Phew!
That was a hectic year! Of course, we can’t complain about being busy and getting to work on so many fantastic projects.

We were involved with technologies from mobile, to tablets to giant screens and more.
And across a plethora of languages!

We had C# and XNA in our inaugural build of Master of the Seven Teas. In which we created a real-time, mathematically accurate, fluid solver and in order to make this surface as visually accurate, utilised HLSL (High Level Shader Language) to provide the Xbox 360s GPU with the various techniques required to render a realistic fluid surface.

With a similar syntax, we made use of Java and the Android SDK to create applications for clients. Java and the Android SDK also enabled us to begin development of various ANEs (Adobe Native Extensions) which allow us to provide access to lower-level functionality of a system up to Adobe AIR – so developers can use the ActionScript 3 language, yet still maximize their use of the hardware capabilities of the platforms they are running on.
Our whole ANE procedure lead to the OUYA Controller ANE, the now deprecated OUYA IAP ANE and the most recent, OUYA Facade ANE. All of which have been used in production ready games – helping to expand the OUYA development community.

Extending from our development with AIR, we branched out into one of ActionScript’s more powerful features: Stage3D. This allows us to continue to develop in the language and with the tools we’re familiar with, yet still gain access to the GPU and the rendering capability that comes with it.

Adobe have also developed an excellent networking protocol, known as RTMFP (Real-Time Media Flow Protocol). From this, we have developed a new networking system that allows for cross-platform communication between any AIR supporting devices – be it Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, OUYA or Blackberry. All of these can communicate freely between any of the others. To set this up, we have made use of Microsoft’s web service called Azure.

With this, we have developed with web technologies such as PHP and SQL – specifically, Transactional SQL on the Azure platform. And, for testing the RTMFP connections when everything has been configured, using Adobe Cirrus.

There were also several events that occurred this year, including a trip to GDC San Francisco, some speaking and mentoring at the University of Bradford and more. And of course, plenty of things we can’t talk about – just yet!

Here’s looking forward to an even more fulfilling 2014!

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