As I noted last week, I am currently developing a game for Android. The concept for the game (Save the Village) is a relatively simple one, catch the fireballs as they descend the screen lest the village below burst into flames. While the graphics are, shall we be polite and say simplistic, the gameplay is actually fairly compelling. This isn't me saying so myself per se, but friends and family who have given the development code a go are often compelled to have another go or two before handing it back.
One problem though in doing all this for the first time is that it can be insanely easy to underestimate the amount of time left in development. I have a to-do list stored via the quite impressive Wunderlist, which I use to keep track of my progress. What I don't see though is the number of dependencies that the little tasks I'm setting are creating in turn. It can occasionally feel a little demoralising, I've felt like I'm a fortnight away from finishing for the last three weeks! Hopefully this stretch is actually the last stretch. I'll post something over the weekend about the game itself (rather than my travails) for anyone that wants to see it.
Friday, 20 September 2013
Friday, 13 September 2013
2 Lines
I posted a couple of days back about how I'm trying to become a games developer. At the time I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing. Well, as it goes I'm still feeling pretty good about the whole thing, but I have been bashing my head against a brick wall with an issue for the last couple of days.
So the game works, it does everything it needs to in terms of playability. OK the difficulty needs balancing, but I'm happy to say that's coded in such a way that they take only seconds to write (play testing is the awkward thing). So all of my screen transitions up to the game work, the main menu, the pause menu (placeholder graphics, but meh) all good. All I need is a local high score screen and I'm pretty much good to go.
So as ever I think about the components needed to do it correctly:
And then, this morning, a breakthrough! A new view up on screen (floating, as it were, on top of the main screen) from which it will be simple to add one of the Android widgets. Except, well it wasn't. Again. And now the errors that were being thrown were miles out of my comfort zone, null pointer exceptions are fine, but these errors felt like dissertations on multi-threading.
Back to the internet, to the Android documentation, to stackoverflow.com. After a little while trying to find similar issues, I new I needed to add a looper and a handler. But how do they talk? What exactly do I need to do?
Finally out of desperation I took the first part of the code and just stuck it in the one thread I know I have running:
I'm still not entirely sure how the handling is being done, or if I'm just being hideously obtuse. For now though I'm just going to take it as a win, and leave the thinking for when I'm more likely to cope with it.
*For those interested in this sort of thing, the game framework is based on Mario Zechner's book 'beginning android games' which I discovered through the tutorials at kilobolt.com. The framework uses a surface view to render all the goings on to a single bitmap, which is then scaled and drawn to the resolution of the device.
This works brilliantly but adding additional 'View' components isn't the simplest thing in the world, at least to a novice like me.
So the game works, it does everything it needs to in terms of playability. OK the difficulty needs balancing, but I'm happy to say that's coded in such a way that they take only seconds to write (play testing is the awkward thing). So all of my screen transitions up to the game work, the main menu, the pause menu (placeholder graphics, but meh) all good. All I need is a local high score screen and I'm pretty much good to go.
So as ever I think about the components needed to do it correctly:
- SavedPreference object for holding the score? Check.
- Sorting function to determine which high score has been achieved? Check
- Text box for the player to type their name? ...
And then, this morning, a breakthrough! A new view up on screen (floating, as it were, on top of the main screen) from which it will be simple to add one of the Android widgets. Except, well it wasn't. Again. And now the errors that were being thrown were miles out of my comfort zone, null pointer exceptions are fine, but these errors felt like dissertations on multi-threading.
Back to the internet, to the Android documentation, to stackoverflow.com. After a little while trying to find similar issues, I new I needed to add a looper and a handler. But how do they talk? What exactly do I need to do?
Finally out of desperation I took the first part of the code and just stuck it in the one thread I know I have running:
Looper.prepare();
//Some other stuff
Looper.loop();And it worked!
