The Drama Inside iPod Games

Macworld takes a look into developing the recently released iPod games for the iPod 5/5.5G. Dave Roberts and Dennis Ryan, CEO executive vice president of business development of PopCap Games (respectively), and Fresh Games President Steve Smith were both interviewed. Notable excerpts are below:

On Development:

Roberts: PopCap has been working with Apple for more than a year to bring its games to the Macintosh in a project that, in typical Apple fashion, demanded absolute secrecy. "We coordinated with Apple engineering," he said. "The first time I was able to play the game on the iPod was at the Apple event."

Ryan: "It was different in terms of using the click wheel as an input device rather than a dialpad," said Ryan. "In terms of technical challenges, it's things we've dealt with before, like a small screen size and different memory requirements"

Future Plans:

Smith: "We're working on a new game that will be released soon," said Fresh Games' Smith. "And we've seen some interest in it for the iPod, so we'll see."

Roberts: "We will certainly do other games for the iPod, but when and what all depend on the normal confluence of events."

In a follow-up article, Macworld talks with long-time Mac developers who were a bit frustrated at being left out of the loop.

"It was lame of Apple to ignore the guys that have been loyal to them," said a developer who asked not to be named. "We were ready, willing and able to create anything they wanted."

Developers are continuing to be frustrated at the lack of a software development kit (SDK) for the iPod that would allow them to program software for the iPod.

"No one can create anything for the iPod without access to an SDK," said one developer. "They dont even have to release that if they dont want to. I can see not wanting to open the floodgates to every [amateur]. But they have our number... let us sign an NDA and work on some things."