PTK Toolkit

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PTK is a 2D rendering engine and SDK developed by Phelios, Inc., that helps computer programmers create downloadable games in C++ that are easily portable to Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It is currently used by more than 60 downloadable games^{[citation needed]}, and is especially popular in the casual games industry.^{[citation needed]} It is especially known for powering breakaway casual hits from funpause and Big Fish Games, such as Atlantis, Atlantis Sky Patrol, Mystic Inn and Fairies.

[edit] Design philosophy

PTK was designed for programmers to enjoy basic-like ease of programming using the power of C++. It completely abstracts rendering, input and I/O and removes the need for directly setting up complex renderers such as DirectX or OpenGL. Programmers are able to get something moving on the screen within minutes, which is very motivating and helps focus on the game and what the player will see, rather than getting lost in the technical platform.

PTK uses a "2D in 3D" paradigm. While it is purely a 2D engine (with some very simple 3D features that are largely ignored by game developers), it uses 3D acceleration for rendering, enabling very good, bicubic filtered rendering of scaled, rotated sprites and per-pixel alpha blending at no expense of computing time. A game such as Mystic Inn make extensive use of PTK's rendering capabilities.