I must really enjoy being vague. Three reasons for this. #1, I’m an ass. #2, The art is going through a major (final) overhaul at the moment. #3, I kinda don’t want my loyal viewer to pre-judge the game yet. So the obvious answer, yes, it’s an iPhone game. Analysis of the mosaic well tell you a few things about the game, but to my credit, it’s not a clone. It’s a few things, but not a clone....
August 1st, 2005. Three years ago this Friday. I was a burned out coder that left behind his jobs as Programmer, Senior and Lead Programmer, and eventually Technical Director at various game companies. A dozen handheld, mobile, and console titles to my name. A lifetime of game fascination and experience. Next, I was starting my own. Now, I’m not the only one of my former co-workers to do this, and certainly not the only one, but I didn’t want to do it the same as we’ve done before....
Avert your eyes. Nothing to see here. Move along. I’m going to stop pretending I know when I’m ready to show. I’ve done several prototypes lately, but I’d rather talk about them with some context of what they lead up to. So… maybe July. *sigh* Oh, and Ludum Dare 12 will be August 8th weekend. Be there. ...
I was really hoping to show what I’ve been up to these past couple months right about now, but it looks like that tease will have wait a few more weeks. Something that is ready to go, albeit beta like, is the new Ludum Dare website. http://www.ludumdare.com The WordPress blog we’ve used for the last 2 compos has been migrated to dedicated hosting, and the ludumdare.com domain now points to it directly....
I’ll get back to the series eventually. I was expecting to work and talk about new engine stuffs. Between some spontaneous stuff, taxes, and a week of illness, I’ve not touched anything “next” since early last month. In other news, Ludum Dare 11 is this Friday. I’ve been too busy to really get involved, but Phil’s got things under control. Notice went out to the mailing list a good month or so early, and I’ve been mirroring the posts on a very default looking gamecompo....
Ballistic Force wasn’t a long project, but development was dense. Early on, I attempted a poorly conceived idea of creating densely constructed particle landscape. I wanted a system sort of like molecular/planetary attraction to keep scenery together, and allow clumping like a cartoon snowball rolling down a hill. It might have worked on something highly parallel like a GPU or the PS3’s SPE’s, but my design really wasn’t well thought out....
This next engines name and story is a little complicated. Game development became a constant burn out for me. Since finishing Secret Agent Barbie (Gameboy Advance) and Polly Pocket (Gameboy Advance), it became clear to me the only thing keeping me going was my fascination with new platforms. Certainly not the subject matter. After we finished Polly Pocket, I asked for a month off to deal with my burn out. However, we quickly picked up a new game, Barbie: Gotta Have Games (Playstation)....
Over the years, I’ve given names to game engines I’ve worked on. Most of my professional experience has been working on platformers and mini-game collections. Mini-games rarely share much in common, so by engines I’m referring to platformers, or engines for games very much like platformers. I’d like to start talking about what I’ve been thinking about whilst designing my next engine. I need to set some context though, so I’ll be walking through some of more significant engines I’ve worked on....
February 29th! How could I not say something today. Just what to say is the question. Blogging in the past, I’ve noticed the tendency to want to turn the blog in to something. A community, articles and subjects, talk-back, and all that stuff. And that’s great and all, but it’s a lot of work for not much return. Traditionally to make ends meet this way, you plaster your blog with advertisements, or actively soliciting contract work....
Start the year right ‘eh? I think each year I’ve had a blog, I’ve told myself “Yes sir! This year we’re going to blog more often… and it’s going to be great!”. I’m not crazy enough to think that’s going to happen, but there’s always the intent. – – – – Some fun code I toyed with over the past couple weeks, completely unrelated to each other. The VST SDK (audio instrument/effects) and the WinTab SDK (tablets)....