Scaleform Will Now Let Developers Convert Flash Games To Run As Apps
Before the advent of mobile apps, casual gaming only meant only one thing. Flash Games. They were the PC equivalent of casual mobile apps that are so popular now. So, does that mean mobile apps have killed all those small yet brilliant Flash based games? Not exactly, since many developers have managed to rewrite their well known Flash games for the mobile platform. There are many original Flash games in the Apple App store and Google Play, developed by Flash games developers such as Miniclip.
The obvious problem here is that though the game already exists, it cannot be directly made to run on a smartphone or a tablet operating on iOS or Android. The code has to be written from scratch and is as time consuming as creating a new game. Due to this hurdle thousands of old Flash games have still not made it to the mobile platform and have been forgotten.
The executives from Autodesk have recognised the situation and grasped the potential there is in making it possible to directly convert Flash games into mobile apps.The latest update to their Scaleform software will thus make it possible for developers to simply convert their Flash games to be able to run not just an iOS or Android device but also on a PC or gaming console.
“A developer has to take the flash game and load it into the prebuilt Scaleform Player app on iOS. There’s also the option to build a customer native game player using Scaleform’s C++ libraries. After a bit of testing and fine-tuning to ensure everything looks right, the game is ready. To further optimize the game, Scaleform provides tools to help with memory and performance.”, Roger Cheng from CNET who spoke with Autodesk executives Mark Stevens and Frank Delise, reports.
Once the Flash game file if loaded into the Scaleform software it takes literally, just about an hour to convert the game. All the developer then needs to do is to fine tune the game and do a test run. In some cases, the end result is even better than the original, in terms of graphics.
Scaleform software costs just $295 for a single user license, for a single platform.
Source: CNET
