Today was an amazing day for me at the Unite Nordic conference in Malmo, Sweden. I was able to attend the keynote session where Unity CEO David Helgason announced that they are making their mobile tools free to indie developers and small studios!

Unity is a leader in game development with just shy of two million developers using the tools. Now with this announcement, Unity is making it easy for any developer to bring their games to mobile devices – including the BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry Q10 smartphones – and the upcoming BlackBerry Q5 smartphone.

At the keynote, David spoke about how, as game developers, we’re just at the inflection point of mobile and how mobile is surpassing other platforms in adoption. There have been many games that have proven that mobile is a profitable platform, but there is much room to grow.

Take a look oat David’s Video Announcement:

Our booth at the conference was bustling with activity. Game developers were intrigued by the BlackBerry 10 platform and we had many conversations on how they could use Unity to get their apps onto the platform.

We encourage you to take advantage of the Unity open beta for BlackBerry 10!

Usually, people hate Mondays, but not Indonesian game developers! We proved it this past Monday during our live game port-a-thon in Bandung. The event was attended by more than 50 attendees from various game studios across the country. I kicked off the event by outlining the rewards and benefits of joining a live Port-A-Thon, including the chance to get $100 in apps, devices, and BlackBerry accessories, to name a few. I also spoke to the 10k Developer Commitment. Our gaming experts, Pratik Sapra and Ramprasad Madhavan followed, explaining how to port the games to BlackBerry 10, be it Native, Adobe Flash/Adobe AIR, HTML5, or even Android.

At Maxi’s Resto in Ciumbeuleuit, Bandung attendees began to port their applications with guidance from our gaming experts. It was great to be able to meet up with and assist on Indonesia’s top talent, and it is our hope that the number of mobile game developers in Indonesia continues to grow.

Ram, Pratik, and myself introducing our game development tools and rewards

The porting begins!

Over 100 games were ported during the live Port-A-Thon event, and we awarded BlackBerry PlayBook tablets to the developers with the best games ported on site. This was a very difficult decision, given the number of high-quality apps being ported!

Altermyth porting MajuMaru to BlackBerry 10

Mintsphere porting Trigger Knight

After much deliberation, the PlayBook tablets were won by Mintsphere and Zanuzawa. We also gave out seven BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha B devices to studios that had successfully ported their game on site: Agate Games, Altermyth, Own Games, Tempa Labs, Hompimplay, Tinker Games, and Cupcorn.

Media Session with Developer Relations and Business Development

Congrats to the winning team, and lastly I’d like to thank the PR team, @BlackBerryDev, BBDevID, and GameDevID for promoting the event!

I know there are many choices when developing a game for the BlackBerry platform, but I wanted to share my favorite with you. If you have not heard of it before, NME is a free and open-source framework, designed to bring a unified feature set and native performance to many platforms, including the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet and BlackBerry® 10.

Defining a Project File

The first place to start when building an NME project is to make sure you have a project file. This will tell NME where your asset and source files are located, as well as meta-data like the application name, version and author.

Unlike other BlackBerry applications, you will not need to define a “bar-descriptor.xml” file later. NME will generate the file for you, based on the values in the NME project file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<project>
<meta title="Asterisk Game" package="com.testing.asteriskgame" version="1.0.0" company="Joshua Granick" />
<app main="AsteriskGame" path="Export" />
	<window width="800" height="600" unless="mobile" />
<source path="Source" />
<haxelib name="nme" />
<haxelib name="actuate" />
	<assets path="Assets" rename="assets" exclude="icon-*.png" />
<icon path="Assets/icon-114.png" size="114" />
<icon path="Assets/icon-86.png" size="86" />
</project>

You can find more details about the NMML format here.

Loading Assets

NME has an Assets class that makes it simple to load resource files. It accepts a path, based on the file structure of your project and the <assets /> nodes you include in the project file. You can use the Assets class to load bitmap data, bytes, font references, sounds and plain text synchronously.

