Qube launches Ignition fast-track process

Qube Software has announced the launch of its Q Ignition programme, a four-week orientation process in which members of the Q middleware team will work with developers to get them up-and-running with the software.

The Q platform, which launched at GDC last year, is designed to be as flexible as possible, and offers more options than a traditional engine or middleware solution - but that can sometimes make it more difficult for people to get to grips with initially.

"It's actually because Q is a bit different to everything else that's out there," Q Ignition programme manager Jamie Fowlston told GamesIndustry.biz when asked why the orientation process was needed.

"Traditional game engines provide you with a few places that you can get into, and tweak what it does, or replace certain pieces of design content, or whatever. But that's it - and if you want to do heavier customisation you need to start re-engineering the source code. Or then you've got something else that provides you with a library of functions, and then you build everything above and around that.

"But Q is in-between those two in terms of how it works - because it's got all of that high level structure of a game engine, but because it's all component-based, you can tweak it everywhere.

"We just find that people aren't used to approaching a piece of software that works in that way, so we're helping people focus on what they want to achieve, what components they want to use that are already there, and what they want to do that's custom for the game they're making."

The plan for the process is that clients will have a working game framework within the four-week period, which will then help them to significantly speed up the game creation process.

"It used to be that if you wanted your own engine it required a huge investment," said Qube founder Servan Keondjian. "Q now offers a far faster, far more cost-effective route to the same goal.

"This is a huge step forward in how middleware and dev teams work together - not only are we fast-tracking the development process, but we're also helping developers create specialised tools and technology that they can deploy on any platform, and reuse and further customise in-house as they need."

The London-based company is expecting to see the first titles using the Q platform to launch in the first quarter of this year.