Honorable Mention

Fix-a-Pixel just won this:

Automated and nearly-meaningless, but neat!

Capsule Toys

Behold, Capsule Toys.

Capsule Toys is our newest application for the iPhone, and is currently available for download for FREE on the App Store. Download it today!

Capsule Toys brings the fun of collecting gashapon to the iPhone!

Capsule Toys. Collect them all!

This is the “secret” application that I was referring to in a previous post. It was a pleasant surprise to see it approved without any problems!

This is only version 1.0, and I have plenty of enhancements planned. More info later.

Capsule Toys Capsule Toys Capsule Toys!

It’s Alive!

I have just submitted a new application to be reviewed for the App Store.

Yes. Believe it.

I’ll post more details when it actually gets approved. I’ve had this idea for a long time, but I figured that somebody else would come out with it before I did. At present time, NOBODY has done an app like this, which is very shocking to me. I think it’s perfect for the iPhone and the App Store.

It feels good to have completed another app, especially after so long. I forgot how much fun it could be!

The success (or lack thereof) of this app will probably directly contribute to how quickly I start my next project.

Duke Nukem Forever

Not a lot of progress since the last update.

I have sound effects working, but music isn’t supported yet. The ability to draw text is half-kinda-almost supported, but there are a few kinks to be worked out. Even then, my implementation will only support the fonts that are natively available for the iPhone (of which there aren’t many at all). The method I used was a lot quicker and simpler to implement with Apple’s APIs doing most of the work for me, but the limitations mean that I’m going to have to do something better in the future.

…if there is a future, that is.

I came across the cocos2d library recently, which is a free, open-source 2d game library for the iPhone. They’ve already basically created everything I wanted to do with my library, which makes me hesitate to continue working on it. My main goal was never to create my own videogame library, my goal was to make a videogame. Creating the tools was only part of that process, and if there are already decent resources available, then I don’t see why I shouldn’t use them. I wouldn’t say that my own custom library is dead, but I think its priority has been lowered.

I still have more research to do, but I like what I see so far. There are already like 50 games on the App Store that use cocos2d, so its definitely a usable product. It also seems to be the most popular 2d game library for iPhone, going by Google search results.

I’m going to do some experimentation with it, so we’ll see how it goes.

Detection!

I’ve got some great momentum going.

I haven’t done this much continuous work since back in the day. When I first started iPhone development, I basically worked for two months straight, everyday after work (and even on weekends), nonstop development. In that time I created DDR Compendium, Collage, Fix-a-Pixel, and the iMobilepedia framework.

Quick Tangent: I probably should have picked another name for “Collage”. There are like 20 other apps on the App Store that have the name “Collage”, and they all do some form of collaging. I still think it sounds cool, but so does every other app developer in the Universe I guess. Maybe I could have called it “Tiles”? “Layers”? “Portals”? I dunno, but its too late now.

Anyway, yeah, made more progress today.

I set up bounding-box collision detection, which I adapted from my unfinished Allegro project. I’m happy with the way it turned out, and I especially like the way that I implemented it.

You can see an example of it here:

Things I still need to do:
– Animation
– Tiles (for backgrounds)
– Sound
– Rumble (low priority)
– Accelerometer (low priority)

There’s a bunch of other small things, but those are what jump to mind at the moment.

Hopefully I can keep this fire burnin!
~Stachel Paige

Progression with direction obsession

I’m actually working on iPhone game stuff! Who would have guessed?

Today I implemented Landscape support, so now I can setup a game to run in Portrait/Landscape without much work. This is made non-trivial by the iPhone’s implementation of OpenGL ES in conjunction with the way it handles touch-events. I think I have everything all set now though.

Once I have all of the tools that I need, I’ll probably start out simple. I have big “magnum opus” game ideas that I want to get to, but the bigger the project is, the less likely it’ll ever get finished. By starting off with a small simple game, I’m giving myself a much greater chance of success. I can slowly work my way up to bigger and better things as I get more comfortable with game development, and as my tools become more robust over time.

Should be fun.

I installed Snow Leopard, and its pretty nice. I was most looking forward to Quicktime X, and its new Screen Recording feature. I’m already making full use of it, and I plan to keep a full video journal of my development going forward. It’s a nice way to demonstrate new features as I add them.

Here’s a bug with my sprite rotation that produced some fun results:

…and here is that bug fixed:

http://www.youtube.com/binarymoustache

Keep an eye here for more videos in the future.
~Stayche

Hello again

It sure has been awhile! Seems like I’ve been starting every post like this lately.

I worked on my iPhone game “engine” a little bit this weekend. I’m not sure where the motivation came from, but I decided to make the most of it. I’m still in the earliest stages of everything, and there’s still a bunch of low level no-fun code to do before I can get to the fun stuff.

I’m currently trying to set things up so that I can easily choose to draw in Portrait or Landscape mode. I’ve got things mostly working in Portrait, but I have to figure out how to get my existing drawing code to work in landscape with changing much. I know it’s just going to be a few lines of initial setup, but I have yet to figure out the right OpenGL voodoo.

Snow Leopard is currently somewhere in between Amazon’s distribution center and my house. I’m looking forward to using Quicktime’s new Screen Recording feature, so that I can start a YouTube video journal for my development. Making demo videos will be fun, and will hopefully give me more motivation. Once my first game is finished, it will be fun to look back and see how it progressed from month to month.

I uploaded a few more iMobilepedia apps. No big story.

That’s about it for now.

I’ll keep you posted if anything else happens.

Another shout-out

Thanks to KRAPPS for another shout-out!

The computer calculated it.

Nothing new to report sadly.

Had a run of misfortune with all-things-iPhone about a month ago, and it was enough to completely extinguish what was left of the fire in my belly. I’ve been trying to rekindle it lately, and while there have been a few sparks, there’s not yet enough to roast a marshmallow on.

Up until now, I’ve been focused mostly on small throwaway apps as a means to learn the iPhone SDK and Objective-C. This has been successful for the most part, but I think I’m ready to move on to something a bit more satisfying.

This leads me back to video game development.

I have a bunch of FANTASTIC ideas for games, but i need to find the time and motivation to get started. I have the very beginnings of a 2D OpenGL ES based engine, but nowhere near what I’m going to need to move forward. This means a lot of low-level tinkering and API design, neither of which I’m in the mood for. Ah well, no guts no glory.

Look for more coming soon.

Retain and release,
~Stache

Finally, some well-deserved recognition!

From Krapps!

All kidding aside, this is a serious reference app containing the same information and images that you would find in any medical textbook.

As you can plainly see, we try to keep things tasteful at Binary Moustache.