Global Game Jam 2009 Impressions

It is now 12:00 and I officially quit the global game jam.
For those who don't know what I'm talking about an explanation follows.

The global game jam is a worldwide event, in which game developers meet in different parts of the world, for a 48 hours session of game development.
The objective is to make a working prototype/game in the said amount of time, utilizing no sleep what-so-ever.
This is the first year it is held worldwide and in turn the first time it's held in Israel.

I decided to join this event thinking, I can really make it and have a finished game by the end of the jam.
Here's the problem, I don't know Flash or any other rapid prototyping platform, which is a problem when your are trying to create a game in 48 hours.
The only thing remotely similar to that which I know is Silverlight.

So innocently I tried to make a game in Silverlight, I had a graphical designer on my "staff", but that didn't help since Silverlight sucks at creating games.
There were a few problems I encountered:

• Silverlight doesn't have any movie clip component, that means that key frame animation is out of the door.
  Although eventually I did find an open source code that gives that ability the other problem killed me.
• Silverlight doesn't have an absolute coordinates system, another important feature for a game, especially the one that I tried to make which was a platform game.
  a Gaame like that involves a lot of collision detection, which is hard to do when you have no normal way to know where your objects are.

After battling with the game for about 27 hours, I finally decided to quit (the graphical designer quit a long time before I did :) ).
I'm still gonna hang in there till the final stretch, completing some homework I have, just to see the end results of some other people.

What did I learn in this event:

• I have to learn Flash
• I hate Silverlight
• Creating a game in 48 hours is tough
• Not sleeping in that time is tougher

In coclusion, the event was really cool, about 50 people came, a really large group for such a small country.
But, it was really frustraing not to get any real game done.

Maybe next year...

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Now playing: Dream Theater - Erotomania [Instrumental]
via FoxyTunes

SVN hosting, why not?

So lately I've been working a bit with my OpenGL project, it's pretty simple, compared to other projects I worked on.
But since I'm working from my laptop and my main computer simultaneously, I find the task of synchronizing between the two PCs every time a bit too boring and time consuming (yeah, I'm lazy).

So I thought:
- "Why not have the project source controlled?"
but then I thought:
"It's such a small project, why should I use a great big hammer like source control on it?"
But I also thought:
- "What the hell, I'll look for a free one if it's out there I'll use it, plus it gives me time to stop working" (did I mention I was lazy?).

I had some experience with looking for a free source control site, and I knew it wasn't easy, but things change.
I also knew to search for SVN hosting, since it's the most popular form of source controlling these days, overthrowing CVS.
Right off the bat I found this link, that sums up the top 10 free SVN hosts, and the coolest one was xp-dev.com, 1.5GB storage, issue tracking, and project management all for free, plus everything's private (not that trivial). That's pretty cool for a free service to say the least.
Anyway, I'm just starting to use it but it's pretty easy to use, so giddy-up!

Since the project is written in Java with Eclipse, I had to integrate the SVN source control into Eclipse, quite an easy task right now, thanks open-source community!
Anyway, the plugin I use is Subclipse and it does the job for me.

I'll be happy to hear about other services/plugins you might have for me.

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Now playing: Silje Nergaard - Diner
via FoxyTunes

Happy New Year 2009!!!

Well, I did it, I made it through another year of blogging.
I looked back a little and found out I started this blog in 2006, wow, that seems like ages ago.
Although 2007 wasn't a very bolgy year (no posts at all), 2008 was year of the blog in my book, I've made the most posts in this passing year.

The Reviews
The reviews started pouring from my keyboard this passing year, already 2 reviews in a non-reviews blog, that's quite an achievement.
It's a real achievement for me, since I'm quite a lazy person. So to write a review, not even a lengthy one, is quite an achievement for me.

And what about my goal? becoming a game developer, remember?
Well, this year I destroyed some more internet-based game development projects, with my bare hands!
Just joking, I did participate in some new projects this year, although none of them really took.
The major break in this direction is me going to study game design, although it's not the "MSc abroad" I wanted to go for, but for now it's OK, I'll take it slow.
Now I'm working with other people on a game, in person I might add, and I'm writing a mini-game of my own.

Game of The Year
Well, a lot of games have been made this year, I only covered two of them in my blog, but I played a lot more, and choosing just one for this year is a bit hard.
I know GTA:IV just came out and I just started it, so I can't judge it.
So up until now I can say that the best game was Call of Duty: World at War, I won't elaborate, it was just beautifully executed, that's all.

Blog Music Artist of the Year
I don't know if you noticed or not, but I keep putting the FoxyTunes tag at the end of each blog post, that is to keep track of what I'm listening to, and to give some publicity, to FoxyTunes and the artists (like they need my publicity).
So the artist most listened to while posting is.... Dream Theater, congrats.

New Years Blog Resolution
Well, for the new year, I want to keep blogging at least at the currently achieved rate, which is not that high.
Plus, I'd like to get some audience, I keep thinking that there are people reading this blog, although I'm pretty sure there aren't any, well if you are out there, sound off damn it!

From me to you, have a great New Year!!!

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Now playing: Foo Fighters - On the Mend
via FoxyTunes