Taking a break

The title says it all: I will be taking a break from programming and blogging. At this moment I am finishing reading/viewing/playing a backlog of books, movies and games and that is taking up all my free time.
I will be back; I have three game ideas/designs I am working on when I feel like it but game development is on the back burner.
Most of my posts will be on the more interactive and quick media: Twitter and Google+

Updating…

It been a while since my last post, so here is one, finally. These days I am enjoying my vacation, but I have also been posting on Google+, and not here. Sorry. Reading has also been one of my pastimes. I read the Dark Tower series and am now working through the latest book in the Game of Thrones series. Great books, and I still love my Kindle.

Some time ago I bought Monkey and put it away for a while while finishing Trapped. With that game out of the way and after taking some time off programming it is now time to go and make something with it.

But first I need to get to know the Monkey language a bit more and try to make my own modules to make programming  life easier. Also, as my main platform to make stuff for will be Android, I took some time to get to know that OS from a development point of view. Also, as Monkey takes a lot from the Java language I decided to get to know that language better as well. So far, so good. Delving into Java has made Monkey more clear to me as well and the Google Android tutorials are really good at explaining how a typical Android project is constructed.

So I am slowly creating some small things with Monkey. I intend to make some kind of game framework, based on the structure of the RRFW framework, but stripped down to the bare essentials and optimized for use on mobile.

The first thing I am attempting to create though is a decent unit testing framework, so I can create my stuff with TDD in mind. The lack of reflection (run-time inspection of objects) is making it a little cumbersome to set up but it is working. I am happy.

I created a Google Code page for my Monkey modules. You can find it over here. So far only the unit testing module code is uploaded.

Other than the joy of discovery I have no set plans for my Monkey development.  I have a game idea or two I want to try out but that will have to wait until I have some decent game structure running.

Google+

I’ll be honest: I’m not the most social guy out there, nor do I claim to be an expert on the subject of social networks. I played with Facebook for two days and then tried to delete my account.  I couldn’t. That left a sour taste in my mouth.  I never tried Hyves (the social network in the Netherlands, even my girlfriends is on that) or MySpace. I do use Linkedin though, but strictly for professional use.

I’ve been accused of being a Google fan, and it’s true: I think overall Google makes great software, and I love the way it all interacts from mobile to desktop using the cloud concept; and one that actually works because I never think about it: it just works.  These past few days I’ve been trying out Google Plus. So, is it any good?  In my opinion it is.

Am I afraid that Google will know all about me? Sure, they will know all I put up and agree with to be public. I use the following assumption: expect everything that you upload or share on the internet to be out there in one way or another. Do NOT put online what you do not want shared, and this goes for everything from public forums to social networks. So I won’t.

Here are some of the key points that I think matter:

• Google Exit: You can leave Google+ and take all your stuff with you;
• Security: 100% control over who I share information and posts with. Circles are great;
• Export: You can export all your stuff at any time and make backups. Great!

The push to integrate all Google services and platforms sounds great to me, and I cannot wait until the floodgates open with more services and more users.

Here’s my profile page: gplus.to/wiebow

Funny little image

I found this really old little image on my homepage:

Inspiring. Wouldn’t that be a fun game to make? Hmm.

Anyway, I will need a versatile 2d map editor. And maybe integration with some kind of scripting language, like LUA. Let’s go research and get back on this later.

Trapped 1.1

I just released Trapped 1.1… It now has keyboard/mouse controls, and some minor tweaks to the in-game texts and readme file. I hope this clears up some of the confusion some players experienced.

You can get from this location.