I'm still not entirely sure how the handling is being done, or if I'm just being hideously obtuse. For now though I'm just going to take it as a win, and leave the thinking for when I'm more likely to cope with it.
*For those interested in this sort of thing, the game framework is based on Mario Zechner's book 'beginning android games' which I discovered through the tutorials at kilobolt.com. The framework uses a surface view to render all the goings on to a single bitmap, which is then scaled and drawn to the resolution of the device.
This works brilliantly but adding additional 'View' components isn't the simplest thing in the world, at least to a novice like me.
Thursday, 12 September 2013
Foot... BAAAALLL
I guess I'm what you'd traditionally term a 'bit of a geek'. I enjoy physics, video games, statistics, understand how to read weather charts, and until recently spent a lot of my spare time learning how to program. 'Until recently' as I now spend most of my time doing that.
For all that though, I do break with the exaggerated American high school stereotype in that I'm quite a sports fan, most of all football. It's actually quite a weird one to explain when someone points out the dichotomy of finding the pacing of most TV dramas to be so slow as to be unwatchable (and TV in the main to be a fools errand) yet enjoying watching 22 blokes run after a bit of leather for 90 minutes, while very little happens.
For all that though, I do break with the exaggerated American high school stereotype in that I'm quite a sports fan, most of all football. It's actually quite a weird one to explain when someone points out the dichotomy of finding the pacing of most TV dramas to be so slow as to be unwatchable (and TV in the main to be a fools errand) yet enjoying watching 22 blokes run after a bit of leather for 90 minutes, while very little happens.
Tuesday, 10 September 2013
Into the unknown
So today I wanted to spill my mind about the last 6 weeks or so. I was going to do that yesterday, but my brain was crazy melted by the wonder of Sharknado so I wrote about that instead (seriously if you haven't seen it get some mates round and give it a whirl).
So anyway before I get hit by another wave ofB C D-movie delirium...
Anyone that knows me reasonably well in person will know that I started this summer as an advancing data-quality BA at a quite well known investment bank. The money was good, I'd been promoted in the winter and had been managing a team of three since the year before. Those of you who know me from my online persona only may be a little surprised to hear this, as I am quite an outspoken 'lefty'. Still bills gotta be paid and all that, I got a call just after getting married (with the previous company I worked for having gone broke) that there was an opening and I would be a good fit. Here we are three years later.
That was how I started the summer. I am now 'unemployed' and am in the comfort of my own home during the traditional 9-5. So what happened? Well first and foremost, this isn't some 'woe is me tale', I resigned and left in late July . But why?
So anyway before I get hit by another wave of
Anyone that knows me reasonably well in person will know that I started this summer as an advancing data-quality BA at a quite well known investment bank. The money was good, I'd been promoted in the winter and had been managing a team of three since the year before. Those of you who know me from my online persona only may be a little surprised to hear this, as I am quite an outspoken 'lefty'. Still bills gotta be paid and all that, I got a call just after getting married (with the previous company I worked for having gone broke) that there was an opening and I would be a good fit. Here we are three years later.
That was how I started the summer. I am now 'unemployed' and am in the comfort of my own home during the traditional 9-5. So what happened? Well first and foremost, this isn't some 'woe is me tale', I resigned and left in late July . But why?
Sharknado: the drinking game
I was planning to write something moderately self absorbed on here this evening, tracking the last couple of months of my life, plans for the future, all that jazz. That's going to have to take a back seat though, for today I arrived (late, as ever) to the party they call Sharknado.
Sunday, 8 September 2013
Just something....
It's weird talking into the abyss. Twitter, Blogger, Facebook. All these words and thoughts that spill (mostly on twitter in my case) onto social media, forums and the like that have barely even been committed to your own thoughts before they are part of the global conversation.
Talking on the internet is as if everyone is attendant at a giant party, but instead of hanging with the two people they turned up with (and *that* guy who thinks his every utterance is the funniest thing but strangely only you will listen to) everyone slinks over to a space and just talks. Some people talk loudly or compellingly enough to drag people closer and start a conversation, others provocatively enough to start an argument.
