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Don’t lie – you love you some 3D games. Android has an undeniably HUGE future when it comes to gaming and even though plenty of 2D games rock the house, it’s clear that insanely rich, graphically beautiful animation can be accomplished on the high tech phones we’re carrying around. Yesterday’s launch of Android NDK (Native Development Kit) r3 should facilitate the creation of 3D games and improved graphics:
Applications targeting Android 2.0 (API level 5) or higher can now directly access OpenGL ES 2.0 features. This brings the ability to control graphics rendering through vertex and fragment shader programs, using the GLSL shading language.
This is a feature developers already enjoyed on the iPhone, one less reason for them to be a one-trick pony and come on over to enjoy some Android love on the Market. The team also made some minor improvements such as bug fixes and name simplification.
As minor as “name simplification” seems, I think it shows the Android team:
- Is listening to constructive criticism in an effort to improve the platform
- Is showing attention to detail
It could have been overlooked and people probably wouldn’t have cared too much, but every little bit counts. Gotta love it if you ask me.
[Image via Exchange3D.com]
About time, I’ve been waiting for some 3D games for a while. The selection at the moment is pretty sparse…
These new generation of games will run on a Motorola Milestone, yeah?
It is just incredible to me to see how far we are going to take Android. Been watching its growth from the very beginning and it is truly fascinating. Just give it a couple weeks and Jobs will have something else to cry about. HAHA
“plenty of 2D games rock the house”
Really? From what I’ve seen, there’s a dearth of decent Android 2D games, Android could use more good games, 2D or 3D
Some 3D games would be cool :)
Can’t wait to see what the devs come up with.
Comes at the perfect time for global domination, the devs are getting free 2.x devices.