24/06/2009 by Taz.

Hello,

It’s been a while, but I’d like to report that my first game is on the App Store.  It’s called Orbz and I was very excited to actual complete it and to see it released to the store.

However, currently I’ve only sold 6 copies, so haven’t even been paid by Apple as I believe you need to make at least $250 before they pay up, cheek…. ;o)

My next task was to update my main web site which I completed yesterday.

Part of the site update is to also move this blog to my main site, which also now includes an RSS feed.  So in future, to see what I’ve been doing, please visit there and select the Blog link in the menu.  The URL you’ll need is;

http://www.silverbacktechsol.co.uk/

My next job is to do a bit more marketing of Orbz and to also start on my next App, this time it won’t be a game but a small utility…. I won’t give too much away right now.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this blog and hopefully you will join me at it’s new location on my main website.

Regards,

Taz

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11/02/2009 by Taz.

Well I’ve been doing quite a lot of coding lately in my spare time. This means that my first iPhone game is coming on very nicely indeed. The whole process has been helped greatly by the purchase of a book called Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK (Amazon UK Link) by Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche.

These two guys are seasoned Mac Developers and the style of the book shows this, it’s very clear and easy to follow, I would strongly recommend it to anyone looking at developing any iPhone application.  You can also find the forums for the book here http://iphonedevbook.com/forum/, which contains some very useful information and also links to Dave and Jeff’s blogs and twitter details.

To this end, I only have one more game mode to code up, the most difficult one ;0), then it’s down to adding polish and testing. Thankfully most of the testing for this game can be done from the iPhone Simulator, but I will also be purchasing an iPhone in the next month to allow me to perform full testing.  I can then test on the phone with the full functionality to help iron out as many bugs as possible before I release it to Apple for approval.

My experiences so far have been quite pleasing, Objective-C seems very well thought out once you’ve got your head around the language stylings. I’m sure I still have a lot of things to learn about XCode and it’s underlying tools, plus all the Mac OS X frameworks available., but I’m taking 1 step at a time and only looking up new things when I need them.

My main goal for now is to complete the game by the end of March and release it to Apple for approval.  I’ve currently got no Idea how long that will take but I’m hoping it’ll be on the Apple Store by the end of April.

It’s then a matter of watching to see how well it sales!!

For now I’m just enjoying the ride and this time fully intend to complete my first ‘Commercial’ game, and thus realise one of my dreams, to be a Games Developer…….. :o) Catch you all sonn,

Taz

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02/12/2008 by Taz.

OK, as you all guessed I haven’t spent much time doing things as of late. My Invaders clone efforts came to an abrupt stop as time kept running out to do any coding on a regular basis. The dream, however, is still alive and has manifested itself once again now that winter has arrived.

What kicked the desire to code games off again this time, I hear you ask, well it happened with the help of a few stories on iPhone Application Development and the new App Store for iPhone. Looking at the details leads me to believe that it will be a lot easier to write iPhone/iPod Touch Applications and Games than any other mobile phone or games console.

The main point in all this is that you ‘know’ what you are coding against, previous mobile devices never had a standard functionality or screen capabilities, thus making it very dificult to code for.

So I now have a new focus, I also have a stronger promise of support from the wife, this came around because I could show some statistics from other developers on how much they have made from a few months of sales. I know this doesn’t reflect with all apps/games being sold, but a chance for some extra pocket money is always welcome, and you never know where it all could lead.

So I’m back on the horse as they say, I’ve bought myself a new Apple MacBook Pro, as it’s the only place you can write iPhone games. I’ve installed the  XCode Development Environment as well as the iPhone SDK, both free from Apple and purchased a few books on Apple Mac and iPhone development.

The current task is to read as much material as possible on XCode, Obejective-C and iPhone. From this I already have the framework for my first game up and running, this has so far taken me about 4 weeks to do. The next step is to start on the ’meat’ of the code and hopefully, no that’s the wrong word, ‘I will’ in a few months have something to show for all my efforts.

This time it all feels more possitive, I have a great deal of enthusiasm and determination to get something finished. I’ve also, so far, have even stopped myself plonking down in front of the TV with all its distractions.

