The Daily Click

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Click Convention 2010 Update
News posted 14th June, 2010 by *The* Chris Street
Plans for the Click Convention 2010 are still being discussed between Jamie and StoP_GAP(Simon), the organisers of the event this year. A loosely planned schedule has been published, although at this stage times can still change. At the convention you can expect: An introduction by Jamie and SToP_GAP Clickteam's talk on MMF3, iPhone, Flash and more A presentation on Core of Innocence, by Chaos The new Python Runtime for MMF, by Mathias Using 3D in MMF, by Chris Carson (Kisguri) Competition time - win a copy of MMF2 Dev and Flash Exporter! Chris Street (me) will talk about Zone Runner 3, MSD2 and Sam The Slug: Mobile Edition Jason Darby will talk about making iPhone games with Fusion RTS game by Jonathan Porter, as yet untitled. Luor & Sky Invader,a dual presentation between Francois and Clément Willay Ravenius demonstration of his Lacewing multiplayer game A mysterious secret project by Jamie :) Clickteam Q+A session After the convention, expect an optional trip in Luton to a restaurant to socialise. Also, a lot of people are staying overnight so a trip to the pub could be on the cards. For the Clickteam Q+A session, I suspect that a forum post will be created at Clickteam for those who wish to fire questions at Francois and Yves. In the meantime, if you have any questions you want to ask them, submit a comment here starting with "Q+A", then your question, and this will be passed to Clickteam. Tweet

Posted by Assault Andy

14th June, 2010

Sounds great! I can't wait to hear the news about MMF3 and iPhone development. Too bad I doubt I'll be able to go to whichever international venue it's hosted at!

Posted by Silveraura

14th June, 2010

Really...? iPhone development before Android? Android is exploding in popularity. It's already overtaking iPhone in market share.

Posted by Flava

14th June, 2010

The iPhone has three times more market share than the Android - in total anyway.

Posted by Fanotherpg

14th June, 2010

Questions:

Why Clickteam decided to make iPhone Runtime before Android?

Why there is no official statement about next-gen runtimes - Game Maker has got PSP exporter on the works which will allow them to make games on PS3, and XNA is more than real to do and it gives 3 markets - XBOX, ZUNE and PCs?

More to come.

Posted by Assault Andy

14th June, 2010

http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/05/iphone-vs-android-report-finds-apple-has-three-times-googles/

Posted by Strife

14th June, 2010

iPhone runtime? =D Holy hyperspace, that's going to be sweet!

Posted by The Chris Street

14th June, 2010

Be aware that as far as I know there's a small caveat with the iPhone runtime. You would need an Apple machine to compile it on.

Posted by Flava

14th June, 2010

..and I assume also the developer license from Apple, to get the apps on the store

Posted by OMC

14th June, 2010

Wasn't the Android runtime already running? It just had to be compiled by command line?

Posted by Fanotherpg

14th June, 2010

Yeah OMC but it stayed on that level and it wasn't touched despite the fact that Year passed. Still OK maybe iPhone has got 3 times bigger shares than Android, but do you know what freaked developer licence you have to sign before you will publish any game? No? So please don't comment with only argument which is market share.

What will give you market share when you are limited to almost everything by Apple monopoly? Hopefully Android will beat them soon.

Posted by Hayo

14th June, 2010

(I read that last comment 3 times over and am still puzzled)

I was planning on going but it looks like I can't make it.

Posted by Bibin

14th June, 2010

When is Cc2010? I would love to go but likely can't go.

Posted by Silveraura

14th June, 2010

Apple is determined to keep development of their iPhone strictly to the SDK that they personally create, and like Circy said, you need to be on a Mac to do this. So this further insists the idea that the environment for creating anything for the iPhone sucks and Clickteam should focus more on Android.

Posted by LB

14th June, 2010

"Luor & Sky Invader,a dual presentation"
there should be a sapce after that comma.

Posted by alessandroLino

14th June, 2010

Python runtime? Like... really? Type in code instead of clicking? Doesn't it defeat the whole point of CLICKteam? lol

Its great anyway. I dont think they should focus on development for iPhone, nor Android. I dont know about others, but personally, its not fun to play on such small screens.

Im also very interested about this MMF3 thing.

Posted by LB

14th June, 2010

Lino I think you're misinterpreting things.

Posted by Fanotherpg

14th June, 2010

Hayo maybe I will say it a bit differently.

Apple stricts almost everything in on their platform - type of products, themes about which your games are, policy like no publication outside app store and those aren't so harsh, and others are.

On Android you are allowed for almost everything and this is why both Android and Google Chrome are rising so quick.

I'm not negating doing exporter for iStuff (iPhone and iPads) it's great but still I'm worried how much of as clickers will be interested in getting this one especially that they are several (even dozens) of other companies which allows us to make games for iStuff even in full 3D...

But still our strange is Price, Clicking and Community.

I just hope that on Click Convention they will clarify it for me.
Comment edited by Fanotherpg on 6/14/2010

Posted by GamesterXIII

14th June, 2010

Most people that buy iphone games don't normally play games

the audience is completely different
Comment edited by GamesterXIII on 6/14/2010

Posted by Fanotherpg

15th June, 2010

I totally disagree with you in this one GamesterXIII.

