind up at the top of the Top 25 Paid Apps list. Sneaky, sneaky.

Don’t forget too that there are other ways to cash in on the App Store, like advergames along the lines of Audi Racing or utilities that service games such as Warcraft Characters or Armory Spy Lite.

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