Dassault Gets Game, On FacebookDassault Gets Game, On Facebook

Dassault Systemes  has been very clear about its vision to promote 3D as a more interactive means of communication, whether it’s making the pitch to the engineering community or to the masses. Now, via its 3DVIA division, Dassault has announced a new Player application that lets users publish 3-D games and applications to Facebook along with the first 3-D game title built with that platform.

The 3DVIA Player application for Facebook takes advantage of the free 3-D hosting service available to users of 3DVIA Studio, a 3-D development engine, and 3DVIA Scenes, an online, drag-and-drop 3-D creation tool for building interactive applications. Both tools deliver access to an online viewer page of 3DVIA.com that displays a “Play on Facebook” button. By clicking on the button, the application is automatically launched on Facebook to be shared through wall posts or dedicated URLs within the 3DVIA Player application. More advanced users can use the sample Web code and tutorial provided to embed applications directly in their own developer profiles.

The first social game application to leverage the 3DVIA Studio engine is “Billions, Save Them All,” now available on the Facebook platform. “Billions” is a 3-D action/puzzle game unlike the most of the games on Facebook, which are currently 2D.  Players construct 3-D cube bridges, assuming the role of a Glow Agent, whose charter is to save Mogaloos, a race of cuddly, cube-like creatures. Users test their puzzle-solving skills to reach checkpoints quickly, saving as many Mogaloos as possible while building bridges with as few cubes as possible.

3DVIA Studio brings the power of an AAA engine to an easy-to-use framework, providing rapid prototyping, development and publishing capabilities, as well as seamless integration with 3DVIA.com for hosting, distribution and access to a community of more than 190,000 users who can test and promote applications.

So if you’ve have a game idea sitting in your head or feel the need to experiment with gaming, now might be the time to nurture your inner developer and learn some 3-D development principles in the process.