Warning - This is a highly technical interview. In fact, we’re not even sure we understand all of it, but it should prove useful to the more tech savvy of you in the audience.

[GDN] Sibblingz - A strange name for such a service, where did that come from?

 It’s a long story...  Don’t be surprised if it changes sometime soon [Smiles].

[GDN] What’s the underlying technology that’s allowing you to cross-platforms? It’s obviously utilizing the Facebook API, but is it a full-fledged iPhone App or just a browser?

 The technology is much more than just a web browser.  The Sibblingz Framework has 2 parts, the Server, and the Client.  The  client communicates with the Server via HTTP requests and the server
 responds with JSON.

This is great, because it means the server can be completely agnostic  about what kind of device it is communicating with.  The response is  the same for iPhone, Facebook or the Web.  Because of this we can  continue to add channels (like Android) without needing to change the server.

On the client side, Sibblingz provides the developer with an extensive set of libraries that they can merge directly into their application.

So if you are building a Facebook game, it means we give you a bunch of libraries written in ActionScript 3, that you merge directly into your Flash application.  You can use these libraries to make API calls back to the Server.  When the Server responds, the libraries will  receive that response, parse it, and take the necessary action.  After this, they can call an optional handler function that you have written (if you passed one in).
 

[GDN] What about tying it into iPhone Apps?

If you are building an iPhone application, we give you libraries in Objective C.  These libraries contain all the same functionality as the ActionScript Libraries.  Any API call that the Framework supports
 in ActionScript is supported in Objective C.  Again, they will receive the Server response, parse it and take the required action.  After that they will call your optional handler function.

 The method and class names are all the same across the languages.  So once you get used to using the libraries on one platform, it’s easy to use them on another.  They will work the same way that you are used to.

 I mentioned just a minute ago that when the Server responds, our libraries will "take the necessary action".  Let me elaborate on that a little bit.

 Our Client architecture is of the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design. When the Server responds to a request, it frequently sends back models (encoded in JSON).  These models describe persistent data that is stored on the Server.  When the Client receives new models, it instantiates Models (of the same class name) on the Client.  When the Server sends back models that the Client has already received, it simply updates the model it has already created.

 This makes using data-binding really easy.

 Let me give an example.  Imagine I make a game where my avatar has a number of "coins" which is an integer value.  If the Client makes an API call to the server that changes the number of "coins" my avatar has, the Server just sends back my avatar with the updated value of  "coins".  Without needing to write any game specific code, the Client will find the model of my avatar on the client, and update it to reflect the number of coins stored on the Server.  So if I have a label in my user interface that displays the number of "coins" my avatar owns, all I need to do is bind the value it displays to the
 "coins" property of my Avatar.

 That’s not all it will do though.  It also takes care of associations for you.

 To provide another example.  Let’s say in this game my avatar has a list of "possessions".  Imagine my client calls the API method that buys things from a Store.  The Server need only send back my new
 "possession".  When the Client receives this model, it will automatically find the avatar to which it belongs, and add this new "possession" to the list owned by the avatar.

 So if I display a list of "possessions" in my application, I just need to bind to the "possessions" property of the avatar.  This list will grow and shrink as I take various actions.

 Needless to say, building this was not an easy task [Smiles].  It took a long time to develop and mature.  But now that I’ve been building rich social games on this technology for over a year, I can’t imagine using anything else.  It just saves so much needless busy work and makes rapid iteration possible.

[GDN] What kind of social functions are being built into the system? Is there multplayer and leaderboards or is that supplied by OpenFeint? Or does it simply tie the game’s offerings together on the multiple platforms and that is all left up to the developer?

 Leader-boards and Achievements are included in the list of API calls available to game developers.

 You can also load your friends information.  From their Facebook information, to their avatar, to their items and game specific properties.

 As part of our Customizable Room plugin we offer the ability to visit friends’ rooms and interact with them asynchronously. (Friends are controlled by an AI).

 We also have a Virality Plugin that makes building social features easy.  If you wanted to hire friends to work at your restaurant, or reserve spots in town for neighbors, select party members to go questing with, the Virality Plugin would be the method of choice.  Anything that involves connections to your friends that store additional data (like what job they do at your restaurant, or how tired they are,
 etc.) is easily and quickly achieved.  OpenFeint integration is in the works, but not supported right now.

[GDN] What games will be best suited to leverage Sibblingz offerings?

 Rich social games, that monetize with virtual goods.

 Also, games with a clear cross-platform vision that makes the most of  the unique properties of each channel.

 I recommend a game-design that emphasizes social interaction on Facebook, portability and location on the iPhone, and flash mini-games on the Web.

[GDN] Whew we made it! The Sibblingz platform certainly looks poised to change how we game and interact in those games on a wide range of platforms. They tell us that we’ll be able to pick up a game on our iPhone and when we get to a computer switch over to that and continue playing. That is certainly something I’ve been looking forward to. Cross-platform gaming and gaming with your friends in a platform agnostic way are fantastic. There should be no reason that I can’t play from my Xbox with friends on their PS3’s just because the hardware is made by different companies.  While that level of cross-platform cooperation might be a long ways off, this will at least work to tie together some of our other gaming platforms in the near future.

GDN would like to thank Ben Savage for his time and Peter Brooks for doing all the logistics on getting us together. We look forward to games coming out that incorporate the Sibblingz framework and allow us to game on multiple platforms using the same character, name and stats.

To see a demo Play Little Monsters on the Web

or on Facebook: http://apps.facebook.com/little-monsters/