Play, Live, Work, Enjoy.

Ok, so its not the latest game… but I took this out one out of retirement today and realized it is still one of my favorite PS2 games of all time. The purists out there might be hung up on WipEOut 3 and the other games in the series… which had some nice features and a killer design team on the game's user interface… but I'm easy.

The soundtrack is awesome, the action is rediculously fast, and it takes the classic racing genre and mixes it up with a bit of sci-fi and a lot of battle. The tracks are like rollercoasters including jumps, banks, loops, and even some offroad action on dirt and ice. If you've got this one up on the shelf… take it back down… if you don't have it… look for it in the bargains or used bin at your local game shop or movie rental place… if you find it chances are you'll only have to pay $10 for it since its so old.
Continue reading 'WipEOut Fusion for the PS2′

Comments are now completely shut off until we can figure out how to stop the SPAM.

Not like we've had tons of comments left to date… but due to some nasty SPAM attacks we've had to lock down comments to subscribed and logged in folks only.

The funny thing is that we've had all sort of spam related issues with our hosting company (HostMySite.com)… for example at one point any email with our web address in it was blocked and sent back undeliverable just because someone had reported one domain hosted by the registrar (Godaddy.com) of our site as a source of spam. Talk about casting a wide net! All of this blocking is based on information provided by SpamHaus.org. After several conversations with tech support and the mail admin at hostmysite we do tend to agree with their policy, only wish it was something that could be controlled on a per-domain basis rather than be solely at the hands of the host admin team. At least they bounce the emails back to us… it seems some hosts don't even bother with that.
Anyhow… if you want to leave a comment and its not another V1AGR4 or C1AL15 ad… please set up an account and log in… it will take but a second. Thanks.

Here's something new…. at least its new to me… some clever folks (Jay and Steve McDonald) over at Fjax.net have created a Flash-based version of AJAX. The idea is that using a small bit of Flash code in a hidden SWF you can send XML to Flash and have it do the heavy lifting (parsing). The benefit here is that you don't need to include the thousands of lines of code needed to support AJAX and related frameworks like Adobe Lab's Spry or the JS Integration Kit in your document.

They've got some nice examples and all sorts of supporing docs.

Here's a bit from their executive overview document:

Part 1 - FJAX Overview
Fjax is the lightweight, cross-browser, rapid-development methodology for Ajax-style web 2.0 development that puts a Flash engine under the hood (not in the presentation layer – read on) to handle realtime XML/HTML content updating.
Continue reading 'AJAX, meet FJAX'

I recently precented at the Buffalo Multimedia User Group on the topic of XML and Flash. The 45 minute talk was a basic introduction to what XML is and how Flash can interact with it as a data format.

You can find the handout here: Flash_and_XML_Primer.pdf

I'm working on the source code package for the JRV_helprs_loadPrefs.as file that I showed during the presentation… but some recent changes to the project have had me actually looking at the Flash 8 XPATH implementation… so the source is changing a little bit… and I need to tighten it up before I post it. I'll be doing a separate post named XML and Flash Primer - Downloads before the end of the month.
If you were at the presentation and have any questions feel free to post them here or shoot me an email.

In the mean time here are some good XML resources online that may not have made it to the PDF:

• W3C XML Specification
• O'Reilly's XML.com
• Informit : XML and Web Services Reference Guide

We recently purchased a Nintendo DS system for the office… as game developers we need to be on top of the current… and this system started out hot but is sure to get hotter with the release of the Nintendo DS Lite which packs the same punch in a smaller package. If only you could play Flash on it!

My son Julian (6 yrs) and I have been playing the New Super Mario Bros. game whenever he comes by the office to hang out. Its great to watch him play and it is a testament to the game itself that he can pretty much play it without any help or instructions… with the occasional "can you get me past this level".
This game is awesome… and the mnigames are very cool as well. Super Mario is an example of an old (potentially stale), sorry — rather, a classic game stlye, revived and renewed. Sure… the graphics are now pre-rendered 3D instead of hand crafter pixels… but only the staunchest of purists would let that stop them from enjoying this jam. Continue reading 'Nintendo DS and the New Super Mario Bros.'

You've got to check this out… this guy Jono is nuts… he's basically building a "true" 3D engine in Flash with support for all sorts of file formats including .3DS, Wavefront, and Quake Model formats. Looks like a lot of cacheAsBitmap or straight up pixel rendering. I can't wait to see where this goes!

Demo*: http://www.custommedia.co.nz/swfz/
TechInfo: http://www.custommedia.co.nz/swfz/swfztech.htm

I've been a fan of Gamasutra since its early days — sometimes its a bit much for me since so much of their content is geared to the console developer set… but every now and then there's something that transcends platform and really gets to the heart of game development… this is one such article… here's a litte bit… follow the link for the rest… its worth the click!

The Space War Test
The story of videogames, or at least 'games which use a screen', began in 1962, in a computer science laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. With the invention of the two-dimensional spaceship arena called Spacewar, the computer was transformed from being a slave of tedious mathematics into a toy of limitless potential. This, of course, was not its stated aim. Spacewar was intended purely as a demonstration of the potential of a CRT monitor, the first real computer screen, attached to a PDP-1 computer.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/column_index.php?story=8334

Now that the dust has settled, no doubt temporarily, there are a couple of successful solutions to the ActiveX Activation issue faced by Flash developers who wish to support Microsoft's Internet Explorer without having to "Click here to activate this control."

Following is the list that I've compiled along with some of their features and benefits:

Continue reading 'Flash Embed Scripts : Eolas / IE ActiveX Activation'

Just read an interesting bit about the latest Adobe vs. Microsoft battle. It seems they're at it over "Save as PDF…" and "Save as XPS…" — PDF being Adobe's portable document format and XPS being Microsoft's XML Paper Specification. Apparently Adobe did not want "Save as PDF…" included in Office 2007 citing the fact that they charge for that capability and requesting that MS hold that functionality as a premium… or an additional free download.

I'm not sure how I feel about this one — but if this puts the inclusion of the latest Flash player (or Acrobat Reader for that matter) in jeopardy for Vista — I'm not sure that the battle is worth the effect it will have overall.

Here's a bit from a recent article in this regard. Continue reading 'Battles and Wars : PDF and XPS'

Here's an interesting article by Mike Angeletti that talks about his methods of structuring a Flash file for a basic site. He's got some great points. Definitely a nice primer. Article: The Best Structure for your Flash Site

Here's an excerpt…

Keep in mind that when I say "structure" I'm not talking about how Continue reading 'Article: The Best Structure for your Flash Site'