The BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet is quickly gaining a reputation as a serious gaming platform. During BlackBerry Jam Americas 2012 in San Jose, I had a chance to talk with Stephane Jacoby of Square 1 Games – who has brought the classic title “The Bard’s Tale” to the BlackBerry PlayBook.

Last month, Adam Stanley discussed the giant leap forward that our WebGL support has brought to web development for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet, Adam wrote:

“…you could build a standalone BlackBerry application, powered by WebGL, using theBlackBerry WebWorks SDK, and distribute that app to other BlackBerry PlayBook tablet users through the BlackBerry App World™ storefront.”

To get a true understanding of what you can do with WebGL, we’ve made our demo game “TunnelTilt” available for download in BlackBerry App World™ – check it out. This is really the power of our Web tools. This game feels native.

We took the TunnelTilt demo, which we had previously open sourced in the WebGL-Samples repository on our GitHub page, packaged it with our WebWorks SDK, signed the BAR file and submitted to BlackBerry App World – just like any other game. TunnelTilt is implemented completely using WebGL (specification, Wikipedia) and it is indistinguishable from any other BlackBerry PlayBook tablet application in how it performs!

Download TunnelTilt today and see if you can get through all five levels!

This game is also a great example of RIM’s continued commitment to the open source community. The source code, runtime, and tooling are all available on our developer site and Github page.

Additional Readings

• Native WebGL: A giant leap for the web development community on the BlackBerry PlayBook – Detailed overview of WebGL and its support on the BlackBerry PlayBook.
• TunnelTilt – From GitHub to Your PlayBook – Step-by-step on how to compile the sources into an app.

Let us know what you think of our WebGL support and make sure to let us know as your Web apps launch.

To get a firsthand account of how the Native SDK for the BlackBerry PlayBook OS and the Scoreloop SDK beta will help BlackBerry game developers, I sat down with Eudaimonia CEO, Ezequiel D’Amico. Eudaimonia is a game development and publishing studio based in Buenos Aires that focuses on online and mobile games with social components, using their proprietary engine for cross-platform development (Ezequiel is also speaking at BlackBerry DevCon Americas during the DEV15 – Game Makers Dream: The BlackBerry Native SDK for BlackBerry PlayBook OS session, so be sure to check it out).

Where does BlackBerry fit in today’s mobile gaming ecosystem? What is most surprising about BlackBerry games?

BlackBerry smartphones and the BlackBerry PlayBook are great platforms to deliver cutting edge games and applications. BlackBerry has an incredible audience for games, despite what people might think. The average BlackBerry user wants great gaming applications on their mobile device.

With the global success of the BlackBerry platform and through distribution on BlackBerry App World, we have achieved incredible success in the development and publishing of MTV Entertainment applications; a global brand that is highly focused on reaching young people with their fresh and cool entertainment content.

What makes BlackBerry the top mobile gaming platform from your perspective?

We believe in making BlackBerry smartphones the top mobile gaming platform. With the availability of new hardware and the great development tools available, there is not a single reason to not believe this.

BlackBerry App World has unique advantages compared to other application stores, as it holds the biggest market share here in Latin America and the second biggest worldwide; more than 165M BlackBerry smartphones have been shipped.

We just need to start delivering high quality games, focusing on great user experiences, in order to achieve this goal. There is a huge market out there waiting for our games.

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How is the introduction of the Native SDK for the BlackBerry PlayBook significant for you and what new opportunities does it present?

Primarily, this was an enabler for us to integrate the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet into our MoWeb! engine. This greatly facilitates our ability to quickly bring great games to the device. Also, with the availability of the Scoreloop SDK beta, we are able to easily integrate social features that are now so critical to succeeding on mobile platforms. We are proud to be launching an original and extraordinary social game at BlackBerry DevCon Americas, showcasing the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet‘s gaming capabilities combined with the social features powered by Scoreloop.

These two tools were the key factors in developing our plans for 2012 – to deliver a very high quality game every single month and revolutionize the games on BlackBerry.

You mention how social integration has become critical to success on mobile platforms, why is this and from Eudamonia’s perspective, what makes a social application successful?

Everyday human activities are social; working, playing sports, even studying is a social interaction between teacher and student. Therefore, it is only natural for users to have social interactions when playing games on their mobile devices.

But social is not enough. You need it to be viral so that the app can essentially distribute and spread itself. If the app quality is high enough, the user experience is excellent and enjoyable to play, people will instinctively want to share it with their friends.

With the availability of the Scoreloop SDK beta for the Native SDK for the BlackBerry PlayBook, developers now have suite of social gaming features available to them. Can you share your integration experience?

Integrating Scoreloop features was very straightforward. They have really good documentation supporting their APIs, making it incredibly easy to integrate social features into our games. With the availability of the Scoreloop SDK beta, we can make any of our games social with very little effort, allowing us to focus on delivering exceptional user experiences and maintaining our reputation for developing high quality apps.

What has been the key to Eudaimonia’s success as a mobile entertainment developer and publisher?

MoWeb!, our proprietary engine, is the only cross-platform engine that is compatible with many of the BlackBerry OS smartphones. With our technology, we have developed award-winning games for very well known and established brands such as Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, MTV and Discovery Kids. With the introduction of the Native SDK for the BlackBerry PlayBook, we have been able to expand the capability of MoWeb! to that platform.

What is Eudaimonia’s plan for success in 2012?

Our plans for 2012 are quite simple: make BlackBerry smartphones and the BlackBerry PlayBook our new top gaming platforms, develop very high quality games, and deliver one rocking game every single month of the year. Creating blockbusters for these platforms will make all other game development studios turn their attention to bringing their content to BlackBerry, generating a gaming revolution.