Exploring Cross-Platform Mobile App Development

By ChicMic 10:31 am

With a myriad of mobile devices with different operating systems, it is not possible for any business to focus just on one OS (operating system). Businesses need to consider at-least the mobile OSs which have majority devices in the market. This comes down to 2 mobile OSs – iOS and Android which together have more than 99% of smartphone OS market.

With this as the need of an hour, the mobile app developers are focussing on developing cross-platform mobile apps. So, what are cross-platform mobile apps? Cross-platform apps are based on ‘Write Once Run Anywhere’ philosophy and ideally run on different mobile OSs with a single codebase.

To explore cross-platform mobile apps further, these are of 2 types:

1) Native Cross-Platform Apps
2) Hybrid (HTML5) Cross-Platform Apps

Native Cross-Platform Apps

In order to ease the development of mobile apps using mobile OS, each OS vendor provides with its own SDK (Software Development Kit). These SDKs expose functionality in the vendor preferred programming languages like Objective-C/ Swift for iOS and Java for Android. The apps created using these programming languages using the official SDKs are called native apps.

This means that developing apps for different OSs means writing code from scratch for each of these OSs. This poses a great challenge to the turnaround time and third party vendors have tried to solve this by writing a unified SDK on top of the OS vendor specific SDKs in a unified programming language of their choice. This unified SDK handles the intricacies/differences of the vendor specific SDKs and hides this from the app developers using this unified SDK. The app developer writes a single codebase using this unified SDK in a unified programming language and the apps developed using this unified SDK are called Native Cross-Platform Apps. Since the app developed finally uses the native APIs, native cross-platform apps are nearly as performant as native apps.

The best and upcoming Native Cross-Platform framework is React Native which is built by internet giant Facebook and is now open-sourced for the community to extend it. Thousands of apps are built using React Native including Fortune 500 companies and hot new startups. Some of the apps that have been developed using React Native are Facebook, Instagram, Airbnb etc.

Hybrid (HTML5) Cross-Platform Apps

All OS SDKs include advanced browser component (Web View) to leverage the popularity of HTML5 and to aid the web developers to develop HTML5 based web apps. This has led to the birth of Hybrid Cross-Platform Apps. Third party vendors have created frameworks each of which has a native container to access native platform features and a WebView to execute HTML5/JavaScript. In effect, the Hybrid Cross-Platform Apps are developed using HTML5/JavaScript/CSS and access to the native OS specific functionality is provided by the Hybrid Application Framework.

One of the examples of Hybrid Cross-Platform Framework is Apache Cordova which was originally called PhoneGap.

Services we offer

At ChicMic, we offer both Native Mobile App Development for iOS & Android and Cross-Platform Mobile App Development using React Native. Our clients range from startups to large enterprises and we offer complete development from idea till launch and iterations there-after. We offer the following mobile app development services:

Cross-Platform Mobile App Development (React Native)
Cross-Platform Mobile Game Development (Unity and cocos2d)
Native iOS App Development
Native Android App Development

Contact Us:
www.chicmic.in

Importance of User Experience in games

By ChicMic 11:03 am

In the video game industry, there have always been debates on one primary topic, “What is the most important element in a game?” Most of the people say it’s the gameplay, some say it’s the graphics, sound effects or the story. But what everyone misses to realize is that the players always play games for an experience. So, the primary goal of any game should be to deliver a good user experience.

May it be gameplay or graphics or sound effects or story unless and until the game is not able to simulate an experience for the player, it cannot be successful in the market. There are lots and lots of video games available in the market but not every game is well known to the players. Only the games, which gave a unique experience to the players, are remembered. “Prince of Persia” a game developed by UBISOFT is the best example; even after a decade people still remember the game and expect a new version.

AAA games always focus on pure player/user experience and they hit the market hard and also make good revenue. But when it comes to mobile games it becomes tough to simulate an experience for the player. People just open the game for a few minutes and then get back to their routine. Some mobile game developers focus on delivering the user experience and take over the market with a bang. Glu Mobile, Supercell are some of the leading studios who primarily focus on emulating the experience of a console game on the mobile.

Recently Niantic Labs launched “Pokémon Go” using Augmented Reality, which broke all the records in a number of downloads, daily active users and revenue just because the game was trying to give the best user experience. In this game, the player has to move around in the real world to catch Pokémon’s using GPS location tracking. There is no special gameplay or story but the game was enjoyed by the players and appreciated.

This game is proof that if you can deliver the best user experience in real-time, players will love to play your game and even spend on it without second thought.

Evolution of Card Games

By ChicMic 7:00 am

Playing Cards was one of the main indoor games played before technology took over. Cards even gave birth to a new game genre called “CCG” (Collectible Card Game). Immediately the stores were filled with various types of card games like UNO Cards, Wrestling cards, Pokémon Cards, Phase 10 cards, Go Fish Cards, and so on.

The specialty of card games is that it can be played anywhere at any time with anyone, there is no specific age limit. Strategy is the key skill for success in card games and the winners are considered to be the smartest. For games like Poker and Blackjack, players use their memory power to count the cards and analyze their movements during the game.

In the 90’s, card games lost their charm due to modern digital games and were pushed towards older audience who were not familiar with the technology.

Later when smartphones were introduced in the 21st century, they took over the gaming market in a flash. Players were able to enjoy games anywhere without the requirement of any other gaming device. This specialty brought a lot of casual audience into the gaming world. Everyone owning a smartphone started playing games and their focus was mainly in puzzle games and strategy games.

With the popularity of smartphones, the studios started developing digital card games. Soon the mobile game market became a strong platform for card games. “Hearthstone” a successful mobile game simulated the classic experience of playing with cards with amazing special effects. Due to this game even hardcore gamers started giving attention to card games.

Later, the makers of “Clash of Clans” developed a card game called “Clash Royale”. This game was a dream-come-true for all the card gamers. Everyone who has played card games always wished that their card characters were alive and take part in live action. This long time wish was fulfilled by “Clash Royale” which in turn made amazing revenue for the development studio “Supercell”.

Moreover, every CCG player loves variety in terms of cards and “Clash Royale” offered an amazing card collection. With a huge variety, each character in the card was different and had unique ability. Also, the game was constantly updated with new cards/characters with even special abilities.

These two card games once again stirred the mobile game market and increased the scope for future developers to come up with new types of card games like “Bluff Master (420) – I Doubt it”.

Tag: Game Development company Mohali