Last Friday I sat down and started to cut out little pieces of paper. With these little pieces and a sheet of graph paper Mike and I played a rough paper prototype of a turn based Strategy game.
Three days later I had a working build, and HERE it is.
So please go ahead and play and let me know what you think on either facebook or via email on birnamwoodgame@gmail.com. Your input is important because by Friday, we will be sending it along to apple.
Our submission to apple will be a dry run for the game. It will come out for free and that way we can build a base of users who might be interested in it, as well as incorporate their feedback should we decided to push the game to the next level where we build it in Unity.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Sandy Strikes!
So our landlord started to hand out pamphlets letting all the residents know that they should probably stock up on the basics. Road Crews had been prepped and ready, schools were preemptively closed, and people were sent home early yesterday.
And this morning we wake up to bright skies, a few downed trees and a rainbow.
So for us here in Vermont, just another day at work, our thoughts go out to everyone affected by the storm.
And this morning we wake up to bright skies, a few downed trees and a rainbow.
So for us here in Vermont, just another day at work, our thoughts go out to everyone affected by the storm.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Techjam Wrap up
The Tech Jam is over and done with for the year, and I have to say that I really enjoyed the experience.
It was a great chance for us to introduce ourselves to not only the Vermont tech community, but also to the public. At the TechJam we showcased Loc, playable on an iPad as well as on a large television we borrowed from Marguerites parents.
We pulled out all the leftover kick starter goods, printed a banner for Off-shoot Studios, and created some simple twitter cards. By the end of Saturday, almost all of it was gone.
The first half of the day Friday came as a tidal force of middle school students. They we bused up to Winooski from nearby districts and at points we had a crowd two or three people deep trying to see what we had available. It mellowed out after the kids got back on their buses to head on back to school, and Saturday was pretty laid back.
Developers tend to really like these events. Letting the public play your game is always a great moment, and watching someone get it, and get pulled into the experience is priceless. After all of the negative comments on Steam Green light, it felt really good to have other people tell us that they enjoyed the game.
It was a great chance for us to introduce ourselves to not only the Vermont tech community, but also to the public. At the TechJam we showcased Loc, playable on an iPad as well as on a large television we borrowed from Marguerites parents.
We pulled out all the leftover kick starter goods, printed a banner for Off-shoot Studios, and created some simple twitter cards. By the end of Saturday, almost all of it was gone.
The first half of the day Friday came as a tidal force of middle school students. They we bused up to Winooski from nearby districts and at points we had a crowd two or three people deep trying to see what we had available. It mellowed out after the kids got back on their buses to head on back to school, and Saturday was pretty laid back.
Developers tend to really like these events. Letting the public play your game is always a great moment, and watching someone get it, and get pulled into the experience is priceless. After all of the negative comments on Steam Green light, it felt really good to have other people tell us that they enjoyed the game.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Vermont TechJam
We’re are back again at the Champlain Mill, one room down from where we spent all day programming the weekend before. So through today and tomorrow, from 10 until 5, we will be manning our very own Birnam Wood Games booth!
The Vermont TechJam is a once a year event that brings the software/tech community to the public spectrum. Job Seekers can submit their resume in person to a variety of different companies looking to hire and those looking to hire the services of a technology company can sit down and talk.
So come on down to the Champlain Mill in Winooski, our table is A9, either Marguerite or I will be manning the fort, so feel free to ask us questions and play Loc on either the iPad we have available or on the computer.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Flickr Stream
Finally got my HackVT Project live and on the web.Had some serious problems getting it up, was working fine in engine, but the moment I stuck it on the web things started to fall apart. Had a crossdomain.xml page and everything. Went back onto campus Tuesday night to pick Manely’s brain about how to fix it, but for once I stumped him.
He did point me in the direction of Flash Firebug, a firefox plugin, that allowed flash debug messages to appear on the web! And bam, I instantly get an error message, about an hour later I have it working on the web.
So please go check it out here:
And let me know what you think.
So why did I make it?
Well, I wanted to create an aesthetically pleasing application that focused on photography that incorporated moving images.
Movement was a key aspect because it lends a few things: 1. Makes the application feel alive and dynamic, information is always changing and I wanted it to feel fresh and new every time. 2. Most users, when browsing images immediately begin scrolling down the page, so why not make the images move.
Possibilities:
This is a unique, engaging way to view a photographer’s portfolio, and artists work, or a company’s finished products in a slick new way. This is done way easier with a folder of images, as you can see here.
What I might add:
The ability to pause the screen, select individual images to see more about them, save them into favorites, search additional databases, make this available for free on mobile.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
100th Blog Post!
