Appvetica turns the iPhone and iPod Touch into a controller for Wii-like iPad gaming
While there’s no doubt that tablets are becoming a huge market for gaming, the touch screen interface provides a number issues for both gamers, who want a quality experience, and developers who have to adapt to a control-pad-free environment.
However, one Polish startup is giving developers the tools to provide a more functional gaming experience and free your thumbs.
Warsaw based app lab Appvetica is on stage now at the TNW Startup Rally showing off its technology that makes iPad gaming Nintendo Wii-like (who doesn’t like that?) by enabling iPhones and iPod Touches to be used as controllers.
Appvetica co-founder and mobile developer Peter Tuszynski explains how the 5 staff strong firm is aiming to ‘shake-up’ the gaming experience.
“Our AppMotion framework aims to provide Nintendo Wii-like functionality to your iPad using your iPhone or iPod Touch as a controller”, Tuszynski explains. “Basically we allow iPad game makers to use real motion to control their games, instead of tapping/swiping/pinching.”
Appvetica provides “the full deal” for developers, in the form of an SDK that can be dropped into an Xcode project. The firm also implements a couple of basic methods and hosts the controller app — which must be downloaded (from here) by all gamers in order to enable iPhone/iPod Touch controllers — for free in the App Store.
That SDK has just launched in private beta and developers wanting to get hold of it can sign up now, here.
As an added bonus, Appvetica is even throwing in free contact support. Every developer that signs up during TNW will be assigned one of the company’s employees, who can help with questions and technical issues.
If you’re curious to see just what can be done with Appvetica, take a look at its newly launched Motion Retro Game Pack, the first title to showcase the AppMotion framework.
The release includes Space Invaders and Pong-like games, which give gamers some very nifty controls, including moving by tilting the controller left and right and firing by pressing volume up.
Appvetica isn’t only the company turning iPhones and iPods into controllers — Singapore-based Anideo released Huntville this year, for example — but its aim to equip developers with the tools to do so will help more of these type of games get produced and released to iPad owners.
I’m pretty excited by the potential for multiplayer games, which are pretty restricted using the iPad right now. While social gaming via Facebook and other social networks has become the new standard by which many play games with their friends, I can’t be the only one that misses the literal hustle and jostle of multiplayer battles – can I?
Tuszynski started Appvetica up with his brother Michal and Tomasz Zajac, and the company also employs a backend developer and marketing/business development executive.
(Source: thenextweb.com)
