Cargo-bot, the first app created entirely on the iPad, hits the App Store
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mPWWDOjtO9s#!]
Using a development environment/ app called Codea (formerly Codify), Two Lives Left created a free iPad game called Cargo-Bot. It is now available in the App Store.
Cargo-Bot is a puzzle game where you teach a robot how to move crates. Sounds simple, right? It features 36 fiendishly clever puzzles, haunting music and stunning retina graphics. You can even record your solutions and share them on YouTube to show your friends.
The app itself looks good but where it gets interesting is that it was made entirely on an iPad using Codea ($9.99 App Store). Codea uses the Lua programming language and has called the GarageBand of iPad coding for its visual ease of use. Until now, apps built using Codea were only able to play inside the app. Using a preview of a new Open Source exporter tool, Codea exported the Cargo-bot app and submitted it to the App Store where it was recently approved.
It’s the first game of its kind, prototyped, programmed and polished on iPad. Cargo-Bot was created by Rui Viana, a Codea user who developed his initial prototype and shared it with the Codea community. Two Lives Left reached out to Rui in order to turn his prototype into a published App Store game. They also enlisted the aid of Fred Bogg, a composer who developed a music library for Codea, to create the music for Cargo-Bot.
Coinciding with the release of Cargo-Bot, Two Lives Left is releasing the Codea Runtime Library source code under the Apache License Version 2.0. Registered Apple iOS Developers will be able to export their Codea projects into the Codea Runtime Library in order to release them as standalone apps, just like Cargo-Bot.
How long until iPad game creation is mainstream? Xcode for iPad certainly couldn’t be too far off?
Press release follows:
