The excellent development platform ”Unity” now have reached version 2.1

If you are thinking about creating games on mac and want to reach Linux,
Windows AND Mac users - then look no further. This is as good as it gets
without going broke and investing in new gaming engines and such.
And better yet, if you can code you can create in Unity!

So go get a Mac and get cracking at it - what ARE you waiting for?!

Tags: tools, Crossplatform

Since I am now firmly planted in the ground at the ”Mac farm”
I search for good games to play nativly on MacOs.

I recently stumbeled upon this small indy house called
”Codeminium” and two of their titles had my attention
almost right away.

First out is the game ”Saqqarah” which basically defines the
genre ”puzzle”. It is highly inspired by the egyptian look and
feel. A lot of speech and animations ontop of lots and lots of
graphic effects make this gem visually very attractive.
But the gameplay is hugly well made too.
I will not go into detail to much but this is one of the best
small indy games I’ve seen (in it’s genre) in a long while.
Worth every penny of the registration fee.

Second and lastly we have the game ”Stone Loops - Jurassica”.
If you ever played Zuma or Zuma2 (or similar) you know what
kind of game this is. Like Saqqara it is highly addictive and very
nice looking. The feeling of ’one-more-level’ is very clear.

Both games have a very nice price and the the registration key
works both in the Mac and Windows version of the game.
Both games can be played on all modern macs, even the small ones.
So basically you get two games at the price of one - on two different
OS’es. This is indy development at it’s best!

Go here and registrer these right away!

Tags: Review, Crossplatform

Earlier I have written (several times) about this fantastic little indy game.

This is simply a small update to mention some of new things:

1) The game is now updated to version 1.22

2) From the 21:st of August the game can be purchased at Valves ”Steam”

3) I’ve now playtested Tank Universal in Boot Camp on my nice new iMac, and
the game runs just fine. So good news all Mac users - now you have no
reason not to buy this game, especially since you also can use Steam in Boot Camp.

All good news

Keep the ball rolling Phil!

Tags: Misc, BootCamp

Oh, shiney new toys here we come!

Gaming on mac hardware will go to whole new places
in a short while.
I have invested in a brand new iMac (24 inch screen) and will
use Both BootCamp and Fusion to get viritualized and
native access to windows XP.
So mac hardware as a gaming rig is soon a reality.
With a decent graphics card (nvidia Geforece 8800GS)
the power should be enough too

Me want right NOW!

Tags: Misc

The software industry complains a lot about piracy. There are many
things one can say about the subject. Both bad and good on both sides
of the fence.
Nog long ago I found a pirated version of "Baldurs Gate 2" on Piratebay.
This however was no ordinary pirated game. No this was a pirated
version of the game and both expansions that had been modified and
merged with "Wine" to actually run on Mac. As far as the game understood
it was running on windows, when in reality it was MacOsX Leopard.

Now, this special version was in spanish but faithful to the community
people had left links in the comments of the torrent file to where one could
download english, german and french language files. And with a little
experimentation I managed to get the game to switch to english.

Ok, it crashes now and again. There are a few little graphical glitches but
in general it is fully playable. Just remember to save often.

This had not been possible at all without not only piracy but also the whole
community behind the sub-culture of this. An excellent example of how
a "on the surface" bad thing can and IS used to something not only
creative but also compensatory. The responsible gaming houses had
not been interested in making an updated Mac version.
So this was the only way.

The gaming industry can really learn something from this,
if they are aware of it that is. IF they see it as a possibility and
not simply a problem.

Whatever... I now have Baldurs Gate 2 on my brilliantly good little
MacBook.

Information really wants to be free.....

Tags: Misc

On the Amiga platform there once was a super fun game called "Scorched Earth".
It was an artillery tank game you could play with multiple human and computer
players. It was very well made and had fantastic weapons effects and it gave a
sense of wonder when you blew up your opponents.
During the years I've seen many try to redo this. Some good, others less so.

However, now I think the wait is over.

Atomic Cannon offers ALL of the fun and function of from the Amiga version.
But with nicer graphics and sound. Even a bunch of innovations too.
All in all it is a good carrier of the flag and gives great entertainment to both
old and new gamers.
You can get this excellent game in two flavours: Windows and Mac.

