This presentation discusses approaches to cross-platform game development. It explains that developing for multiple platforms can expand a game's market reach and revenues. However, it also presents constraints like development costs. The document then analyzes common cross-platform approaches like native, cross-compilation, and source-to-source. It outlines GameDuell's approach of using the Haxe source-to-source compiler along with their own game engine and tools. This allows GameDuell to develop games for multiple platforms from one codebase while maintaining good performance and without vendor lock-in.

1. © GameDuell 2013 | Confidential© GameDuell 2015
Code once, Play everywhere!
This is a presentation by Carsten Krebs
@cw_krebs1

2. © GameDuell 20152
Bringing people together to have a good time with games -
Wherever, whenever!

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Table of contents
1. Importance of cross-platform development
2. Approaches
3. Constraints
4. GameDuell approach

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Importance of Cross-Platform Development

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Market Reach
•good product
•reach as many users as possible
Objectives
•earn more revenues
•grow your brand
•find your niche
How?

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0%
60%
120%
180%
240%
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Smartphones
Desktop or laptop computers
Game consoles
Tablets
Device Ownership

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Mobile Device Distribution
iOS Android Kindle Windows Phone
Symbian Java ME BlackBerry Other

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Social Community
Bringing people together to have a good time with games -
Wherever, whenever!

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But there are constraints ….

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Costs
Photo credit: .jo.hardell. / Foter / CC BY
•Development costs
•Maintenance costs
•Marketing costs

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Limited Resources
Photo credit: János Balázs / Foter / CC BY-SA
Developers
Know-HowTime
Photo credit: martinteschner / Foter / CC BY-ND

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Cross-Platform Approaches

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Native Approach (multiple code bases)

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One code base
•Cross-Compilation
•Source-to-Source
•Virtual Machine

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Cross-Compilation
C++/C
compile
Native

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Virtual or Common Runtime Environment
Source Bytecode
compile
VM
VM
VM

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Source-to-Source
Source
C++
Objective-C
ActionScript
transpile
Native
compile

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Source-to-Source
Cross-Compile Common Runtime Environment (VM)
Engines & Frameworks

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What else is important?

20. © GameDuell 201520 Photo credit: flickrfavorites / Foter / CC BY
Performance
Native vs Virtual Environment

21. © GameDuell 201521 Photo credit: Josep Ma. Rosell / Foter / CC BY
Tools
•Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
•Debugger
•Memory or Performance Profiler
•Code Analyzer
•Workflow Support
Native / VM vs Source-to-Source

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Extendibility
Photo credit: Richard Jones / CC BY
• Integration of
• third party libs
• tools
• external or remote services
• adapt the framework to your needs

23. © GameDuell 201523 Photo credit: Yuri Yu. Samoilov / Foter / CC BY
Control
•Vendor Lock-In
•License-/Royalty- Costs
•Bugfixing vs Workarounds

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The GameDuell approach

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Requirements
at least good;
better native
Photo credit: JefferyTurner / Foter / CC BY
Photo credit: Yuri Yu. Samoilov / Foter / CC BY
Photo credit: flickrfavorites / Foter / CC BY
Photo credit: Richard Jones / CC BY
no vendor
lock-in
• extensible
• tightly fit to our needs

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Source-to-Source
Possible Engines

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Approach
•Own Engine
•Own Toolset & Workflow
•Source-to-Source Approach

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Haxe
•modern programming language
•source-to-source compiler
•inspired by ActionScript & C#
•object-oriented
•statically typed

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Obstacles
•Modularisation
•Vibrant Development
•Documentation
•Performance
#triangles at 40 fps
Photo credit: kev-shine / CC BY

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Solutions
•improved modularisation
•performance improvements
•tweaked platform specific type implementations
•introduced pluggable platform abstractions
•dependency management
outperformed native Objective-C implementation
Photo credit: Matteo Paciotti / CC BY

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Additional Benefit
One code base for client and game server logic
Platform Abstraction Layer
Game Engine
UI Game Logic
Driver DriverDriver
Game
Server /
Backend
Game Logic
Photo credit: GotCredit / Foter / CC BY

32. © GameDuell 2013 | Confidential© GameDuell 201532
www.techtalk-berlin.de
Stay in Touch:
carsten.krebs@gameduell.de

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