Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Beginning with browser-based games is an excellent way to get started building
small games, because you don't have to know much about the machine's hardware.
Handheld Game Machines
Handheld game machines are a hugely popular and very inexpensive form of enter-
tainment, used in the West mainly by children. (In Japan, significant numbers of
adults use them too.) Handhelds support few add-on features; the input and output
devices are usually fixed. These machines have a smaller number of buttons than a
console controller does and only a small LCD screen. Their CPUs are slower than
their console counterparts but still have enough CPU speed to run sophisticated
games. The Sony PSP represented a huge jump in the power and display quality of
handheld game machines.
The cheapest handheld machines offer a fixed set of built-in games, but the more
versatile handhelds accept games stored on ROM cartridges, and the PSP now sup-
ports a small optical disk. Cartridges store much less data than the CD-ROMs or
DVD discs that home consoles and computers use. Designing for a cartridge
machine places severe limits on the amount of video, audio, graphics, and anima-
tion you can include in the game. Because they're solid-state electronics, though,
the data on a cartridge is available instantly. There's no delay in loading data, as
there is with optical media devices.
The handheld game market is potentially lucrative, but creating a game for one
tests your skills as a designer. With less storage space, you have to rely on gameplay
rather than content to provide the entertainment. And as with home console
machines, to develop for handheld game machines you must have a license from
the manufacturer. (The Pocket PC and other personal digital assistants belong to a
different category because they are not, strictly speaking, game machines. The later
section “Other Devices” deals with them.)
Mobile Phones and Wireless Devices
Mobile phones now have enough computing power to play decent games.
Unfortunately, it has proven difficult to find a reliably profitable business model.
The public is reluctant to pay much money for games on mobile phones. Skins and
ringtones account for most of the money being made in mobile phone content at
the moment. But the worst thing about developing for mobile phones is the utter
lack of standardization. The screens are all different sizes and color depths; the pro-
cessors are different; the operating systems are different. Even the layout of the
buttons is nonstandard, making it difficult to be certain what user interface design
is convenient across a range of phones.
However, mobile phones and other wireless devices such as the Nintendo DS do
have one distinct advantage over traditional game handhelds: Wireless devices per-
mit portable networked play. Players can compete against other people while riding
on trains or waiting for an appointment. Setting up a networked game on mobile