At the same time I’m also monitoring the progress of Google Android based phones as they also have the same store and release mechanism as Apple, thus making it easier to sale apps and games. Just under a different framework and coding language, but I’m confident it should be easy enough to port across too, as I already a good knowledge of Java.

So, wish me luck in this new round, until next Time,

Taz

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02/07/2007 by Taz.

Well here I am again, over the last few months I’ve re-evaluated the way I’m coding games. To this end I looked at what I was doing during my development steps.

I realised that I was actually spending a lot of time writing engine code, I eventually had the thought, ‘Am I re-inventing the wheel’. so to this end I decided to look on the internet to see if there were any libraries for Java based 2D Games already out there.

I came across a few, but have plumpt to look into a library called ‘Slick’, which can be found here (http://slick.cokeandcode.com/). This library seems to have most of the things I need for now and is being developed still. So isn’t one of the many 2D game libraries for Java, that are still listed, but which seem to be slightly old/dead.

To this end I have gone back and ported all my current Space Invaders Clone code to use this library. So far things are moving a bit quicker than before, although finding the time to code and staying focused is still proving difficult….

I aim to get my Invaders clone finished this year at least and added to my website, whether I acheive this is another matter, but it’s time I focused more.

bye for now,

Taz

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21/05/2007 by Taz.

Well, here we are again another month and nothing to show for it, I was coding a lot during the last 2 months at work and by the time I got home I just wanted to relax.

This however means that the games coding progress has suffered. I really must re-think the time I spend on it as it is still something I want to do, even if it only means I release simple games which are free, at least I will have some feeling of acheivement !!!

I’ve also started to look at the NetBeans IDE to see if it is any better than Eclipse, I don’t think this will take too long as I only ever used the basics of Eclipse. It seems though that NetBeans has more functionality up front without having to install plug-ins and spendnig the time to find them in the first place.

Anyway, I must go and rethink my development plans, otherwise it will be another year without any progress, as it’s May already, where does the time go !?

Until next time, Taz.

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09/03/2007 by Taz.

OK, so I haven’t really done much over the last few months, this is going to be harder than I first thought.

I should have known really as I have read various articles on being a casual or indie games developer… most of them had a common slant and that was along the lines of ‘It is not easy, so think hard before jumping into it too fast’.

Anyway, I have started on my next game which is a Space Invaders clone, this one is going to be purely written in Java. Why Java? Well it is my preferred language because I use it in my ‘real’ job writing application code for the corporation I work for, so I am more comfortable using it.

I did try looking at other technologies, like TGB, DBPro and various SDK’s, but to get the most from them it relied on learning new languages and/or technologies. I feel at this point, that I have put a lot of effort into Java, so I will be sticking with it for the medium term.

Also because Java is more portable I feel it is the best language for the areas I want to create for, using it means I can code for multiple platforms without having to change the game code.

The only thing I need to do to acheive something is to be more focused on getting games out the door, I know I can do it, as I’ve just proven to myself that I have a strong will power by not eating a single ounce of chocolate for a whole month……

… hopefully the next time I post will be to let you know that I’ve added my Space Invaders clone, name to be decided, to my website.

until then, keep having fun.

Taz

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19/12/2006 by Taz.

Hello and Welcome,

Well this here is my first blog and hopefully not the last.

The aim here is to post on my thoughts and progress in becoming firstly an hobbyist games developer. Hopefully in the future moving across to indie developer and making a small amount of pocket change from this hobby.

The hardest thing I have found so far is trying to fit in time to actually pursue this hobby. Work gets in the way, social activities get in the way, TV gets in the way (it shouldn’t, but I’m weak) and playing games, rather than developing them gets in the way…..

…. simply, life has too many distractions, so the plan is that from 1st of January I will make a new resolution to actually work on and complete some games.

The first thing to note is that I started the process two years ago by working in C++, got distracted by Java (mobile content), managing to produce some content for the main web site, and now I am looking at the Torque Game Builder.

Hopefully working with TGB will allow me to produce games at a quicker pace, but we shall see. My first product using TGB will be a Pacman clone which I have started.

So keep your eyes peeled and hopefully I will publish more news soon, as well as some thoughts on the process as I go along.

Bye for now,

Taz

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