So go out there and get it while it's fresh!

Tags: Review

So Crytek do not want to do any more PC (Read windows) exclusive titles any more.
The reason, as they say, is due to the heavy pirate copying of their latest game
"Crysis". They claim that the console versions sell 4-5 times more than the computer
version.
Now, it is very easy to say that "oh the piracy is so bad it makes us cry in pain.." and then
go on to collectively punish all and everyone. They never, not even once, stop to think about
the game it self. Oh, it might be all so nice looking. The graphics and physics engine surly took
very long time to develop. But the game it self is, to put it mildly, is nothing new at all. It's a shallow
and poorly told story with half assed action. And yet it demands a daemon computer to even
show off it's 24 carat gold face.
It is not unlike a gorgeous blonde. Beautiful, attractive, sexy but dumb as rock.
That might not excuse piracy but it explains it.
I know of and have played game titles that demands WAY less computer and still gives
100 times the entertainment of Crysis. So why should we care?

Look at Stardock and their new title "Sins of a Solar Empire".
Fairly low budget development. Not the newest graphics but still very nice looking.
Great game play and works on most machine setups.
They are probably out selling every title out there and still they do not have any
copy protection OR complain about piracy. In fact they do the opposite and publicly state that
they simply do not care about that. What they do is care about are those who actually buy the game.
In my humble opinion most other big game developer should listen to this and take to heart.
Then maybe their games would sell better.
Even simpler put: If you leave us we will leave you!

What crytek put out there is simply not good enough to care about when they complain.

Link

Tags: Misc, piracy, Crysis

I need to give notice about a cool new web game I found. It is a typical
tower defence game but unusually well made.
You can find it here.

Tags: action

During a couple of days now I have been testing and trying different types
of software which you can use to develop games (software) on your own.
Some are geared towards games only, others software in general. Some can
be called "Rapid Development Environments" and some pure game engines.
Most however are mostly frameworks with big language support of some sort.
A few of them are very OS independent. Editors in at least both windows and
MacOSX systems. Compilation and final executables in Windows, Mac and
Linux.
In general the situation is much better compared to a few years back.
If you want to build your self a career as an Indy software developer you have
all the tools you could ever want.

We are talking of titles like:

Unity
Torque 3D/2D Game making engines
Real Basic
BlitzMax

So here comes a quick rundown of them all. Good and bad and general
impressions.

We start with Unity.
To begin with this package is Mac only. Or rather the development it
self at least. When you are done with your project you can deploy it
to what ever platform you want depending on what version of the
software you have. Only the Pro version offers windows deployment.

Since this is a pure MacOsX development tool is is very nice looking.
Clear GUI and easy to use. Actually I found it to be the most promising
development tool of them al. You can even test your 3D environment
directly in the editor. Works fantastically as long as your hardware can
handle the strain.
With a huge number of tools and function you can create nearly any
type of game you want. The engine as well as the script support is
very strong and in the end only your skill and imagination will set the
limit. The online support is big and inviting and the price to buy the
regular version is quite reasonable. The Pro version however is
somewhat expensive, but all that is relative to what you your goal is.
To make money you have to spend money and it's my
impression that Unity creates HUGE value and possibilities to the
right person/organisation.
Add to that the very engaged creators of the tool. They have made
a great foundation with the website, community and many other
things to promote and educate existing as well as future customers.
If you have the money, will and skill, look no further - this is it!


Torque 2D/3D game making Engines are the clear number two in
this list. Great options in both 2D as well as 3D. Equally generous
and engaged in their software tools. Big communities and what it
seems well made software tools.
They offer tools to both pro and semi pro. Even beginners have
their part to play. The prices reflect this well and beginners will
not have to shell out very much at all to get a good head start.
These game engines are geared toward both MacOsX and Windows,
both in deployment and creation. So you are really not locked down
in any significant way.
Even if the value is one step down from Unity the greater support
to OS'es in the development mode, in combination with more
diversity to different skill levels makes the Torque engines a big
contender.
The only less good thing I can come to think of is that both the
editors and script type is clearly not as well looking or easy to understand
as the Unity tool. But other than that they are nearly equals.


