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!

This blog post will walk you through the Add-on from start-to-finish.

Get your BlackBerry Signing Keys

Before you begin you need to register for BlackBerry Signing Keys, which lets you develop your Unity games and publish to BlackBerry World. After signing up, you should receive 2 .csj files that will be used to generate the Signing Keys. If you already have your Signing Keys setup, move on to the next section.

Setup your Signing Keys

Once you have the Unity Beta SDK installed, make sure you register your computer for BlackBerry development. This can be done through Unity’s Build Settings at File->Build Settings. You will find the BlackBerry option among other platforms.

Note: if BlackBerry is not among other platforms, it is probably because you do not have a Pro license or it is not unlocked for the BlackBerry 10 Add-on. You can find more information on activating your Trial Pro license in the Unity Beta forums.

1. Register

   Clicking on the “Player Settings” will open up the BlackBerry Platform settings tab.

   Note: If you already have setup the BlackBerry Signing Keys with other BlackBerry Developer tools, the BlackBerry Add-on should detect and show you as Registered.

   

If you have not already registered your computer, click the Register Button and that will pop-up a screen where you can specify the appropriate .csj files that you received in your email. The CSJ Pin corresponds to the pin that you entered when filling out the Signing Key form. The CSK Password that you enter will be your actual Signing Key password that you should make sure to remember.



2. Backup and Restore

   Once you have registered, make sure to backup the generated Signing Keys. It is very important that you backup the Signing Keys as this will allow you to develop, publish, and upgrade your game from different computers. Once backed up, you can simply use the Restore button to register a different computer for development.

   Keeping your Signing Keys safe and remembering your password saves you a lot of potential hassle!

3. Unregister

   The Unregister button removes any Signing Key information from your computer. It is highly recommended to backup your keys in order to be able to publish or upgrade your games in the future. Unregistering your Signing Keys without a backup will make it impossible to retrieve them.

Debug Tokens

To securely develop, debug, and test your Unity Games, you’ll need DebugTokens.

If you already have a BlackBerry 10 Development environment setup, you can simply import your existing debug token from the following default folders:

• Windows XP: %HOMEPATH%\Local Settings\Application Data\Research In Motion
• Windows Vista and Windows 7: %HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\Research In Motion
• Mac OS: ~/Library/Research In Motion
• UNIX or Linux: ~/.rim

To create a new debug token, click Create and the following window will pop-up to let you specify where to create a DebugToken and for which device based on the device PIN. The PIN of a BlackBerry 10 device can be accessed from the Settings screen in your device.

Before uploading the Debug Token, make sure that:

1. The device is in the development mode.
   It can be done at Settings Screen-> Security and Privacy -> Development Mode
2. Device IP Address and device password are entered

If you have a USB cable then enter the Development IP Address starting 169.254.x.x in the Device Address text box. If you prefer deploying wirelessly, make sure your device is connected to the same Wi-Fi network and enter the Network IP address that can be found under Settings Screen -> About -> Network ->IP. In both cases, development mode has to be turned on.

To verify that the Debug Token was successfully uploaded, check the development mode screen for the Debug Token details.

For security reasons, the generated Debug Tokens are only valid for a month. For example, if you have a debug version of a Unity game installed on your BlackBerry with an expired token, the game will not launch unless it is renewed. You can renew any existing or expired Debug Tokens within the settings. You may also edit a Debug Token to add or remove BlackBerry Device PINs for development.

Build and Deploy

Assuming you were able to import your game and upload the debug token, here’s how to enable optimizations and deploy to a BlackBerry 10 Device.

1. Texture Compression

   Depending on the Device’s GPU, you can compress your textures to a GPU-specific texture compression format to improve performance, loading time, and of course, reduce the texture memory size. The following options are available in the Build settings:



• PVRTC – To optimize your existing textures to Power VR GPU.
  Note: among the current Z10 and Q10 Devices lineup, Model Name STL100-1 indicates a PowerVR SGX544 GPU.
• ATC – To optimize your existing textures to Adreno GPU, which is present in majority of BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 devices.
• ETC1 or RGBA16 – To optimize your textures to the standard texture compression format included with OpenGL ES 2.0 extensions. Note: ETC1 is used to compress only opaque textures.
2. Build Type

   If your project is in development phase, use the Local Build Type with the development option turned on. This enables the Unity Script Debugging and Profiling feature. If you wish to test your game in release mode or submit it to BlackBerry World, choose the Signed Build Type.

