At BUILD 2014 today, Steve Guggenheimer, Corporate Vice President of Developer Platform & Evangelism showed off a new Universal app coming to Windows Phone 8.1, Windows 8.1 Update 1 and also Xbox One.

Steve demonstrated Doodle God 2, the successor to JoyBits’ hit game Doodle God, which will start as an exclusive to Microsoft.

JoyBits built the new game in native C++ and Direct X code and used 100% of the same code across Windows 8.1 Update, Windows Phone 8.1 and Xbox One, enabling players to pause the game on one device and resume where they left off on another (powered by Windows Azure).

Universal apps are felt to be key to the success of Windows Phone and Windows 8 app stores, as it multiplies the size of the market for developers while creating extra value for buyers, all while reducing the cost of the development, which will hopefully be the magic formula which will grow the Windows stores much faster than previously.