Press Start Studios' Rapin on bringing Twin Blades to bada and Windows Phone 7

Released on iPhone and then iPad, recently we've noticed Press Start's nun-and-gun slasher Twin Blades popping up on various other platforms.

Indeed, it's being demoed on Samsung's just out Wave - its first bada phone - and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7, even though those devices aren't out until the autumn.

We caught up with co-founder and producer Philippe Rapin to find out more about what the studio has been up to.

Philippe Rapin: While manufacturers have taken different paths in terms of how they let developers handle their platforms, all challengers to iPhone understood that easing the task of developers is the most attractive way to drag them in.

There's a real effort from Samsung and Microsoft to lower the barrier of entry and that is a great thing for us, and ultimately for consumers who will get an unprecedented wealth of available apps.

Combined with an obvious increase in terms of hardware capacity compared to what was available only a year ago, I'd say iPhone is about to face its first real competition.

They are very different in that they use different programming languages - Objective-C on the iPhone and iPad, C++ on Bada and C# on Windows 7 Phones - and different graphic libraries as well (OpenGL versus Direct 3D).

There have been wild criticisms about Microsoft using a sandbox environment on Windows Phone 7 because some developers want to run their code natively, and there have been wild criticisms about Apple forcing native development because some wanted to use middleware...

But if a team of five can overcome these difficulties, whichever framework is tied to a platform doesn't matter that much. At the end of the day, it's not about the specifications of the platform, it's about what you do with it.

As an indie developer it is very important that we keep supporting several platforms as it reduces the risk associated with each of our production. A game that goes unnoticed in one marketplace may perform better on another platform.

We have spent a lot of time crafting our own set of versatile tools precisely so that we can support cross-platform development. It is one of our main strengths and we intend to capitalise on it.

The team behind Press Start Studio is no stranger to mobile gaming. Beneath the stunning graphics of Twin Blades lies a solid bedrock of technical know how.

We have a pair of great coders who designed a cutting-edge solution called the PSS engine. Our proprietary engine allow us to keep a large amount of the same code across different platforms while keeping enough flexibility for optimisations. And we also have experienced artists who put extra effort in making their graphics easily scalable in order to support several resolutions.

We don't rely on thirdparty solutions like many developers who find themselves trapped within their initial platform of choice. By using our expertise in the game development field we've set up one of the most competitive production pipeline in the world and it's starting to pay off. Twin Blades is only the beginning.

Thanks to Philippe for his time..

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