Then there are some that arrived late. That could only get a space on the dancefloor where the music is blaring so loud that they can't be heard anyway. Still they talk though, you know, just in case. Or even some that have an apparently handy spot by the bar, but are talking the most inane bollocks that all the drinks are being served in the other room.
Personally, I try and get involved, occasionally. Or I play the 'wallflower'. Watch, listen, try and learn. But there's no record of the thoughts of someone who just watched. Does there need to be a record?
Talking on the internet is as if everyone is attendant at a giant party, but instead of hanging with the two people they turned up with (and *that* guy who thinks his every utterance is the funniest thing but strangely only you will listen to) everyone slinks over to a space and just talks. Some people talk loudly or compellingly enough to drag people closer and start a conversation, others provocatively enough to start an argument.
Then there are some that arrived late. That could only get a space on the dancefloor where the music is blaring so loud that they can't be heard anyway. Still they talk though, you know, just in case. Or even some that have an apparently handy spot by the bar, but are talking the most inane bollocks that all the drinks are being served in the other room.
Personally, I try and get involved, occasionally. Or I play the 'wallflower'. Watch, listen, try and learn. But there's no record of the thoughts of someone who just watched. Does there need to be a record?
Monday, 6 May 2013
Anarchy - the flawed ideal
I saw a comment on twitter today that I felt needed a reply, however at the time I was in no position to do so and anyway it's the sort of reply that stretches the ability of 140 characters. The comment was as follows:
Bang, there you go, government and capitalism gone, sorted. I assume from that point on we are all free to play tennis or something like all those middle class families that smile just a bit too much in commercials. I feel pretty comfortable to state that the assertion is wrong but in this post I'm not going to spend time on the capitalism issue, which is a full dissertation on its own, and instead look into what may happen if we didn't have a government. Just to make it a light-hearted I'm going to borrow a little from the style of the brilliant what-if over on xkcd.
So one day we wake up and there's no government anymore. No-one is quite sure what has happened or how, but the government has simply ceased to be. Everything else is as before but the entire organisational machine of government has disappeared, no councils, no parliament, just Nick Robinson looking blankly at the palace of Westminster sure there was a reason he went there, but clueless as to what it was.
For a while things continue as normal, people habitually pay their taxes, even though it's to no one, everyone turns up for work when one day the company that owns the electricity contract for a council gets no payment on a bill. The following week, all the streets in the town go dark every night leading to confusion and a slight increase in opportunistic and sometimes violent crime.
Similar minor administrative things happen up and down the country, people lose their jobs and head down the job-centre only to find that there is no-one to authorize the payment. Railways halfway through building stop because no-one is sorting the funding. potholes on main roads aren't prioritised for repair causing more accidents.
In one little pocket though a group of citizens have spotted the problem and are at great pains to sort it out as fairly as possible. It's only a small town so posters went up for everyone to meet in the town hall one day. There they decide that each evening they would meet, discuss the town's collective business that needed to be done that day and all vote on who should do what, and which issues should take priority. It's tiring, but it works so they keep at it.
Word gets out to the neighbouring town and a few others who adopt a similar system, though in the first town attendance is dwindling, not by much, but noticeably with some who realise that things will be sorted anyway. But still the system spreads and word gets round about issues that effect groups of towns rather than single ones. Of course this will need to be discussed, but no town has a room big enough. After some thought at one evening's meeting it is decided that each town should send a few representatives and the attendees can discuss on behalf of everyone in their town.
The meeting goes swimmingly (this is rather an idealised scenario, but all of the other thought experiments I did with anarchy left quite a lot of people dead) and more towns are picking up on the process and inviting all inhabitants to discuss. In the home-towns of the early adopters though, less than half of people are turning up to make the decisions and everything is still getting done.