   Note: To deploy a Signed Build, you do not need a Debug Token to be uploaded to a device. This allows you to distribute you game for Beta testing without having to distribute a Debug Token.

   

   Before submitting your game to BlackBerry World, explore the options under the BlackBerry platform settings to choose your game’s Resolution and Presentation options, Icon, Splash Screen, rendering optimizations etc.

   Now that you are up and running, lets see those amazing titles on BlackBerry World!

   And of course, for any questions, comments, concerns, or kudos feel free to reach out to me directly at rmadhavan@blackberry.com or connect directly on Twitter at @rmadhavan7.

The BlackBerry Gaming team is back from an awesome Game Developer Conference 2013 held last week in San Francisco. The crew was there with the BlackBerry Gaming Booth to show off gaming on BlackBerry to gamers and game developers from around the world.

During BlackBerry Jam Europe 2013, we made a big announcement about Unity support for BlackBerry 10. The big news this time around was the announcement of the Open Beta SDK release that will start in the next few weeks. We have been hard at work to provide a Unity Add On integrated with cool BlackBerry 10 features that game developers have been asking for.

Gamers and game developers got to experience some of the features of the Unity Add On for BlackBerry 10 at Unity’s BlackBerry Pod space. That turned out to be the busiest station we have ever manned. The gamers were stunned at seeing a BlackBerry Z10 turn into a high performance mini console with a simple HDMI cable and a Bluetooth HID Steel Series gamepad controller. They were further excited by the fact that BlackBerry 10 now supports some very popular gamepads out there right out-of-the-box and this feature integrated directly with the Unity SDK. The goal is to have game developers make as little code changes as possible to port their games over along with seamless gamepad support.

Along with the BlackBerry Lead Developer from Unity and CEO of Darkwind media, Scott Flynn, I was co-presented three exciting  Unity Booth sessions and a very well received GDC session on Professional Game Engines for BlackBerry 10. For those who missed the sessions, the GDC Session will be directly made available through the GDC vault.

If you are looking to be the first ones to port your Mobile Unity Games to BlackBerry 10, pre-register here for the Unity BlackBerry 10 Open Beta. As a participant in our open beta for the Unity BlackBerry 10 add-on, you get the chance to see how your content will run on this new global platform, and give feedback for improvements directly to Unity developers.

And of course, for any questions, comments, concerns or kudos on the Professional Game Engines, Middlewares or Gaming frameworks for BlackBerry feel free to reach out to me directly at rmadhavan@blackberry.com or connect to me directly on Twitter at @rmadhavan7.

Happy BlackBerry Gaming!

The BlackBerry presence at GDC wasn’t just to showcase the powerful platform and tools we provide for game developers, it was also to show those developers and designers how they can be successful on BlackBerry 10.

Our booth was a reflection of our message to the game development communities. We played host to evangelists, consultants, platform developers, technical leads, marketing guys, documentation writers, and game developers. We demonstrated that we are here to support developers and entrepreneurs – this is how we relate to developers all around the world and how we want to connect with game developers as well!

At GDC we shared the news of our partnership with Unity- expanding the possibilities that developers have to create and bring titles to BlackBerry 10. We also had special guests join us on stage to share stories on how successful they were with their titles on BlackBerry 10.

We showcased some of the great game titles already available on BlackBerry 10 and gamers took advantage of the opportunity to play on the BlackBerry Z10. The busiest part of the booth was where we showed off gaming on the BlackBerry Z10 with Shadowgun using our Gamepad API and the HDMI output of the BlackBerry Z10 as a true console replacement.

People who came into our booth were mostly looking for opportunities. People that left the booth were thrilled about BlackBerry 10 and the opportunities our platform provides.

For those who don’t me, my name is Pratik Sapra and I work as a Gaming Consultant on the Developer Relations team at BlackBerry. In my role, I work with game developers on the technical side and help them bring awesome gaming titles to the BlackBerry platform. I am really looking forward to this weeks Game Developer Conference along with the rest of the BlackBerry gaming crew.

In that regard, I am very excited to share that we have a great set of in-booth sessions (Booth 1216) lined up at our GDC booth. We will be presenting a wide range of topics covering everything you need to know about game development on BlackBerry 10. You will be hearing directly from BlackBerry gaming experts on topics including Native Development, Cocos2dx, Unity, Scoreloop and many more. We will be kicking off each day with a general overview session followed by a set of how-to sessions focused on specific topics and technologies. Scroll down below for the full session schedule.

