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Chillingo's social platform Crystal SDK revealed in-game

Includes skinning system to blend in with each game

Chillingo's social platform Crystal SDK revealed in-game
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Although iPhone games aren't required to feature online play, it's becoming increasingly inexcusable for them not to contain some kind of connected social and achievement system. Especially when implementation of such systems is free.

Chillingo is about to throw its hat into the social gaming ring with its new Crystal SDK, which allows gamers to store achievements, create a profile, add friends, and send out challenges in multiple games, along with direct connectivity to networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Chillingo is giving out Crystal to developers for free (they don't even need to be Chillingo games to use it) and the reskinnable user interface will make it very appealing, since the social system will blend neatly into any game.

The UK-based publisher is preparing to submit its first range of Crystal-equipped games to Apple, which will hopefully be with us within the next couple of weeks. These include Guerilla Bob, Mission: Deep Sea and Zombie Dash, and you can see in the screenshots above how Crystal will be uniquely integrated into each game.

There'll also be a standalone Crystal application released (much like the one OpenFeint just put out) giving you access to your achievements, friends, challenges and profiles across all your Crystal-equipped games.

We'll let you know as soon as these games go social so you can sign up and let the world know about your gaming prowess.

Developers can take a closer look at Crystal here on the official page.

Spanner Spencer
Spanner Spencer
Yes. Spanner's his real name, and he's already heard that joke you just thought of. Although Spanner's not very good, he's quite fast, and that seems to be enough to keep him in a regular supply of free games and away from the depressing world of real work.