MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Game tech outfit Marmalade has today released iOS porting tool Juice.
The middleware promises to break down the barriers that face developers looking to port their iOS projects to Android and other platforms. It does so by letting games makers recompile Objective-C and native OS APIs, formerly only usable on iOS and Mac, all within the Marmalade SDK.
Converted apps can subsequently be deployed directly to Android, as well as many other Marmalade-supported platforms such as BlackBerry, Mac, and a number of smart TVs.
Developer’s optimisations for each target platform can, with Marmalade Juice, be made within the existing Objective-C codebase, while source-level debugging with the Marmalade simulator is also supported.
“With our mantra of ‘More Platforms, More Possibilities’ we were frustrated by how many great games are locked exclusively into the iOS ecosystem," said Harvey Elliott, MD and COO of Marmalade. "Historically, porting games from iOS to other platforms has involved a large amount of resource-heavy recoding from Objective-C to other languages. Marmalade Juice entirely removes this stage, making it more cost-effective for developers to reach even more consumers.”
One of the first games to harness the potential of Marmalade Juice is iOS hit Tap Paradise Cove (pictured), which is now available on Android as a result of using the new solution.
“Tap Paradise Cove is already a major hit on iOS, so the opportunity through Marmalade Juice to deploy to additional platforms without rewriting the game was extremely valuable to us," explained Arjun Dayal, Android product lead at developer Pocket Gems. "Since launch, we have reached over one million additional players on Google Play and Amazon Appstore.”
Marmalade will be hosting closed-door demonstrations of the Marmalade Juice tool at GDC next week. To book an appointment contact Marmalade direct.
