Guess who's back, back again?
Submitted by Earok on Sun, 08/01/2010 - 18:13Hi all,
It's August so I'm back from my self imposed exile from the world of social media.
So what's been happening this month? In no particular order:
- Congratulations to Joshua of Tiny Frog Software, for joining Gameloft's Auckland team. I don't know what this means for the future of his indie game brand nonetheless but I wish him all the best.
- Justin has begun working on a PC Zelda clone called Dungeon DEMOlisher. I'm real happy for him and I am going to let him finish, but Heart of Ice is one of the greatest PC Zelda clones of all time. Actually that may be true as there aren't many. In any case, I wish Justin all the best for his project.
- Wing Commander 1 + Expansions and Hydorah have been my favorite games of the month.
- Doujin Overload was on. It's basically a grass-roots Auckland manga art expo. I spent a crap load of money on quality A3 prints from there, also Kirsty bought me a collection of 33 mostly Klik N Play games on CD.
- Inception was released, probably the movie with the most game-like mechanics ever. See it ASAP if you haven't already. Will post my thoughts on that later.
- I put up a new theme on Playmaker, again it's only supposed to be temporary until we get a professional themer on board.
I didn't really get as far with my projects as I had hoped, however I have made some progress and I do have clearer direction about what I want to do.
I am a beta tester for BlitzMax2 (Working title) which is designed to translate Basic code to various different languages and platforms. I'm probably not allowed to say much about it but Mark Sibly's blog is the best place for official info. My test BlitzMax2 project is a work-in-progress port of WitchBlaster, see it in HTML5 or Flash (both compiled from the same source).
Also, with XNA 4.0 I am developing a framework based around the Blitz3D instruction set. I don't really know where it's headed, maybe I'll just use it for my own projects, maybe it will be open sourced, perhaps I'll even try to port it to BlitzMax2 so that it has an (XNA only) 3D engine. In any case, the project has been a really good learning experience so far and I have gained a new found appreciation for the geniuses who make 3D and Physics engines!