Personal Blog

Open Source is, in many ways, a wonderful thing.

But without a financial imperative or any kind of decent organisation you run the risk of slightly shabby work.

Android provides all the modern conventions with none of the foundation work. It’s like sticking a ABS and powersteering to a horse and cart. In many ways I feel that my old phone (Sony Ericsson P900) is a better phone. Scratch that: the P900 is definitely a better PHONE. However, the Android is a better: gadget, toy and accessory.

Call quality, interface and build quality are far worse on the Milestone (Droid) than on the predecessor. That said, the App store and internet functionality are vastly improved. I’m just shocked that after 7/8 years, things haven’t really progressed that far.

In and of itself this is bad, but it’s encouraging bad software on the App store. I was doing some research on a game I’m considering doing in the future, and decided to download a chunk of 3/4 star games. They all controlled like garbage, were unintuitive, with bad sound design.

Whilst Keepy Up is no gem (in fact, it’s garbage too…) but what it DOES do, I’d like to think it does well (bounce a football). We’re talking 3/4 star games here.

On the android, people expect things to be free. What you’re getting in exchange are these hobby-craft experiences, that with a bit more polish would be worth something.

If the Apple AppStore is going to M&S to buy a jumper, Android is getting a handmade one from your gran at Christmas, that doesn’t really fit.

…or atleast increases motivation.

Interface now works really well! Probably about 85% of the way there in terms of reliability. Really chuffed with it.

Now that I have a sturdy backend for it, introducing other gameplay elements shouldn’t take too long.

Then there’s just adding some decent assets (graphics, sounds, levels, music?? etc)

Well on the way to something release-able now! Whoooo!!

Ended up listening to the whole Itadaki Street Special soundtrack today whilst developing my (MiteWork‘s) new game.

This has left me with some serious pangings for the game. I’m hoping for a PS3 version at some point (preferably in English too, but we can’t have everything).

Epic 2/3 hour games of what is essentially fancy monopoly (with a stock system), what’s NOT to love!?

Been taking the opportunity to try some new things recently: be a bit more active, and just generally be a bit more adventurous. At least before uni comes and takes over again.

Here are a few things I’ve learnt:
Bend your knees when you try and stand on anything moving.
Zorbing can hurt if you don’t follow the instructions.
Surfing is hella fun.
The ocean is powerful and beautiful…and really salty.

I’m currently stuck iterating over the puzzle interface, making sure it feels right.

It’s a pain, as there are so many combinations of interactions that could break the system. I’ve had two release candidates so far: but both behaved a little odd under different circumstances.

This current version should allow a lot of fine grain control on the way everything should work.

It’s incredibly annoying as it’s really slowing things down, but it’s one of the three pillars of the game; so it’s really important to get it right.

Having now released Keepy Up, and armed with some knowledge of Android development: I have now begun working on my next game for the platform.

This one I intend to release as a paid app. Considering we’re talking about Android here, the issue of piracy is immediately brought up.

Some facts:

1) Software worth stealing will eventually be stolen.

2) DRM hurts your legitimate purchasers more than the thieves.

3) Just because someone has stolen your software, doesn’t mean they would have bought it, if they couldn’t steal it.

In the end, there is only so much you can do to prevent theft of your property, before you start having negative returns on the time spent.

I would hope that people would want to pay for something if it was worth paying for.

I’ve decided that it’s time I remove: So much pun, lolcats and failblog from my rss aggregator.

Those websites have brought me many a great joy, but I feel that I’m just wasting my time on them.

They’ll probably rear their head again when exams roll around again. But for now, they’re off limits.

Sadly, the version of Keepy Up I released onto the android market place had an Android OS version restriction on it higher than it needed to be.

I hope to have now rectified the problem, and improved the gameplay to boot!

(Get it…boot?)

Anyway, enjoy this minor update before the next big release!

(Also. 2707 as the high score!! Impressive!)

Keepy Up has been released!!

Ridiculously, people have already been playing it…and wracking up some seriously impressive scores!! 240!

Keepy Up was really just a way for me to get used to the Android system, and to get some resources. Now my next game will actually be a game…with levels…and…everything!

I’m glad to have it off my chest now. Would like to have had some advertising on it, but I just couldn’t get it working (not even the sample code worked??).

Moving on. Bigger and better things… WHOOOOO

PS: Check out the Keepy Up page here.

First proper entry now of what happened today.

I THINK I’ve managed to stop my computer from continuously crashing (we’re talking, BSOD here…no holds barred awesome crashing). It was Sony’s Media Go software, probably trying to update or something.

Sony your inability to make decent application software is astounding. Games check, Hardware check; but seriously..pretty much everything else is crap.

As for my stupid game. Restructured everything so there weren’t so many layers. This makes it a lot easier to have Application level commands flow down to the actual meat of the code.

Got a long way on the leader board system. I think I’ve come up with a decent way of stopping people from cheating. Hopefully get this sorted tomorrow.

Will probably have a start on designing the MiteWork.com site as well. Start of with an easy temp design, and fill it in.

Hope to get my Google Adsense application sent in soon too.

Can’t wait to have this bedding of functionality down so I can start just focussing on the GAMES, rather than all this extraneous gumf. I guess it makes for a better product in the end, and that’s something that we can all agree is a good thing.