As part of Intel’s new AppUp Center launched at CES yesterday, Smiles is now available for select Windows PC’s of the XP and 7 varieties.
http://www.intel.com/consumer/products/appup.htm
The store is very new and beta. It’s designed specifically for Netbooks and the OEMs that make them, but is freely available to for everyone to test and purchase from. Me personally, I had to install .NET 3.5 and .NET 3.5 Service Pack 1 on my Aspire One to make it work. That’s a bit much for ordinary users, but conceptually, this store is more for the OEMs to pre-install on new Netbooks, MIDs and Slates than the users.
I’ve been reasonably active on their development forums, and it’s been nice to see Intel taking our suggestions and criticisms seriously. As a Netbook user myself, I’ve been enthusiastic about the idea since first hearing about it. I’m glad I was able to make the store launch.
A few pictures of the store shamelessly showing off my new favorite PC game.
I was casually browsing the store one day, and look what I found
Smiles, I will learn your secrets
Hey whats this button do… oh… okay, I guess I bought it
Ahh, the icon view
I’m hoping to have Linux (Moblin) version ready before the end of the month, and an update for the Windows version around the same time. The game board spinning effect is currently clipped using a rectangle (OpenGL scissor test, i.e. the only clipping older iPhones can do), so I’d like to update that to use a stencil buffer. Also one of my “make the deadline” cheats was to omit adding the game to the Windows Vista and 7 game launcher. There’s an xml document I have to fill out, but time was short, so I put that one off for initial submission.
I need to get my hands on a touch screen Windows 7 Netbook, MID, or Slate featuring an accelerometer. Touch should already work, but all I’ve got in my collection are ARM devices with touchscreens. The game supports orientation changing on the iPhone and Omnia II, but not Windows yet (since I can’t test it). There’s been lots of cool toys announced at CES, so unless a really nice OEM decides to send me one, I’ll have to wait for the royalties to add up first. *cough*, contact details at the Sykhronics website. 😉
So yeah, hey! Smiles is sorta available on PCs now! Cool!