Wednesday, March 27^th

10:00 – 10:15AM            Native Game Development on BlackBerry 10

11:00 – 11:15AM            How to set up a native game in under 10 minutes on BlackBerry 10

1:15 – 1:30PM                  How to add gamepad support to BlackBerry 10 games

2:00 – 2:15PM                  How to write an HTML 5/ WebGL game on BlackBerry 10

2:30 – 2:45PM                  How to write an Adobe AIR application on BlackBerry 10

3:00 – 3:15PM                  How to write a multiplatform game on Blackberry 10

Thursday, March 28^th

10:00 – 10:15AM            Social Gaming on BlackBerry 10

11:00 – 11:15AM            How to bring your Unity 4 game to BlackBerry 10

1:15 – 1:30PM                  How to port your iOS game to BlackBerry 10, Tips & Tricks

2:00 – 2:15PM                  How to bring your Cocos2dx game to BlackBerry 10

3:00 – 3:15PM                  How to add Leaderboards and Achievements to BlackBerry 10 games using Scoreloop

Friday, March 29^th

10:00 – 10:15AM            Building your Gaming Strategy for BlackBerry 10

10:30 – 10:45AM            How to add in-game advertising to BlackBerry 10 games

11:00 – 11:15AM            How to add in-app payment services to BlackBerry 10 games.

1:15 – 1:30PM                  How to package, publish and distribute your BlackBerry 10 game on BlackBerry World

2:00 – 2:15PM                  How to save BlackBerry 10 game state in the cloud

2:30 – 2:45PM                  How to convert, build and debug BlackBerry 10 games with Visual Studio

I’m looking forward to next week’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco (Mar 25-29).  With the global launches of BlackBerry 10, there’s never been a more exciting time to be a game developer on BlackBerry.

I’ve lived and breathed gaming for a very long time. Prior to joining BlackBerry, I was the founder and CEO of game development company SouthEnd Interactive between 1998-2010 and was Lead Game Designer and Senior Producer on games such as Deathrow (Xbox), R-Type Dimensions (XBLA), Lode Runner (XBLA) and Ilomilo (XBLA/WP7) on Xbox/360, PlayStation 3, Android, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7 and other platforms.

For the last three years, BlackBerry has been building the most accessible and most developer friendly platform for game developers -and here it is – BlackBerry 10!  Blackberry has also partnered will all the major game engine and middle ware companies such as Unity, Marmalade, Shiva to ensure that the tools you use today are available for you with BlackBerry 10 gaming.

Kick start your move to BlackBerry 10 by visiting www.github.com/blackberry where we have over 70 of the most used open source projects including cocos2d-x, box2D, bullit physics and Ogre3D.

Join many of the top gaming titles from top developers such as EA, Gameloft, Disney, Rovio, Halfbrick, AMA, SEGA, 10tons, Hexage, funkoi, PawPrint Games, Madfinger Games, zeptolab, … and the list just goes on and on!

Be sure to catch my session at Game Developers Conference and learn how BlackBerry 10 can be one of your primary profitable platforms that adds significant value to your game franchise.  The session is “Building your gaming strategy for BlackBerry 10” on Thursday March 28 at 5:30–6:30 pm West 3022.

I’d love to talk gaming with you! Please stop by the BlackBerry Booth 1216 at Game Developers Conference.

We’re very excited to announce that BlackBerry and Unity are working together to create a Unity deployment add-on product for BlackBerry 10 smartphones, empowering Unity’s over 1.5 million strong developer community to publish their games on these powerful platforms.

The deployment tools will also be available for BlackBerry PlayBook tablets for the upcoming BlackBerry 10 OS update.

BlackBerry 10 will now be one of the premiere mobile platforms supported by the market-leading Unity Engine. The deployment tool is currently in development by Unity Technologies and BlackBerry, and will be released as an add-on option for Unity.

A beta version of the Unity add-on along will be made available to a limited number of qualified developers in the spring. Unity is expecting the final release to be available in the summer of 2013.

Additionally, Unity and BlackBerry will hold developer meet up events in Europe and North America and will give qualified developer attendees Unity Pro and BlackBerry 10 smartphones. Details are coming soon, so stay tuned to BlackBerry Developers Blog.