Blackberry App World!

[val9]

Hey guys I was wondering how many of you out there have thought about packaging your html5 game and putting it into Blackberry App World. I came across this article today which shows you how well html5 apps run on their new BB10 hardware. From everything that I have read Blackberry is making it very easy to package up html5 games using the webworks sdk.

 

They have been really great with the HTML5 community over at scirra. I was able to go to Waterloo and convince them to help make a plugin to make it easier export C2 games, so they work on Blackberry 10. They just made that go live yesterday!! So if any of you make games with C2 you now have the ability to target a brand new OS.

 

Your game will really have the advantage of standing out of the crowd (has to be good though lol ) instead of being drowned out like in iOS or android  . For the real coders here you should really check out packaging your HTML 5 game so you too can sell it on Blackberry world. I will try to contact the person so they can be aware of this community. If there are people that might need help getting their app on blackberry app world they will with out a doubt help you.  Here is the article and the youtube vid of the html5 game running. Enjoy

 

http://devblog.blackberry.com/2013/04/ludus-blackberry10/#more-14816

[gaelbeltran]

I've just updates to the new version of C2 which enables Blackberry export, but currently I dont have a BB device to test

But I think it's a good idea to pack your app to this market because it isn's as crowded as iOS and Android.

[Inateno]

In my opinion developping on BB10 with HTML5 is laborious.

You have only 1 audio chanel (so no FX or when play FX cut your music :/) and need tricks especially for this platform (some canvas methods are verry low, css resize of your canvas very slow...)

 

I have an Alpha device, and I make a simple BubbleShooter running on all platform trough web-browser, BB10 is the slower recent platform (I precise recent because android under 4.0 is slow to).

 

You can test it here http://dreamirl.com/bubble

Now, maybe the final BB10 device is faster than my Alpha device, not sure if someone had a BB Z10 and can give feedback.

 

Then their store is laborious to, there is 2 different website (developpers and developpers AppWorld) and you switch every time, and when an apps is refused you have no complete reports of why (you receive an email, but in my case I don't receive it so never se my application refused and why...).

 

Otherwhise packaging for BB10 is not so hard, take an after noon and then it's done.

 

If you want platofrms not crowded like iOS and Android just look at Windows Store (WP and W8) where performances are very good.

 

But I always look after BB and their platforms, and hope they'll improve it, because "native" packaging is very cool.

[AshleyScirra]

BB10 supports WebGL, and it seems to be fast and reliable, which is great for a mobile, and great for WebGL-powered engines like Construct 2. (In benchmarks WebGL is often 2x+ faster than canvas2D, so it's doubly important on mobile.)

 

However they've made the same old mistake of forgetting how important audio is. Audio is pretty buggy and limited on BB10, but I'm told they're making it a priority to add support for the Web Audio API, which should fix that. Once that's added, I think it would make BB10 one of the strongest platforms for HTML5 games, at least for Construct 2 games.

[val9]

The dev alpha isn't as good as the actual phone there is some very noticeable performance differences.

But you guys are right about the lack of sound performance. It might be fixed with the next OS update maybe,hopefully lol. Which will be in May.

As for there being 2 stores I'm not too sure what your talking about. I handed 3 web apps to them and your pick if you want to target the dev alpha ie the developer App Store or the consumer App Store by checking off the z10 or q10 all in the same website. At least thats what I have here in North America. Maybe they have different set up for different regions I'm not sure.

[WaterlooErik]

Hello all, first I want to say thank you to val9 for reaching out and letting me know about this thread and apologies for the length of the ensuing post :-)

 

For full disclosure, I am an Application Development Consultant with BlackBerry, my primary area of focus is HTML5 and gaming. I spend the majority of my day creating content (samples, docs, etc.) and working with developers (individuals and larger organizations) who are leveraging HTML5 to create mobile applications.

 

I'll do my best to answer any questions, provide what insight I can, and so forth. Whether it's "My code signing isn't working..." to "How can I market my application?", I can't promise I'll always have the answers, but I'll do my best to answer what I can and, if I don't know, I'll try and find the right person that does.

 

There are a few things that have come up that I'd like to address. For developers that are looking to target BlackBerry 10, but don't have a device, there are a few options. The primary tool that I use for the majority (80-90%) of my development is the Ripple Emulator:

https://developer.blackberry.com/html5/documentation/getting_started_with_ripple_1866966_11.html

 

Ripple is a Chrome extension that will emulate various devices while allowing you to test BlackBerry specific APIs as well. The cool part is that it has Phonegap/Cordova support as well as screen emulation for a variety of iOS, Android, and generic devices too. On top of that, you can emulate GPS, accelerometer, and other device specific triggers. Ripple uses Chrome's rendering engine (being just an extension) so the performance and rendering can vary a little, but it gives you a very good idea of layout and behaviour to start.

 

We do also have the BlackBerry 10 simulator, which is the actual BlackBerry 10 OS running in a VMWare instance:

https://developer.blackberry.com/html5/documentation/using_the_bb10_simulator_2008466_11.html

 

It's great for that last bit of testing. For those developers that really want to see their application running on a physical device, we have seeded thousands of Dev Alpha and Dev Alpha B devices. The important thing to note is that the Dev Alpha was an initial piece of hardware with limited memory and a slightly weaker chipset. While it did let developers see their apps run on the BlackBery 10 OS, it is in no way actually representative of the performance you get on a BlackBerry 10 device. The Dev Alpha B is much closer, but it too has only 1GB of memory, whereas in-market devices have 2GB, which leads to inherent differences too.

 

We do regularly run developer competitions where devices are on the line as rewards, so if you're looking to get your hands on a Z10 or a Q10, I would recommend keeping on eye on our BlackBerry Developer blog (devblog.blackberry.com) for any announcements.

 

 

Inateno, regarding the multi-channel audio, this was actually improved upon a while back. The PlayBook initially had only one channel available, but it now supports multiple channels, as does BlackBerry 10. This means you can get background music, sound effects, etc. all going at the same time. For instance, the Ludus samples that val9 mentioned had a number of simultaneous sounds. As does the Construct 2 Space Blaster sample. The one piece that is lacking in audio currently is the Web Audio API. Our teams are working to implement this standard but for the time being we're limited to audio objects. Expect to see it coming down the line soon though. I'm not familiar with the canvas issues you described, but I will look into those.

 

Regarding the websites, it's true that we have a developer microsite for each platform (HTML5, C/C++/Cascades, AIR, and Android) and another for the vendor portal, but it's purely to separate out the purpose of each page. You an access both from our primary developer landing page: http://developer.blackberry.com

 

In terms of applications that get rejected, it's a separate team from mine so I can't speak exactly to their process, but if you do ever have any questions about it feel free to fire me an email ([email protected]) and I will follow-up with that team to get specific reasons. I'm also willing to test any BlackBerry 10 applications before you submit and provide my feedback on performance, functionality, etc. Don't hesitate to reach out.

 

Generally the part of the process that causes the most issues is setting up the environment (code signing keys, SDK.) Construct 2 did a great job of integrating this into their environment, and we're also working on a standalone tool to essentially give you a click-through wizard that you're then good to go. For the time being, fire any questions this way. We can have phone call, screen share, whatever it takes to get you up and running :-)

 

 

I've rambled on for a while now, but I hope that might help clear up a little about the platform. If I've missed anything, or new questions have arisen, please don't hesitate to ask. Cheers!

[val9]

Great to hear (pun intended) that the multichannel audio is working lol. I will definitely be playing around with this. 

[Cappa Games]

I was think of doing this with either HTML5 or Andriod, I just wonder how compatibility will work with things like ads or IAP.