GDC08: Insomniac opens up to dev community with Nocturnal

At a GDC press conference, Insomniac Games (responsible for Ratchet & Clank and Resistance: Fall of Man on PS3) has announced a ground breaking initiative to open up their technologies for the development community at large. Through the "Nocturnal Initiative," Insomniac Games is attempting to break the common development practice of keeping technological advances a close-guarded secret. As they noted, "developers spend resources solving problems that have already been solved."

A public site (nocturnal.insomniacgames.com) will give developers access to various parts of Insomniac source code. Libraries have already been made available, with more on the way. Through a Wiki-style interface, Insomniac hopes that they will allow everyone to "make better games."

The tools available will obviously work on PS3, but because it is a PC-based environment, should work on Xbox 360 as well. Joystiq will be chatting with Insomniac shortly. Stay tuned.

[Update: The press release just went out over the wires, if you're into that sorta thing.]