If you need to load an asset asynchronously, such as from a remote server, you can use the NME Loader and URLLoader classes, which are outside the scope of this post.

Creating a Bitmap

var bitmapData = Assets.getBitmapData (“assets/asterisk.png”);
var bitmap = new Bitmap (bitmapData);
addChild (bitmap);

Unless you are creating a new bitmap in memory, the first step is to load an existing image asset from a file or a web server. In this sample, I am using an existing graphic called “asterisk.png”, which I have included in my project.

Once this process is complete, I will have the data for my bitmap, represented in NME by the BitmapData class. With a BitmapData object, I can use one of multiple rendering methods available. The simplest and most common is to create a Bitmap and add it to the “display list.” In NME, there is a tree of objects which are rendered automatically. By adding a display object to a parent that already is a member of the “display list,” it will be rendered as well. In this way, we can decide when our Bitmap is able to be rendered.

Adding Touch Interaction

It is exciting to get a bitmap on-screen, but in order to build a game we need to be able to handle touch interaction. Although a Bitmap has values like a position, size, scale and alpha (transparency), the Bitmap class cannot handle touch or mouse interaction.

The easiest way to add this support is to put our bitmap inside of a Sprite:

var sprite = new Sprite ();
var bitmap = new Bitmap (Assets.getBitmapData (“assets/asterisk.png”));
sprite.addChild (bitmap);
addChild (sprite);

The Sprite class is one of the most common classes in NME development. In addition to being a DisplayObject, like the Bitmap class, a Sprite instance can contain other objects. The Sprite class also supports dispatches touch and mouse events, which is what we are looking for.

sprite.addEventListener (MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, function (event) { bitmap.visible = false; });

Adding an event listener makes it possible to respond when an event occurs on the objects, such as the MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN event.

NME supports a touch-specific API, but most applications will only need to listen to standard mouse events. These will work with touch screens as well as traditional desktop and laptop systems, making it simpler for your project to run on multiple form-factors.

Playing Sound

var sound = Assets.getSound ("assets/fuzz.wav");
sound.play ();

Loading a Sound is simple, thanks to the NME Assets class. Then you can call play to your sound.

Internally, NME is using SDL_mixer on BlackBerry to play audio. This provides excellent support for many file formats, but also presents some restrictions. SDL_mixer supports one streaming “music” channel at once and multiple event “sound” channels simultaneously. NME will try to automatically detect whether a file is “music” or “sound” based on the file extension, but this can be controlled manually in your NMML project file.

SDL_mixer only supports MP3 in the “music” channel, while other formats, such as OGG and WAV, can be used for “sound”. This is a limitation to be aware of, especially if you are using MP3 files.

Download the Sample

You can download the “Asterisk Game,” a small sample that uses these features to make a simple “whack-a-mole” style game. Asterisks will appear on screen, and the player taps the asterisks to make them disappear until time runs out. The score is based on the number of asterisks the player is able to tap before they fade on their own, and bonus points are awarded based on the size of the asterisk – smaller asterisks are worth more points.

If you appreciated this tutorial and would like to learn more about NME, please sound off in the comments!

With all the developer programs we’ve been launching lately, are you getting the feeling that we really want to help you take advantage of all the opportunities associated with BlackBerry® 10? It’s true, we do. Now there’s another cool event to tell you about: The BlackBerry Got Game Port-a-Thon.

The BlackBerry Got Game Port-a-Thon starting on November 16th is a 36-hour event dedicated to helping you get your gaming apps launched for BlackBerry 10. Since it’s a virtual event, participating is simple and hassle-free. You just register and log in from the comfort of your own space. You bring your existing gaming apps or build new gaming apps for BlackBerry 10, and we’ll have experts on hand around the clock to help you get your gaming apps up and running on BlackBerry 10.

