construct2_events

Construct 2: Kicking the Tires

2
2 weeks ago
by jjohnson in

I love playing with GameDev tools such as engines, frameworks/libraries, game creators and new languages. I’ve been a big advocate, fan and user of FlatRedBall for some time as you may know.

Today, while reading up on something totally unrelated, I saw a reference to an HTML5 game maker called Creator2. Curious, I read a little about it and decided to play with it this weekend.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how awesome this tool actually is. While I don’t think it’s suitable for a super-feature-rich and complex game, it is a More >

nora_and_i

The R word

0
3 weeks ago
by jjohnson in

I avoid using strong language. I also try to avoid words that cause offense or harm to specific groups in a professional or public forum. That being said, I generally find jokes that poke fun at racial, religious and other stereotypes funny when they are joking and in the right company or context.

As you may know, my beautiful, wonderful, four-year-old daughter Nora has a horrible neuro disorder called Rett Syndrome. Dealing with Rett Syndrome is a major part of the lives of my family, More >

Digital Economics 101

2
3 weeks ago
by jjohnson in

As with all of my thoughts, these are hardly original. I have read a bunch of good stuff about economics and the evolution of digital content across the web that got me thinking about these things. But I like to think that I have a knack for reading and understanding the issues, swirling all of the ideas around, and spitting out a somewhat cohesive explanation of what it all means without using big fancy words. Incidentally, this has ties to my last post about how “free” services aren’t free More >

red-pill-blue-pill

The Real Matrix

0
3 weeks ago
by jjohnson in

I read a quote recently (I would credit it if I could remember the source) that was something like: “If a service is free than YOU are the product.”

Have you seen the movie Wall-E? In many ways, it’s almost the same story as the Matrix.

In the Matrix, humans live in a virtual world where they have the illusion of life and free will. One day Morpheus reveals to Neo that it’s all a lie. The Earth is a wasteland and robots provide humans with a fake reality to maintain a status quo and keep the humans generating More >

scout_green

Load Remote Content in FlatRedBall

1
1 month ago
by jjohnson in

Long ago I wrote a small and crappy top-scroller in AS3 that loaded all of its content from XML. The idea was that somebody could create their own graphics and XML to basically define all game assets and levels. It was rudimentary but it worked and I still like the idea of a game that loads all of its resources from remote sources.

So, how would you go about this in my favorite game engine?

I’m glad you asked. Here’s a quick and dirty description of how you can load sprites from More >

Understanding Threading and Why Android Feels Sluggish

0
1 month ago
by jjohnson in

User Interface Performance: Why it Matters

Fact: All but the most hardcore Android fanboys agree that even the best devices feel laggy compared to the snappy iOS UI.

This is not speculation or a debatable point. If you believe that the Android User Interface (UI) is as consistently responsive as the iOS UI, you are simply incorrect. It’s SCIENCE! There are specific reasons for this which I’m about to discuss but first let’s talk about why a laggy UI is a problem.

UI stands for User Interface but it may as well stand for User Experience. For most users, if More >

Best Practice: Passing Types to Methods

1
1 month ago
by jjohnson in

Here’s a question that maybe a C# Guru can weigh in on…

I abstracted some Activity-launching code that I use everywhere into a method on the base Activity that all of my Activities inherit from:

protected void LaunchActivity<T>(string url) {
    Intent activity = new Intent(this, typeof(T));
    if (url != null) {
        activity.PutExtra("ApiUrl", url);
    }
    StartActivity(activity);
}

// makes starting activities really easy:
LaunchActivity<MyActivityType>("http://myApiUrl.com");

 

I think this method could also be defined like this:

protected void LaunchActivity(Type t, string url) {
    Intent activity = new Intent(this, t);
    if (url != null) {
        activity.PutExtra("ApiUrl", url);
    }
    StartActivity(activity);
}

//

More >

win-phone

What’s Up at MS?

3
1 month ago
by jjohnson in

I’m a cross-platform developer, not a “Microsoft-dedicated” developer. I work in a variety of languages on a variety of platforms as you will know if you have read any of my other posts. I develop video games when I’m motivated and don’t have freelance web work. This year I worked on an Xbox game and released a WP7 game. As I look to next year and decide what types of projects I get into beyond freelance, I’m evaluating what’s out there.

Lately there has been a lot of [gamedev-specific] news about Windows 8, the roadmap of XNA, what’s up with More >

clothing

Sorting Standard Sizes

0
2 months ago
by jjohnson in

Last week I was finishing up some stuff to do with size/color selection on the product detail “page” of the Android app I’m building. This turned out to be pretty complicated. The overall solution is bigger than the scope of this post but basically, the detail page should display all of the colors and sizes available for the product. If the customer selects a color it should filter the other lists, somehow marking the sizes that are sold out for that color. It should do the same thing for sizes, filtering colors if the customer selects a size. It More >

occupy-camp

Why the Occupy Camp is Misguided

0
2 months ago
by jjohnson in

Every time I see press about the Occupy folks (which is constantly) I groan inwardly. There are so many problems with the world, our government, our cultural et al right now that it is painful to watch such a large movement about something that makes so little sense. I also am frustrated at the popularity of socialism in a country that, not too long ago, fought hot and cold wars to stop it.

First let me say that I have one of “those friends” on Facebook that is always posting poorly conceived political platitudes that directly insult the opposing More >

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