Also – the new HD7s hit AT&T yesterday! The phone is basically the WP7 equivalent to an Evo. It’s got a giant screen… and supposedly, Mango! Excited to try Cuttlefish out on Mango.

On the code side – fixing up crash reports, and doing a bunch of stuff to iron out the code generation process. When I’m done it’ll be vastly less irritating to setup engine customizations – the designer will copy the entire source code for the engine into a seperate project, and it’ll then reference that project, instead of just copying the DLL and referencing that. Should make it much easier to modify engine code, as well as step through it!

Also fixing a couple of behind the scenes things – pushing an update that adds, say, a new template, is a bit more complicated than I’d like it to be, and while I remember the process right now, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before I forget some critical step and send out some sour update that breaks everyone. So, simplifying all that stuff – doesn’t translate into anything that you guys can see, though.

And… iOS building! Getting closer!

This makes 2 complete samples almost done. The other sample is breakout, which is in the final stages of documentation now… might be tonight if I’m feeling more like writing instead of coding. Watch for them both to appear here real soon.

On the new features front – just finished work on a whopper. You’re now able to “cast” a game object ID directly to a specific game object, and then call public methods on that game object. Say you have a game object named foo, and a method in there called DoSomething(). Assuming m_fooID is a valid ID of a “foo” game object, you can now do: S.foo(m_fooID).DoSomething(). This is way more intuitive, faster, and easier than making a custom event that only foo responds to (though custom events are still very useful in some cases).

Also – player profiles are getting “methodized.” Player profiles have until now been just variables, but LD48 really brought out the need to have methods on there as well. For example – say your player profile has variables holding the max HP, max MP, current experience, and experience level. When a character “levels up,” you want to increase HP max and MP max, increment experience level, and set current experience back to 0. All easy stuff, but right now there’s no good “home” for this code. Soon though, you will be able to make, say, a LevelUp() method of the player profile, and call it via S.LocalPlayer.LevelUp().

To accommodate this, I’m planning on changing the “Vars” tab in the project properties – going to move the global variables to their own tab, move variables of the player profile will go off to the list window, and make it so in the tab you’ll be able to create methods. It’ll look a lot like editing a script module. Player profiles won’t have states but they will have the ability to respond to a few events (Created, ShuttingDown seem like obvious wants).

We’re launched! Some of you hit an early bump when going through the tutorial, where it’d crash inside the new project dialog if you chose certain devices. That’s been fixed, and if you run the designer again it will auto-update (a good test!). There’s also what may be an odd issue where the auto-generated code doesn’t compile because it’s formatting the physics screen diagonal number using a comma, which in code looks like a call with two arguments to a function that only expects one. Tracking that one. Also added some clearer instructions about what dependencies you need to install – essentially, you need either Visual Studio C# Express or full VS2010, plus the XNA framework, and the Windows Phone Tools. You also need the .NET 4 framework, but I think most systems have that installed already, and that the installer will catch if you don’t have it and grab it for you.

In general though – it’s on track! Many thanks to all of you that plunged headfirst into the unknown and were kind enough to report back on problems instead of just giving up. They’re really valuable and it’s really great to see people starting to explore! Please do though use the support center, on the site – I want to keep the issues open and public so that nobody wastes their time reporting a dupe. Also if you’ve hit something that technically works but was counter-intuitive… I want to hear about those as well. Not just bugs… anything!

Finally – I realized I forgot to hook up any sort of “catch crash, prompt for what happened, send to server” code. I’ll definitely be adding that soon.

I’m excited to announce the first public beta of the Cuttlefish Engine, a completely new approach to cross-platform mobile game development. Cuttlefish writes the code for you, and it can write in several different languages – Objective C for iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, etc), C# for Windows Phone, Java for Android, and more. Cuttlefish takes all these different platforms and languages, and unites them under a single tool: The Cuttlefish Designer. It’s your secret weapon for creating games on any platform: mobile, web, and beyond*.

To download, point your browser at http://www.cuttlefishengine.com/content/download.

Today’s beta release includes complete support for Windows Phone. You can build a game completely within the Cuttlefish Designer, and release it to the Zune Marketplace. And it’s good timing – there’s a real lack of games out there for Windows Phone, and that spells opportunity for independent developers. So, even though this is still beta software, there’s no better way to test it than to build and sell a game!