The more you port and build, the more you get*

Getting your apps into the BlackBerry App World storefront before BlackBerry 10 launches means that you can be among the first to benefit from the universe of app-hungry customers out there. You’ll also get rewards for porting and building.

• Get one or two gaming apps approved – $100 per eligible app.
• Get between two and five gaming apps approved – $100 per eligible App and one (1) BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet
• Get between five and ten gaming apps approved - $100 per eligible App + one (1) BlackBerry PlayBook tablet + FOR THE FIRST ONE HUNDRED (100) QUALIFIED PARTICIPANTS ONLY one (1) Dev Alpha Device
• Get more than 10 gaming apps approved - $100 per app + one (1) BlackBerry PlayBook tablet + FOR THE FIRST TEN (10) QUALIFIED PARTICIPANTS ONLY one (1) Dev Alpha Device + trip to Game Developers Conference in San Francisco March 25-29, 2013

One-on-one support

Technical folks from Research In Motion will be on hand for the entire 36 hours of the Port-a-Thon to provide you with online technical support. If you get stuck or have a question, you can submit it much like you would in a webcast. If it’s something that should be handled privately, you can head to a private chat with the technical expert.

You’ll also have access to high-profile RIM gaming personalities and presentations that share insider tips and tricks.

Prepare to port and build

Since more apps ported and built means more rewards*, it’s in your best interest to get a few things ready before you join the event. Here’s what you need:

1. Register for BlackBerry App World if you haven’t already.
2. Request signature keys. Make sure that you select for BlackBerry® PlayBook™ OS and BlackBerry 10 and higher. Downloading in advance is strongly recommended as the time involved to do so could prevent you from earning some rewards.
3. Load up your laptop BlackBerry tools and plug-ins. Make sure you have your full source code file readily available too.
4. Make sure you have your images and icons ready to go.

We also have porting tips and guides you can use to get a head start at developer.blackberry.com.

Let’s Play

Get your gaming apps working harder for you. Register for the BlackBerry Got Game Port-a-Thon.

*Limited to the first twenty (20) approved Apps per participant. There is a limit of one (1) BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device per BlackBerry App World vendor. To qualify for a Reward, you must register on the website at http://developer.blackberry.com/webcasts/gameportathon and submit your App into the BlackBerry App World Vendor Portal between 12:00:01 pm on November 16, 2012 and 11:59:59pm ET on November 17, 2012. Any Apps submitted outside this time frame are not eligible for this Reward program. Only those Apps that have been approved through BlackBerry App World and RIM will be considered towards a Reward. See the Official Terms and Conditions for complete details.

Here’s a guest post from Luca F. – Ed.

A few weeks ago we came across a blog post written by a game developer describing how he ported his iOS game, Pop Corny, to Android™. In a nutshell, it was not an easy process for him. We decided to send this developer a BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet and challenged him to port his game to our platform.

The result was documented in this blog post. Here’s an excerpt:

It turns out RIM has done an awesome job with Playbook and probably with its upcoming phones. The system is based on the QNX operating system and it has strong support for standards and open libraries. I found myself right at home with it! I am going to come back with more details about the process (probably with an altdevblogaday article), but by cutting the long story short, I was able to port the engine with only native code (no java glue code like on Android) with OpenGL, OpenAL (even ALUT), freetype, etc all coming bundled with the system.

The dev also showed how fast the game is on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet — you can watch it here.

All the above was implemented in just two days! Once again the openness of the BlackBerry® 10 platform demonstrates how easy is to port your code from other mobile platforms, without any additional pain or time lost.

The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is a very powerful device for gamers, and tons of developers already successfully ported their games and published them to the BlackBerry App World™ storefront. Also, as we have pointed out many times, some game developers have shared their success stories with us and highlighted how much money they’ve made in BlackBerry App World.

Kudos to the dev, Charilaos, for the great job done — and beware, that game is really addictive! I bought it for my kids but I ended up playing with it all the time. You can get it from BlackBerry App World and let me know what you think.