Fishlabs on bringing Galaxy of Fire 2 to iPhone, iPad and smartphones

It's seems to the week for news about epic space games coming to iPhone and iPod touch.

Freeverse has finally released the iPhone version of Warpgate, while Fishlabs announced its brilliant Java game Galaxy on Fire 2 is coming to iPhone.

Indeed, it's also coming to iPad, as well as Nokia Maemo and Symbian devices, plus Sony Ericsson phones, although their OS hasn't been defined. Symbian or Android we guess.

Development started back in October, and the company has revealed some of its thinking in the first instalment of its development diary.

Lead programmer Hans-Christian Kühl says the new version is much more than a port however.

"The change from Java to C is the biggest step for me," he explains.

"Unfortunately, there's no tool where you can push a button and everything is reformatted. Whole concepts need to be redesigned. And with a huge game like GoF 2, that already wasn't easy with the Java version."

Leaving legacy behind

Other changes include working with graphics technology such as the texture shaders supported by OpenGL ES 2.0, while the switch from integer-based code to floating point provides much more flexibility.

"Previously, a ship had to be 1000 length units in size so that it could move smoothly. Now, a ship can theoretically consist of just one unit," Kühl says.

"Visually, the changes in the game will be apparent in that things no longer shake during camera rotation and navigation."

Find out more in the blog post: Galaxy on Fire 2 comes to iPhone, iPad and Nokia - Developer Diary Part 1.