Project Sword/Epic Citadel

[Mazy]

Donno if I'm the only one that just saw the Apple keynote, but Epic Games showed off some completely insane 3D stuff running on an iPhone 4.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/09/01/proje ... from-epic/

Can't find a video of it, but I just played it myself. Basically looks as good as any current gen console games, complete with shaders and all, and it runs super smoothly. As much as I loved the idTech 5 stuff running on iPhone 4, this just blew it completely out of the water. Insane what phones can do these days.

I'll post a video once I find one.

EDIT: Low quality, but there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK9PCpN4MrI

[-HP-]

http://kotaku.com/5627712/exploring-epi ... d-shields/

woa... it's almost as good as God of War PSP. Or better even. Really amazing for a hand-held game.

Could it be a cuicidence this is being announced (or shown to public) a few weeks after carmack showing Rage on the iphone?

[Minos]

Looks great technically wise but those environments look sooo generic... it's probably just another glorified tech demo by Epic.

[Izuno]

downloading now.

I'm really curious to see the kind of traction Game Center will get once it releases next week.

update...

ok walked around. very cool for something that runs on you phone. yes it is a bit "generic" but I still think it is an accomplishment for iPhone graphics. That said, this is just a tech demo but thankfully it is free. This gets me thinking (again) about the lack of buttons/control sticks on the iPhone which is certainly a limit to how well you could play an action game on the platform. I do like the demo's ability to tap somewhere and you just walk there, combined with the virtual left/right thumbsticks. in any event, I'm actually thinking some kind of adventure game that doesn't depend too much on action might be a really cool and feasible game with this. But let's face it, people wants theirs actions games.

[Mazy]

Yeah it's definitely the tech that's impressive, hardly the creative direction they're taking this .

Also the virtual twin stick stuff just didn't work very well for me, but the point and click method was pretty cool. Honestly, if you're gonna do a first person game or something on the iPhone, the best way is still to make one virtual stick rotation and the other strafing and forward/backwards movement. Then you'd have to ditch looking up and down, but it worked extremely well with Wolf3D on the iPhone in my opinion.

[Steppenwolf]

That looks very impressive and personaly i'm happy about the direction that handheld/smart phone tech takes. This stuff means there will be plenty of jobs for guys like us in the future even in case development of AAA games takes a hit in the coming years.

[PogoP]

I am imagining a sort of adventure game, this definitely wouldn't work with action games.. Cool though, amazing graphics for the iPhone!

[Jetsetlemming]

Played it on my little sister's ipod. The fake joysticks on the screen were awkward as hell to use. Maybe my thumbs are too big for the iPhone format size.

But it definitely looked good and was impressive that it was running on that hardware. According to wikipedia, the device I tried it on has a 600Mhz processor, 256MB memory, and 320 × 480 screen.

Edit: Also I was surprised to see on the same page that the current generation iPhone has the same amount of internal memory as an entire 360 or PS3.

[skdr]

Tried it, runs beautifully on iP4 and looks frigging sweet.

[Thrik]

Just played it, pretty impressive stuff. A colleague rightly pointed out that the detail will most probably have to diminish significantly once player models and AI make an appearance, but as pure eye candy it's compelling stuff.

I did have difficulty with the two-sticks control scheme though, and much preferred the tap-and-pan method — unfortunately that's not exactly ideal for exciting first-person shooter gameplay, so it wouldn't surprise me if we see this used for adventure/puzzle games and stuff like that instead. You know, Myst-like stuff. Or maybe third-person could work really nicely with the tap control scheme and no/minimal camera control, make a really cinematic adventure game.

It's great that such a robust engine is going to be available for the iPhone, anyway. Opens up so much potential.

[Grinwhrl]

I tried it on my 3GS today, and its very impressive.

[Minos]

Yarr just tried it on Ubi's iPad and damn, it rules

[Sentura]

am i the only one concerned about battery time drop while playing this?

[dux]

Seems like such a waste for a tiny screen though? Cant really appreciate the detail they put into it.

[Thrik]

Well the iPhone has quite a big screen as far as phones go, and the iPhone 4 runs at an insane 640x960 which is roughly what numerous current-gen console games do. It was very much possible to appreciate the detail when I gave it a go, and in fact the relatively small screen makes it seem even more impressive because any texture blurriness and whatnot is harder to spot.