PocketMatrix

Elements Interactive Releases Mobile Game Engine Edge SDK 2.00

Zaandam, the Netherlands -- 31th October 2005 -- Elements Interactive B.V. releases the first public version of their mobile game engine Edge. The Edge SDK, with current version 2.00, supports the development of true multi-platform mobile games for Windows Mobile Pocket PC, Windows Mobile Smartphone, Symbian Series 60, Symbian UIQ and Windows desktop.

Key features of the Edge SDK include true multi-platform development, high-performance graphics, RGBA surfaces and PNG support for all platforms, 3D graphics and both Bluetooth and TCP/IP network support.

"As we are mobile game developers ourselves, the design and development of Edge was aimed on performance, a rich feature set and the creation of a true multi-platform mobile game development environment" says Danny Hoffman, Elements Interactive CEO. "We wanted every feature to work on every supported platform."

Licenses of the Edge SDK will be available for $950 for the first year and $650 for subsequent years. Danny Hoffman continues: "With this relative low license fee, we wanted to create a solution for both small and large game studios. The Edge license enables game developers to do what they're good in: developing great mobile games. Edge takes care of the multi-platform issues."

Edge licensees are entitled to create and release as many commercial games and applications as desired for all supported platforms during the licensing period. An evaluation version of the Edge SDK is also available.

Commercially available game titles like the action platformer Li-Nuggz, space shooter Blazar and popular multi-player puzzle game Quartz 2 are powered by Edge.

More information can be found on the product website located at http://www.edgelib.com.


ABOUT ELEMENTS INTERACTIVE
Founded in January 1996 in the Netherlands as an agency for webdevelopment, Elements Interactive B.V. opens its mobile game division officially in late 2003 by releasing the first game, S-Tris, as freeware. The in-house development of mobile game engine Edge enables Elements Interactive to develop quality games for a variety of mobile devices more efficiently. Game titles of Elements Interactive include S-Tris, E-Ball, Foo Fighter, Li-Nuggz, Blazar and the Quartz series of puzzle games.
Website: http://www.elementsgames.com

I had a look at your site. Looks very interesting though for a lone developer even $950 requires serious thought.

Are there any code samples?

Hi Conan,

There are a number of code samples within the evaluation kit of the SDK. These samples include a simple helloworld project, a sample demonstrating networking, a small sample game and more.

ok, thanks, if time allows I will download the eval tonight. I'm also interested in knowing the development tools/environment needed to take advantage of a multi-platform tool. PF runs on all PocketPCs & Windows smartphone using only free dev tools.

update: downloading the demo at the moment. Noticed that the license forces use on one PC only. In my case this would not work as I use a laptop when working on the train (about 70%) and a desktop while at home. Yes I could restrict my development to the laptop but then I lose the advantages of speed on my Athlon 64 desktop mega machine. Not something to worry about at this point.

If I read correctly, Edge for the Desktop supports only Windows 2000/XP and needs DirectX 9 ... why such high requierments for a 2D-game engine?

A large (probably the largest) amount of 2d-game development on the PC today is done for the casual games market. Developers of casual games like to target Windows 98 class machines and use DirectX 5,6,7 (and maybe 8 ), because the players of casual games do not update their PC systems that often and may have a system 5+ years old.

So, while Edge has an impresive feature list, its' requierments, IMHO, make it impractial to use for most current desktop PC 2d-game developement.

Now, maybe desktop developers are not your core target market, but you could increase your potential market by having lower desktop systems specs (and, maybe, lowering the price? )

Conan: It's possible to target both Windows Mobile and Symbian applications with Edge, by using free tools (like Embedded Visual C++) as well.

The problem with working on multiple machines is more of a practical problem. For example, you could work with an evaluation copy of the engine on your desktop, while having the commercial copy on your laptop.

DGuy: These requirements are more like recommendations. DirectX 9.0 is recommended because it contains bugfixes. Edge actually uses the DirectX 7.0 interface for drawing to the screen. Windows 2000 and Windows XP is required for building with the available tools, like Embedded Visual C++ and the Symbian SDK's, we can't do really much about that. Also, Edge is actually meant for building mobile applications, instead of commercial desktop applications. Support was added for the developer's convenience and quick building and testing purposes.

If this is truly a "multi-platform" game engine, what about Palm OS?