Saturday, August 29, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
iPhone game development
I still havent developed anything for the iPhone yet. I am interested mostly in making a simple 2D game for it. The App Store has a ton of free games available to download. I usually check whats new at the end of every week to see if there are any new appealing games. The last one I downloaded was "Parachute Panic" and it was pretty cool. I really wish Apple wouldnt have such requirements in order to develop for the iPhone, but I plan on getting a Mac Mini sometime soon anyways.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Spritelib GPL
Ari Feldman made Spritelib which is a collection of sprite sheets people can use for games or whatever. I made a 1945 clone using one of his sprite sheets but I just noticed he has a tank sprite sheet as well. I want to make a mini multiplayer game using this sheet.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Dirty Coding Tricks
Brandon Sheffield has a nice article on stories of programmers and thier dirty coding tricks in the game industry. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4111/dirty_coding_tricks.php
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Pygame 1.9.1 release
A new version of Pygame has been released. Here are some details from the website.
What's new (heaps of things since 1.8.1): http://www.pygame.org/whatsnew.shtml
Summary of changes:
- many, many fixes and improvements. The largest amount of changes has gone into this release than any other pygame release.
- bug fixes for backwards compatibility issues introduced in pygame 1.8.x series. old games like solarwolf and libraries like PGU work again.
- experimental camera webcam module (still in development).
- experimental midi module based on portmidi and pyportmidi (99% complete).
- experimental gfxdraw module based on SDL_gfx (including AA circles, textured polygons and other goodness).
- python3, and python3.1 support mostly completed. Some modules still remain to be completed - but mostly it's working.
- nokia mobile phone s60 support.
- improved OSX support (dropped pyobjc dependency, improved installer, sysfont now works on OSX).
- pygame.examples + pygame.tests included with pygame. This makes testing easier, and also makes learning pygame more fun and easy.
- cleanup of examples, and addition of new examples.
- new tools to aid in development of pygame itself, better compilation documentation.
- py2app, and py2exe support improved.
What's new (heaps of things since 1.8.1): http://www.pygame.org/
Summary of changes:
- many, many fixes and improvements. The largest amount of changes has gone into this release than any other pygame release.
- bug fixes for backwards compatibility issues introduced in pygame 1.8.x series. old games like solarwolf and libraries like PGU work again.
- experimental camera webcam module (still in development).
- experimental midi module based on portmidi and pyportmidi (99% complete).
- experimental gfxdraw module based on SDL_gfx (including AA circles, textured polygons and other goodness).
- python3, and python3.1 support mostly completed. Some modules still remain to be completed - but mostly it's working.
- nokia mobile phone s60 support.
- improved OSX support (dropped pyobjc dependency, improved installer, sysfont now works on OSX).
- pygame.examples + pygame.tests included with pygame. This makes testing easier, and also makes learning pygame more fun and easy.
- cleanup of examples, and addition of new examples.
- new tools to aid in development of pygame itself, better compilation documentation.
- py2app, and py2exe support improved.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Retrogamer Magazine
Retrogamer is probably my favorite magazine. I picked up one of thier book editions not long ago and I read the entire thing within a a week. It was full of interviews, reviews and history pieces on old retro game systems. I love the details they mention as well as screen-shots and pictures. I plan on getting a subscription soon. Its based in Europe and in London I think, and it inspires me to start my own publication about retro gaming.
Writing Real-Time Games for Android
I found this talk while browing google talks on youtube and I found it interesting. I wanted to develop 2D games for the iPhone but now I am more interested in developing games for the Android platform. Here is the blurb about the video:
"Google I/O 2009 - Writing Real-Time Games for Android
Chris Pruett
Do vertex arrays keep you up at night? Do you have nightmares involving framerates and event loops? If so, this session might have the cure for your condition. Chris Pruett will discuss the game engine that he developed, using it as a case study to explain the common pitfalls and best practices for building graphics-intensive applications. You'll learn how to properly pipeline game and rendering code, manage drawing surfaces, and incorporate 2D and 3D graphics cleanly."
"Google I/O 2009 - Writing Real-Time Games for Android
Chris Pruett
Do vertex arrays keep you up at night? Do you have nightmares involving framerates and event loops? If so, this session might have the cure for your condition. Chris Pruett will discuss the game engine that he developed, using it as a case study to explain the common pitfalls and best practices for building graphics-intensive applications. You'll learn how to properly pipeline game and rendering code, manage drawing surfaces, and incorporate 2D and 3D graphics cleanly."
Ubuntu 9.04 review
I have been using Ubuntu 9.04 for a few months and I like it so far. Compared to previous versions I am having a much better time. It was painful before to install Ubuntu as far as having bugs and not even being able to complete the install. I did have an intel mobo with integrated parts which was an issue before. Anyways I am happy with the progress the Ubuntu team has been making. Maybe later I will check out Linux Mint. I am running everything via VirtualBox.
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