Bedrock set to tempt mobile game developers
No, it's nothing to do with the Flintstones...
Ever since we heard about Bedrock, a new technology for mobile games development, we've been whistling the Flintstones theme tune. What next? A J2ME porting technology called Jellystone Park?
Cartoon silliness aside, Bedrock does sound interesting. It's a suite of tools designed to make it easier for mobile developers to create games that work across a number of handsets and platforms, and has been made by Metismo, a company led by former Infospace Mobile man, John Chasey.
We'll spare you the techie details (if you're a developer, go here for those). Some of the aspects we're interested in include its support for SMS, networking and touchscreen input, among others – which should make these features less time-consuming and/or difficult for developers, and thus mean more games include them. That's the theory, anyway.
Meanwhile, it also has a Code Cross-compiler (stay with us!) which converts from Java to other programming languages. In short, this means someone can develop a game for mobile phones, but then easily convert it to other mobile platforms like BREW and Symbian, but also make it work on PSP and DS, or as a web flash game.
We see cross-platform development being a bigger trend in 2008, so technologies like Bedrock can only help.