iPhone updates (and meet the new team!)

This is a long overdue update to our iPhone development community and I apologize for it. Mich Perry has been hanging tough doing the motherload of Torque 3D documentation work *and* spending quite a bit of time on our iPhone dev and support. Hats off to him for the effort, but we've finally brought in the reinforcements.

A Quick Digression

When we saw that the iPhone was going to be a really open development platform in early 2008, we wanted Torque to be a part of that. It wasn't clear at that time that providing tools for the platform was going to be a really good opportunity, but games certainly looked like a fantastic one, so we hoped it was an "if you build it..." moment for developers. It certainly was. Early 2008 turned into late 2008 and you guys know the rest. The iPhone is an astounding success for game developers. There is no other non-PC platform in existence where a developer can achieve results like this.



The tools we began developing for iPhone development in 2008 were 'quick-as-possible' solutions. We wanted to help developers seize on this opportunity immediately. For 3D, we went with our legacy TGE product as a basis for the port. Though no one here has touched that code in 3 years, it made sense because the hardware TGE was built for has a lot more in common with the iPhone (1st gen especially) than the hardware Torque 3D (or it's predecessor, TGEA) was built for. For 2D, Torque Game Builder was a natural fit in some ways (great editors, easy to use, runs well on low end PCs) but painful in others. Primarily, the early iPhone hardware pushed Torquescript (even pre-compiled to DSOs) to its limits. Since TGB makes heavy use of Torquescript (much heaver than TGE), this was a knot that took some unravelling. The script optimizations and other changes we made to speed worked well, but in the end, it felt like they were a just 'good enough' solution for those not at all comfortable with Objective C coding.

Even though the products we've developed to date are very good, none of us here are happy with 'good enough.' If you've followed our Torque 3D development, you'll see the kind of effort and focus we want to put into products. I was glad we got to the iPhone very early with a good tool set that have allowed so many of you to publish great games, but it's definitely time for us to step up.

What will that look like?

First, it's clear to me that the QA and support teams have not grown at the same pace as our customer base. This has led to support and release quality that don't meet our expectations here. We have great people on the Torque team. They are bright and motivated, but there haven't been enough Mich Perrys to go around. We've leaned heavily on the goodwill of the community and star developers like Dave Calabrese, Marc Shearer, Conor O'Kane, Rob Sandbach, Lin Chear, Chris Jorgensen, Leonardo Molar, Ronny Bangsund, Craig Fortune and others. As great as it is to have this kind of help from the community in support of others, it's not something I want to rely on. We're going to build a much more robust support infrastructure underneath. It's a shame this has been delayed as long as it has. It's not an excuse, but we've had some big news hit in the past quarter that I'll discuss in more detail next week.

Second, as part of our greater effort to unify and simplify the Torque product line, Torque 3D (now released) offers us a great opportunity to level up our 3D iPhone product with modern editors and a better deployment workflow using the Torque Toolbox. The vision is one editor to rule them all. Some of the guts underneath might change to support maximum performance on multiple devices, but we're driving at having a single interface (Torque 3D / Torque 2D) to develop your games through, no matter what the target platform. This is the experience we always wanted to provide for iPhone developers, but we were somewhat gated in making sure that Torque 3D was wrapped and solid before iPhone deployment was built in. That's happening now. It won't likely be complete until Q1 2010, but here's what it means for those of you who own Torque 3D for iPhone now (or will purchase before we've released the new version):

You will get the new Torque 3D development toolset (with iPhone deployment enabled) free of charge.

What about 2D? If you've seen any of our Torque 2D development blogs, you know that we're also working on a major update to our existing 2D toolset (Torque Game Builder). Torque 2D tech all lives neatly inside our Torque 3D repo, sharing core code, so it's benefiting from much of the great work already put into Torque 3D and any iPhone deployment work in place for 3D iPhone. What that means is, when Torque 2D (for PC) is released, you can expect iPhone deployment to be there already, or hot on its heels. For all this new fanciness (Torque 2D editors, newly optimized engine underneath, slickified device deployment), we're likely talking about the Q1-Q2 2010 time frame.

The products you all have now for making iPhone games will also see more frequent, more stable releases along with incremental improvements. Certainly you'll see updates to ensure compatiblity with iPhone OS updates. You'll also see updates to improve the deployment workflow, potentially using the Torque Toolbox.

Who's doing all this new stuff?

Many of you have heard of Luma Arcade ('Luma' for short). They will be managing development and support of our iPhone tech (in tight collaboration with our core dev team of course) from here forward. I've worked with Luma on a number of different projects now. They've created an arcade racer for InstantAction.com called Rev, the basis for the upcoming Luma Racing Kit for Torque 3D. They have mobile badassery as well. Witness Marble Blast Mobile. Luma created Marble Blast Mobile with a very early version of Torque 3D for iPhone, not an easy feat to get marbles rolling around on screen looking that good with good frames on 1st gen iPhones. Luma managed to do it, and made it look easy. I have *loads* of confidence in their ability to deliver and properly support this key Torque product.

Point on iPhone stuff from Luma will be these two...

              
You can read more of Luke's bio from the Racing Kit blog. Luke has a long history in game development and he's one of the best engineers I've met. I just met Sven for the first time in South Africa a couple weeks ago. He's the classic prototypical Scandanavian programmer prodigy. Many of you have probably already seen him post in the iPhone forums a bit. He's super smart and very cool to work with, so I'm really excited to get him more and more involved with the community here.

What to expect next (and when)

1. What: A nice, clean update to our existing Torque 2D for iPhone to make sure it's bug free with full platform support. This is an incremental update based on Torque Game Builder (not to be confused with the Torque 2D based version coming next year) which may include some new documentation, particularly focusing on deployment (possibly using the Toolbox) and testing. When: November '09

2. What: A release of the new Torque 3D for iPhone product using the new Torque 3D editors, deployment with Torque Toolbox, and new documentation. When: Q1 2010 (alpha or beta access possibly sooner, tester inquiries welcome).

3. What: Improved support and communication. When: Now. It's not just Luma standing behind this. As mentioned, we're bringing on many new support people to cover all areas of Torque now. iPhone support gets first dibs.


I hope this blog provides the answers the iPhone development community was looking for. We're listening and acting on your feedback constantly, so keep it coming and keep it constructive. I'm happy to answer any further questions in the comments. Thanks for your patience!