The “builders” that output iOS (iPhone and iPad), as well as Android, are forthcoming, but you can start using Cuttlefish now to develop for these platforms – we’ve included simulators for both. You can work with their native resolutions, and see your game running – just not on the actual devices yet. When the update arrives, you’ll be good to go – everything you’ve done will transfer over. A simple build, and your game’s on device.

Also, we’re excited to announce that the engine itself is completely open source. This means that, not only will you be able to extend the engine easily to fit your needs, but also, you’ll be able to step all the way into engine code in the debugger, and when you build, you get 100% of your game code. You will need a designer subscription to build for devices, but everything else is free.

So give it a shot! This is the fruit of two and half years of active (if quiet!) development, and the passion I have for it is only getting strong. I’m really excited to share it, and I encourage you all to check out the brand new site, give it a download, and fill up the forums with what you think!

Nope – everything here is pretty normal. The Cuttlefish Engine is coming along quite nicely – after all this time (almost a year now) it’s exciting to see it all finally come together. Shipping an engine is way different than shipping a game – this is getting to be less and less true, but still, with a game, most of the code you’ve written you know isn’t going to see life beyond the game DVD. With an engine, it’s different – with an engine, shipping is the start of the fun, not the end. I’m definitely looking forward to getting your guys’ opinions on the engine, and seeing what you’re going to create with it.

I’m staying in NYC (because why would you ever leave?!?!), so if you’re local, hit me up for beers or something. I’m going into a bit of a communications blackout, so email’s best.

The engine itself is progressing well, I really think you guys are going to love it. If you’re thinking about making a game for iPhone, Droid, or iPad, definitely keep an eye on http://www.cuttlefishengine.com, and sign up for the email list.

I know, I know, not exactly the most content-rich post in the world, but everything is busy busy busy now, so it’ll have to do. Next time, promise!

USS MASON, DDG-87, United States Navy.

If you search for this site by googling just “Mason,” you won’t find it (I gave up after a dozen pages of results). But you will find all of these:

http://www.masonhq.com/
A language that lets you embed PERL into HTML.

http://www.cs.gmu.edu/~eclab/projects/mason/
A multi-agent simulation toolkit.

http://www.mason-ind.com/
An industry leader in the field of vibration isolation.

http://www.theparkdowntown.com/page.php?url=masons
A fine downtown Sacramento restaurant.

http://www.dj-mason.com/
Mason burst onto the dance scene with their groundbreaking tune Exceeder back in 2006.

http://www.emigre.com/EF.php?fid=104
A font in both Serif and Sans Serif varieties.

http://www.masoncorp.com/

A manufacturer of aluminum building productions.

http://www.myspace.com/musicofmason
The music of Mason, not to be confused with the band, Mason (http://www.last.fm/music/Mason), or DJ Mason, above.

http://gardening.wsu.edu/library/inse006/inse006.htm
The Mason Bee is slightly smaller than a honey bee, and a shiny dark blue in color. There’s also a red one (http://www.redmason.net/).

http://www.analysysmason.com/
Analysys Mason delivers strategy advice, operations support, and market intelligence worldwide to leading commercial and public sector organisations.

http://www.mason23.com/
An ad agency that “breaks down the barriers to purchase.”

http://www.masonstreetgrill.com/
A downtown Milwaukee restauarant, serves everything from upscale sandwiches to top-quality steaks and seafood.

http://www.masoncorporation.com/
Apparently a seperate entity from MasonCorp (above), The Mason Corporation is the maker of the Roller Racer, you know, that toy you move the handlebars on in order to go forward. Also, the Flying Turtle, which sounds sexual but isn’t.

http://www.masonsbakery.com/
Mason’s Bakery, specializing in photo cakes and cookies!

http://www.masonbox.com/
The Mason Box Company, manufacturer and distributor of corrugated boxes, shipping supplies, and gift accessories.

http://mason.wm.edu/
The Mason School of Business.

http://www.masonsteel.com/
Mason Structural Steel.

Let’s conclude with a quote from Mason, the DJ-slash-production team:

“2009 is set to be a big one for Mason, both as a production team and as a DJ. If sheer talent and karma have anything to do with it then expect to be hearing this name a lot in the future.”

Well put, DJ Mason. Let’s hope it’s more talent than karma.