I should totally be attending ToJam, since I think a couple guys I used to work with are regulars.  Running Ludum Dare thrice a year might be my excuse, but it's not good enough.  (LD13 this weekend BTW)

Nelson Yu crazy! :D

You're right, I'm a whore.  I just found this in one of my junk folders.

this is beautiful. what's the music in the video?

It's not any song in particular, just something I threw together for the video.  The original is a little long and simple, so I could cut it down wherever I needed it.  You can listen to/grab it here.

You big fat whore, Mike!

Oh noes!  You found me out!  AGH! 

Looks very pretty and it's nice to bundle lots in the same package and make use of the tilt-sensor.

Yeah.  I figured at least if I was going to sell/whore out, I'd go all out with it.  But now that that's out of my system, I can start doing cool stuff... right? 

[Wait! Don't run away yet! It's not what it looks like!]

 

Wait!  Don't run away yet!  It's not what it looks like!


Alright, so here's what I've been up to the past 4 months.  An iPhone game I call Smiles.

Here's the part that might scare you, but don't run yet!  It is a matching game, BUT It's a gamers matching game.  I know that's like saying vegetables taste like Candy, but urge you to at least take a look.

http://www.smiles-game.com/

Watch the video.  If the corporate training video vibe throws you off, don't fret!  There's only another 2 and a half minutes to go.  Then you're free to mock me as a sell out, but *only* after watching the whole thing.


Winners don't use drugs.

Possum... er... Awesome.

I love you.

We gave applicants Space Invaders.  Since they were being hired for J2ME projects, we had them do them with Sun's J2ME kit.  It's interesting how revealing it as a game was.  Some got back to us within a day.  Some neglected the bonus ship that flies by the top.  Some included sound effects, title screen, particle effects, and high scores.

Kinda made hiring easy. 

I wish I enjoyed the tedious content building process more.  Levels, props and stuff.  Art and Music I'm borderline competent, expecting any day now to make those dozen things that let me tell myself "yes, I can do it".  Code... I am code.

That really stinks.  It's actually the first I've heard of both disputes.

No COUNTRY for OWL men?

Man, that's double bad ass.

Holy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!

Awesome

Megaman's Batman Strike Force

Intellectual Kart Gang

American Cyborg Battle

National Lampoon's Police Epidemic

Disney's Metal Psychiatrist

Hitler's Equestrian Combat

Heavy Metal Shaving in the Salad Kingdom

Pro Death Unleashed

Last year the GDCRadio folk did us the wonderful service of packing both the Independent Games Summit and Casual Games Summit in to two huge MP3 files (one for each day per summit), for a mere $8 a piece.  Hella cheaper than airfare, hotel, and tickets.

http://www.gdcradio.com/

Well, I'm hoping they'll do it again. 

So far, the only thing 2008 up so far are 13 sessions from the "Audio Track".  Still waiting on the indie goodness...   


For anyone interested, Indie Games Summit 2007:
http://store.cmpgame.com/category.php?cat=59&skin=gdcradio

Dude.

[expressive]

... but if you're looking for something expressive then you have to go a long way to beat Python.

*Twitch* 

Scripting languages in a game engine are for implementing high level specifics, not doing work.  "If" checks and function calling.  Any types you use are purely a convenience, and you should rarely loop. 

You can loop, and it's not like there is no looping.  Your script functions can and will be called multiple times by the engine.  And scripting a dialog tree/cut-scene can certainly be nicer with a concept of loops (and VM blocking), but you could always build a finite state machine ("If" checks with a "state" variable).

The point of a script is to allow customization of system behaviors, without hard-coding it in the engine.  A good scripting language integration hides the complexities of the engine, and lets you talk in high concepts.  Not to mention opening up rapid development/testing/deployment possibilities.

A script should dictate animation changes, not step the frames or the bones.  A script should pick the dialog, not draw the letters.  A script should call "sort", not store and implement an algorithm. 

You want to spend as little time running a script as possible.  The meaty code will still be in C or C++.

Robo Monocle Cop! 

[In the clear blue skyAn awards ceremonyThis is fucking awesome.]

The French Canadians are a terrifying race... with terrifying powers.

If we don't get a video, can we at least know what was fish's haiku?

In the clear blue sky
An awards ceremony
This is fucking awesome.

Source: Kotaku

Yes, was Gamespot taping again?

Yeah, hunt him down and tell him how bad Pirates Movie #3 was.   

That should get annoying. 

A couple more C/C++'ish scripting languages.

GameMonkey is one.  The authors seem to have as boring a Mobygames page as I. 

AngelCode is another.  AngelScript appears to do some really interesting things.  Binding C/C++ calls directly to the VM, instead of having to use a "proxy" function to call them.  I don't know it performs versus Lua, since it's not on the shootout, but it seems to be used in a few games.

Squirrel is yet another, by one of the programmers on Far Cry.  Has some thoughts about Lua.

But yeah, everybody seems to be turning to Lua these days, myself included.  So even if there is a faster language out there, Lua's been proven time and time again as a solid embeddable scripting language (for nearly 10 years).