One bright spark somewhere decides, why not formalize this? If everything can be sorted with only the input of a few people, why not let them get on with it in our best interests and have another couple of representatives to discuss matters with the other places that have this system.
The idea spreads. Why have everyone busy every night, when we could vote for certain people to represent us and then carry on with our lives?
Well. I guess you can see where I'm going with this convoluted tale. Most of the things that the government and politicians do is just the boring stuff that we can't be bothered to do so we get someone else to talk about it. Every so often we impart an opinion as to what direction we'd like to take and let the government deal with it from there.
We have a representative democracy, because it's simply not convenient for us to all sit in one room and try and flesh out the issues of the time. We couldn't get by without one. Now the debate about what sort of government we should have, what their scope should be, how we should select them. All of that is up for debate. But the concept? It happened because it worked. Anarchy would at the very best settle back into representative democracy. At worst? Have you seen Mad Max?
... remove the gov and we don't have the problems and remove capitalism and we r free..(Name and pic removed at composers request)
Bang, there you go, government and capitalism gone, sorted. I assume from that point on we are all free to play tennis or something like all those middle class families that smile just a bit too much in commercials. I feel pretty comfortable to state that the assertion is wrong but in this post I'm not going to spend time on the capitalism issue, which is a full dissertation on its own, and instead look into what may happen if we didn't have a government. Just to make it a light-hearted I'm going to borrow a little from the style of the brilliant what-if over on xkcd.
So one day we wake up and there's no government anymore. No-one is quite sure what has happened or how, but the government has simply ceased to be. Everything else is as before but the entire organisational machine of government has disappeared, no councils, no parliament, just Nick Robinson looking blankly at the palace of Westminster sure there was a reason he went there, but clueless as to what it was.
Similar minor administrative things happen up and down the country, people lose their jobs and head down the job-centre only to find that there is no-one to authorize the payment. Railways halfway through building stop because no-one is sorting the funding. potholes on main roads aren't prioritised for repair causing more accidents.
In one little pocket though a group of citizens have spotted the problem and are at great pains to sort it out as fairly as possible. It's only a small town so posters went up for everyone to meet in the town hall one day. There they decide that each evening they would meet, discuss the town's collective business that needed to be done that day and all vote on who should do what, and which issues should take priority. It's tiring, but it works so they keep at it.
Word gets out to the neighbouring town and a few others who adopt a similar system, though in the first town attendance is dwindling, not by much, but noticeably with some who realise that things will be sorted anyway. But still the system spreads and word gets round about issues that effect groups of towns rather than single ones. Of course this will need to be discussed, but no town has a room big enough. After some thought at one evening's meeting it is decided that each town should send a few representatives and the attendees can discuss on behalf of everyone in their town.
The meeting goes swimmingly (this is rather an idealised scenario, but all of the other thought experiments I did with anarchy left quite a lot of people dead) and more towns are picking up on the process and inviting all inhabitants to discuss. In the home-towns of the early adopters though, less than half of people are turning up to make the decisions and everything is still getting done.
One bright spark somewhere decides, why not formalize this? If everything can be sorted with only the input of a few people, why not let them get on with it in our best interests and have another couple of representatives to discuss matters with the other places that have this system.
The idea spreads. Why have everyone busy every night, when we could vote for certain people to represent us and then carry on with our lives?
Well. I guess you can see where I'm going with this convoluted tale. Most of the things that the government and politicians do is just the boring stuff that we can't be bothered to do so we get someone else to talk about it. Every so often we impart an opinion as to what direction we'd like to take and let the government deal with it from there.
We have a representative democracy, because it's simply not convenient for us to all sit in one room and try and flesh out the issues of the time. We couldn't get by without one. Now the debate about what sort of government we should have, what their scope should be, how we should select them. All of that is up for debate. But the concept? It happened because it worked. Anarchy would at the very best settle back into representative democracy. At worst? Have you seen Mad Max?
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