As platforms like iOS and Android increase in power, so do the number of tools available to studios making games for pocket devices. Will Freeman talks to the tech firms making mobile matter
ANYBODY INVOLVED IN the games industry today will have heard ‘triple-A on mobile’ touted as the future in recent months. Arguably, it is already here, with titles like
Havok’s mobile tech (main image). Above: Havok’s Andrew Bowell (top) and Epic’s Mike Gamble
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Infinity Blade and Shadowgun some time ago demonstrating console-quality visuals on portable devices. And, yet, at the same time, open platforms such as mobile and tablet devices have become the playground for numerous small studios spearheading the ongoing indie revolution, which shows few signs of abating. As a result, a wealth of established middleware companies have moved to support the likes of iOS and Android. First it was the engine outfits, and, closely behind them, increasingly specific middleware offerings. AI, UI, animation and even meteorological simulation tools have now graced the mobile realm. Some may argue that mobile doesn’t need such tailored tools, and others may doubt their power when stripped back for mobile. But such attitudes are barely conducive to
progress, as mobile emerges as a worthy parallel to console gaming.
DRAWING THE BATTLE LINES The Creative Assembly’s Total War Battles project lead Renaud Charpentier knows all about how far things have come. He recently wrapped work on the title, which takes the studio’s high-end PC RTS series to iOS, and does much to set a new frontline for mobile games. “You have ready-to-use solutions for
everything,” says Charpentier. “Advance rendering, physics simulation, networking, advanced animation systems. All the major tech that used to be triple-A console or PC now runs on your smartphone.” Certainly, developers aren’t quite yet
served by hardware to the point where they can use every available advancement on a single project, or push them as much as is possible on a high-end PC, but the rate of progress is astonishing. “You already have many games relying on what used to be termed 'advanced features’,”
continues Charpentier. “Some use real-time water simulation, or other very advanced rendering techniques. Even a seemingly simple game like Angry Birds relies on physics simulation. In the latest update for Total War Battles: Shogun, we added a nice kind of cloth simulation to wave our flags and trees in the wind. Some recent PC games could be jealous of that.” And while PC and console hardware
continues to evolve, relatively speaking, mobile platforms are progressing in their abilities at a far faster rate, even if they still have a long way to go. “While the performance and capabilities of mobile devices are evolving faster than console and PC offerings, fundamentally the power and heat issues of mobile devices keep them lagging behind their big brothers in terms of the high-end gaming experience,” states a pragmatic Mike Gamble, who serves as European territory manager for Epic Games. “However, what is also happening is that mobile devices are now at a point where