Flash

My next project looks to be using Flash and Action Script, so I've been learning that all this week.
Last year I had to teach a bit of this to my 2nd year students.
I had no books, or time for it, so I dished out a couple of tutorials and let them get on with it. It wasn't 100% necessary (i.e. the subject wasn't Flash :) ), it was animation, and it seemed like a good tool.
I never thought I'd be using it again. Figured it was an artists tool.

But, from what I've seen it's actually quite nice. Very easy to program with - the API is very complete, and rather than crash, your program will just run - abnormally.
It's difficult to debug though and sits VERY high level, taking me right away again from the deeper core programming. But it should make for quick development, and quick results.

As it's something I've never done, I'm happy to learn it and think it'll be fun.

Edge Magazine

Remember a couple of months ago I told you about that bloke from Edge magazine came visiting to do an article on PEI, and the games industry here?
Well the article is out in this months Edge magazine. I'm sorry I've been late with this information, however you may still be able to grab a copy in the UK news agents (I think it's April, look for the page shown below if you want to purchase it), but weather you can or cannot purchase it if you want to read the article for free, in which 'Beep' - my boss, and several other major players from the other studios in Charlottetown explain why they chose PEI as a location for basing so many games companies you can read the full article by clicking on the picture below.

This will take you to a website where you'll see links for each page of the 18 page article that you can read through :)
Happy reading, it's quite interesting I thought...

Walkabout - Part 2

Not as hot as yesterday, but we went for a walk around Victoria Park today.

We followed the 'board walk' round the coast line. This is sure to be really nice in the summer, there are greens to the right of the picture above where you can imagine lots of kids playing and people chilling in the sun. It's nice because it's by the sea - but there is no beach, instead you'd be in the park.
Hayden thought that there were sharks in the water below the rocks.

We found the old Prince Edward Battery. A whole row of cannons that overlook the bay - no doubt to blast enemy pirates!

Another Moving Day...

So, JR and Liz have had to find a new place to live and he sent an e-mail out asking for moving help. Been here 2 months and already 2 moves!

This is all good of course because next year when we move, I'll have plenty of people to call upon, as they'll owe me :) Muhahahaha...

Kath went to some Yoga lesson thing today so I had to keep hold of Hayden, it wasn't a problem, he helped out....

My back was hurting, and so when Bob turned up, the two of them took this big one down the stairs...

JR put on 'plenty' of beer and after the main haul was done, gave us all BBQ. He bumped into Kath crossing Sydney St. and drove her back where we met up for grub.

Having lived here for a year, JR, nor none of his buddies, had ever before noticed that the shadows cast from his deck caused 'pixelated' versions of one-self. We all looked like sprites from a computer game...

Geek... for you Jo!! ;)

Full of beer and jolly as a lamb, Hayden was uncontrollable and thought it was hilarious to ram me from behind and send me flying into the dirt...

I tried to escape at one point, but a small girl encouraged his drunken behaviour...

Dream Chronicles

My first game is out.
Dream Chronicles is out on the iPhone/iTouch, available on iTunes App Store for £2.99.

Yay!

It was a port from a PC, as I've mentioned, but we changed it to have zooming in features and touch, plus some heavy changes to the diary and some levels.
Not bad for 8 weeks work, even though the game existed, it was still a tough time frame to complete by.

For those of you who haven't got an iPhone/iPod touch, check out the PC version here.

It's a hidden object game, quite nice. It works well on the iPhone for a lazy game, the sort of thing that draws you in and keeps you exploring.

Not Gears Of War 3 or Quake 2010, but these are the sort of games we do at Other Ocean, and I'm happy to continue doing it. It's still a very tough challenge, technically, but more so from a playability standpoint - it's more difficult than you'd think porting something that people play with a mouse to a touch screen that's only 480x320 pixels.

I mean one of the features is that when you hover your mouse over something, it tells you what that object is... a tool tip, just like you're used to seeing within Windows. But how do you do that on a touch screen - the player would have to drag their finger about on the screen. Their massive fat finger then covers the tool tip! To top that off, when they release the screen, it registers as a click!

There are gems in the game to discover, and are very small, even on the PC screen. Even if you can see them on the tiny iPhone screen you fat finger tends to press all other object nearby and you can't click on the thing you want - so we expanded all the touchable regions of objects (this was not in the original code of the game) and added the ability to zoom in by pinching the screen a pan about by flicking, just like other iPhone apps. None of this was coded so we had to implement all of this, whilst keeping it compatible with the existing stuff.

As I said in an earlier post, when you add features like this, it can often break the game in other areas :(

So there are lots of challenges to overcome, from design to implementation and a short time frame to keep us very busy.

We went out to celebrate my first game at a very nice restaurant, 'Sims', that everyone has been telling me is very expensive - for what we got, the quality etc. by British standards it wasn't overly expensive at all and was well worth it, but it will be a place we visit only on special occasions.

We were able to take Hayden in, and Kath really needed to get out - she enjoyed it :)

C++

It isn't as easy as I remember...

Got to do a whole bunch of swatting. I have not done C++ for a while now, but the really difficult thing is that we are all spoilt!.
Java, C#, even C and C++ has so many helpers, things like containers etc. that you forget about the underlying stuff.

I mean I read Bjarne Soustroup's (The creator of C++) book today and even he tells us to use the STL libraries as they are fast and reliable.

I remember at my phone interview, Gordon asked me what I thought of the STL, and what are the advantages, disadvantages. I thought it was a trick question.. I mean, the STL is great - the vector class RoXXors. Why would he ask for disadvantages?
Well it seems I answered correctly, in that it's all good, and very fast - however the main problem is that not all compilers or platforms support it. So it makes it difficult for any sort of cross platform portability. It also may not offer the complexity or flexability that you want.
Of course, guess what? - in the games industry most games you write, you want to be cross platform... so... guess what? Stay away from the STL where possible.

This means that all those lovely containers and libraries that make life and programming easy are out the window and all those issues with pointers and memory management and knowing the underlying complexity returns. 10 years after I've forgotten it!

So, back to basics and get my old C++ book out and write some core classes and fundamental stuff. LOL, I struggled with an Array today... how sad! :)

Star Wars

A lazy day today.
Kath blitzed the house clean after the party on Friday night and I found my rather expensive Technic Lego X-Wing which had been transported over.
Spent the day with Hayden building it back up.
Considering it's age 14+, he didn't do too bad...

And this my friends is the collectible of collectibles. Just released, Kath ordered it a few months back from www.starwars.com, only available in Canada and US and released just this month - would anybody like any... toast?

And yes -that IS Vader's face scorched into the bread :)