On the third place comes "Real Basic", a true rapid development environment.
If you have had any experience with .NET or Visual Basic you will be right
at home in Real Basic.
A true object oriented environment that works both in windows and Mac.
The final result can exported in form of a single executable to both these
platforms. Simple, nice looking and seemingly easy.
There are plenty of examples and help file. A fairly big community to ask
questions in. The tutorials are quite many and very detailed.
Even 3D support exist through a open software library, which has to be
installed separately but comes with the installment package of the main
software tool.
One irritating thing is that the program is separated. So if you have payed
the reasonable price to both develop and deploy to Mac, you soon discover
you have to buy one more license to deploy to the windows platform.
Ok, it's not bloody expensive (75 USD) but nevertheless one annoying way of
doing things. The licenses are the same. No normal or pro version but only
double the money to be able deploying onto two different OS'es.

Except from his and the obvious confusion created by true object oriented
languages, Real Basic is an excellent tool well worth the price.


On last place comes a true work horse. A wild card if you like. BlitzMax.
The reason to place this last is not due to poor quality. This is NOT a bad
product. In many ways it offers ways of doing things that is even stronger
compared to above mentioned tools. It cover both 2D/3D gaming as well
as productivity software development. You can do whatever you want
basically.
BlitzMax is the next generation Basic dialect which started with Blitz Basic
and Blitz Basic 3D (the latter one is still one of the biggest sources of
smaller windows indie games despite only directX 8.1 support).
It is a huge step up from earlier versions of the language.
It' module based so the possibility to expand in the future are very big.
The price is also very good. Fantastic value to be honest. Buy one
version of Windows, Mac and Linux packages and you own them all.
You can both develop and deploy in three major OS platforms.
Fantastic!

But here is where it starts to go wrong.

Despite all these good things BlitzMax has a number of real let downs.

First out is the poor Ide interface. It is so poor in function as well as look
that it feels like a beta software. Compared to the many GOOD Ide
interfaces to the older Blitz Basic 3D this feels really sad.

Next out comes the documentation. The Blitz Basic series has always
been plagued by this.
But with BlitzMax this is taken to a new low.
You do not get a physical book even. The included index and command
texts are extremely minimal. And while not incorrect they have much to
few examples showing how things are connected.
It is extremely hard to a beginner to get the full picture.
A thing very important since the language is less straight forward
compared to earlier versions. This is due to the object oriented direction
the language has been given.
Ok there are communities and online documents but this is simply not
enough. Not to such a strong, big and complicated language (in part).

These two things pushes this tool down to the bottom of the heap.
The strengths simply does not matter if they are overshadowed by the
weak points.
All this is a shame. The language has huge potential becoming one
of the biggest 3D:rd party development platform under 200 USD.
But as it stands it will simply never reach critical mass. Not to the
average user.

An honorable mention goes to Blitz Basic 3D which is very much
a viable and alive development tool many years after it's
conception.
As a Windows only software in all aspects it has it's limitations.
But with BB3D you can do all kinds of software as well as
2D/3D games which do NOT look bad at all.
See my earlier text of "Tank Universal" to get one proof of this.
And to make things even better: BB3D now, thanks to good
old age, has access to good documentation, many, many examples
and super nice Ide editors, which help development in so many way.
If price and user friendliness is the way to measure BB3D
would come first to the average small user. As least as long as
OS independence does not matter.
In many ways it is actually superior to BlitzMax.
You can find this software at the same place as BlitzMax.


So there you have it. The biggest development tools out there.
There are others. But these are the strongest candidates with
good OS independence at fair prices.
With these you can do nearly whatever you want.

So go forth and multiply and do not forget you compiler

Tags: Misc, Review, tools

The whole idea of making it possible to patent a thought or an idea
is simply moronic. Only a complete idiot would keep such a system
alive any longer period of time.
Now some companies are starting to file patents covering all sorts
of obvious game mechanics. Software patents are a total killer of
the whole computer scene, just wait and see. Mark my words:
if anything has ever created a reason to pirate commercial software
it is these things. Just to see the bloody fuckers lay down and die!

Read about some of it here.

Tags: Misc