Posted by Sephirenn

15th June, 2010

I'd heard rumblings of iPhone exporter, but I didn't know it was official! How is Cleackteam getting around the new clause that says you can't make iPhone apps with middleware????

And MMF3!?!? That's news to me! I wonder what the change is from 2 to 3???

Posted by Fanotherpg

15th June, 2010

Middleware softwares apart of Adobe Flash CS5 are excluded from that restriction. Most of them compiles XCode which needs to be compiled on Mac to be a proper working file for iPhones and so on, so that's OK with Apple.

Posted by Silveraura

15th June, 2010

The middleware wasn't tartgeted specifically at Adobe Flash CS5, even though it was an intentional direct attack at Adobe.

Err, in other words. Apple didn't leave restriction of middleware only at Adobe. They restricted it on everything. However the intent of this was directed toward hurting Adobe. I don't see how Clickteam is going to be able to do anything outside of jailbroken iPhones.

Posted by Assault Andy

15th June, 2010

It won't be a problem. MMF, along with other middleware will be able to export to iPhone natively.

http://www.clickteam.com/epicenter/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=190391&page=6

Francois: "This wont be a problem for us : I was planning anyway to have MMF create an XCode projectr that you copy on the Mac and compile there."

Posted by MJK

15th June, 2010

Wow, quite a debate over here.

Just to add my part, Clickteam actually did prioritize Android over iPhone and AFAIK the Android exporter would've been released already by end of 2009 shouldn't there been this one bug in the Android SDK than made things a whole of more complicated. After that they focused on iPhone.

But talking about market shares only is kind of irrelevant. Globally, #1 is smartphone market share is still Symbian and Nokia by far and for years to come, end of discussion. We have to look at other aspects and dynamics as well, like the overall user experience of these devices and systems, how well the mobile application store is connected to that, what is the % of embedded store clients in devices, what are the payment methods available, how easy is it to download and purchase content, what are the costs of submitting content, etc.

Posted by Silveraura

15th June, 2010

Apples app market is one of the hardest to get in to and is very strict. Apple even refuses to allow mention of Android in the description of their apps, like it was some kind of swear word.
Now on the flip side, Androids market is far more open and a lot easier to get into, but like PC vs Mac, it also means you have to be more careful with what you download because it could be mischievous. As a result, there are a small fraction of virus scanner apps available for Android.
So really, the choice is yours on which device you want to get, but I do personally believe that Clickteam would be much better off with Android because it is so open and has so much potential for indie developers.

Posted by OMC

15th June, 2010

When thinking about mobile games, I think of the iPhone. It has plenty of solid and good games. My android phone? Sliiiim pickins. And a lot of what there is is shoddy or laggy. There's no guarantee that every android phone will play each game the same.

I think both should be pursued and both are being pursued. So the argument is kind of pointless.

Posted by markno2

15th June, 2010

Looking forward to MSD 2. =D

MMF3 had better be 3D.

Posted by The Chris Street

15th June, 2010

Don't expect a big presentation on MSD2. I've covered it so many times before and since 2007 have restarted it. There's not a lot to show. Instead the bulk of the presentation will be of Zone Runner 3. Something a bit different.

Posted by alastair john jack

15th June, 2010

I hope MMF3 doesn't have 3D. I hope its about x100 faster though.

Posted by Fanotherpg

15th June, 2010

Still why Jamie and STop_Gap are not bolded in the list of presentations like other nicks/names?

Yeah Jamie I remember that one, still it was said on CC09 which I held. But I am still wondering why the heck they just stop it.
Comment edited by Fanotherpg on 6/15/2010

Posted by The Chris Street

15th June, 2010

They're not bolded because they've already been bolded in the first line!

Posted by Fanotherpg

15th June, 2010

Yeah, I know that but still it somehow doesn't suit me. Still don't misunderstand me. IMHO both iStuff and Android runtimes are necessary I'm just confused on order of them because of the companies agreements which aren't so cool in case of Apple and are much better for us as indie developers like in case of Android.

Still I try to understand that bug in Android SDK, but ehm I just can't stand it.

Posted by ~Matt Esch~

16th June, 2010

Q+A

Well, given that clickteam have not given their MMF3 presentation yet, this might be answered. My questions are...

Why is there a lack of efficient flow control in all of the previous products? (I.e. where's my for loop?). Why can't I just repeat a group of events for a finite number of times in an efficient way? i.e. it doesn't use the event-driven callback (fastloop) sort of thing which can be hideously slow. Are there any plans to include such a feature, and if not, is it something you would consider?

Secondly, why can't I include qualifiers in behaviour code? Is this something you would consider supporting? The issue is, if you write some code that is supposed to affect a generic collection of objects, it has to go in the main events section. It's much nicer to have self contained widgets that can reference objects generically based on a qualifier. This means you could copy the self-contained code into new games without having individual object dependencies.

Sorry to spoil the phone wars... does anyone remember the Java runtime? Maybe I've got my head buried in the sand but from what I can see it's too slow/buggy to use... and my optimism doesn't extend to the iPhone or Android runtimes either.

Posted by Assault Andy

17th June, 2010

Matt - It looks like they've just put up a Q&A board. You should repost your questions there so they see them:

http://www.clickteam.com/epicenter/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=194029

Posted by Fanotherpg

17th June, 2010

Still Andy Francois posted it in several places and each of them is separate thread -_-