For every day we have been in the office there is a blog post, which means that Birnam Wood Games has also reached its 100th day. Four former students, recent graduates, have managed to not only start, but maintain a game company in Burlington VT.
Go us.
And this weekend we will be at the VermontTech Jam to showcase Loc and interact with the Vermont community! So come by and visit our booth at A9.
Right now we are continuing to plug away at our upcoming iOS game, had some issues with the latest build we just pushed out to our testing pool. Those who have an iPhone 5 or iPad 3 seem to be unable to play it. Mike thinks that should be an easy fix, so hopefully we can get it out the door.
Our potential future work includes creating a website from the ground up, so Matt has been busy buried in all things Drupal, seems like we might have to create a custom module.
Marguerite has been chipping away at the ginormous asset list we created for the iOS game, and I am still trying to figure out how to get my hackVT Flickr search program on the web, oh a Daisy is currently asleep.
It’s just another day at the office.
Go us.
And this weekend we will be at the VermontTech Jam to showcase Loc and interact with the Vermont community! So come by and visit our booth at A9.
Right now we are continuing to plug away at our upcoming iOS game, had some issues with the latest build we just pushed out to our testing pool. Those who have an iPhone 5 or iPad 3 seem to be unable to play it. Mike thinks that should be an easy fix, so hopefully we can get it out the door.
Our potential future work includes creating a website from the ground up, so Matt has been busy buried in all things Drupal, seems like we might have to create a custom module.
Marguerite has been chipping away at the ginormous asset list we created for the iOS game, and I am still trying to figure out how to get my hackVT Flickr search program on the web, oh a Daisy is currently asleep.
It’s just another day at the office.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Hack-a-thon Part 2
On Saturday morning things got a little tense.
Matt took off at 11 the night before, marguerite left at midnight, I turned in at 1, and Mike was up until 3 in the morning. We came back in at 8 to pick up where we left off and quickly started to run into some problems.
When searching through the towns, just to view who was willing to barter, no matter how many results were stored in the database, we would only be able to view 1 of them. We ran in circles for hours trying to figure out this experience breaking bug. Even when the hack-a-thon finished the issue still persisted.
It wasn’t until the following Sunday morning Mike discovered that we had hit our limit of API calls that can be made to Google Maps within a 24 hour period…
So it was at 3 we sat down, a little defeated and frustrated at our application, to watch the other 30 groups present.
The best thing about these really tight time limits is that it there is always some really great ideas that find root. For instance: These guys created an app which allows any user to report a sighting of wildlife. The application takes in their location data and the current weather outside. This could potentially be used to track the migratory pattern of animals, or the spread of infestations, or even dangerous animal sightings. But this group went beyond that, they create their own API so that other developers could use this new dataset.
There was a downside to hackVT though, at least in my opinion. This year it was really well organized, tables had been laid out, teams were pre matched to their location, big money was at stake, and somehow it all felt wrong…
It was somehow just too slick.
For me, these kinds of experiences are like camping: you throw everything you might need in a car & go. If you leave something behind, you leave it behind and you figure out how to live without it.
HackVT didn’t feel like that, it had grown out of a grassroots livelihood and had become corporate and too big for its own shoes.
Matt took off at 11 the night before, marguerite left at midnight, I turned in at 1, and Mike was up until 3 in the morning. We came back in at 8 to pick up where we left off and quickly started to run into some problems.
When searching through the towns, just to view who was willing to barter, no matter how many results were stored in the database, we would only be able to view 1 of them. We ran in circles for hours trying to figure out this experience breaking bug. Even when the hack-a-thon finished the issue still persisted.
It wasn’t until the following Sunday morning Mike discovered that we had hit our limit of API calls that can be made to Google Maps within a 24 hour period…
So it was at 3 we sat down, a little defeated and frustrated at our application, to watch the other 30 groups present.
The best thing about these really tight time limits is that it there is always some really great ideas that find root. For instance: These guys created an app which allows any user to report a sighting of wildlife. The application takes in their location data and the current weather outside. This could potentially be used to track the migratory pattern of animals, or the spread of infestations, or even dangerous animal sightings. But this group went beyond that, they create their own API so that other developers could use this new dataset.
There was a downside to hackVT though, at least in my opinion. This year it was really well organized, tables had been laid out, teams were pre matched to their location, big money was at stake, and somehow it all felt wrong…
It was somehow just too slick.
For me, these kinds of experiences are like camping: you throw everything you might need in a car & go. If you leave something behind, you leave it behind and you figure out how to live without it.
HackVT didn’t feel like that, it had grown out of a grassroots livelihood and had become corporate and too big for its own shoes.
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