Survivors

In a little less the 24 hours, over the course of Friday/Saturday, we created not 1 new applications, but two.

The Hack-a-Thon kicked off at 6’o-clock Friday evening at the Champlain Mill in Winooski Vermont. We had come in a few hours earlier to set up our equipment and sign in. We had a great little corner in what used to be an old retail store; back in the day the mill, used to be a mall.

Instead it found itself crammed with over 100 different developers, ranging from students from nearby Champlain, St. Mikes, and UVM, to professionals. Teams were as small as 1 and as large as five.

We came in with four valid ideas that we believed fit the initial criteria: Make an app that in some way is helpful to the Vermont community and utilizes at least 1 of the data sets. Earlier that week we had been given the data sets, and it was almost too much, we could basically use anything that was available to the public.

We deliberated for about an hour, narrowing our choice down to what we ultimately called BarterVT. Just like it sounds, BarterVT would allow Vermont residents to post what they had to trade as well as what they were interested in.

Utilizing google maps posters would appear as pins. Anyone could search by city to see all available bartering opportunities available to them. You can see the finished product HERE.

There was some risk in attempting this though:

1.  we had never done anything like it before


2. The Google Maps API is written in Java Script. :( which is no fun, Mike told me.

The other thing was that for this project, I was basically useless. My java script skills are rusty, and Mike had been poking at Google Maps earlier in the week, so he was the most qualified to try to tackle that part. Matt was creating our database and handling the website aspect of things, the portal where users could create listings. The PHP he wrote was what passed the information gathered over to Mike to be viewed with Google Maps. Marguerite was in charge of UI, which left me out.

So I started my own project.

I wanted to create something simple, a scrollable, dynamic array of images. In order to shoehorn the concept into helping Vermont I decided to learn how to do REST api calls in AS3, and created an application that plucked images that were tagged as Vermont from the Flickr photostream. And the best part is, is that it works!

So overall, a tired, yet successful weekend at the hack-a-ton.

 

HackVT

So tomorrow we won’t be coming in to work, because instead we will be across the street!

This year MyWebGrocer is holding the annual Vermont Hackathon, an event that brings Vermont software developers together. We will have 24 hours to create an app that will in some way help the Vermont community.

The only other stipulation is that the application must use one of the many free open data sets that have been provided. The list of them is massive, ranging from NASA to a list of Vemont Cheese makers, so basically the sky is the limit.

Final products are graded on how closely they comply with the theme (of being useful to Vermonters), innovation, presentation, user experience, and overall quality.

So we are going to give it a shot, there is a little reward for the first place product, however the event is more about getting like minded individuals together to encourage cooperation, as well as letting developers, who have all probably been working on persistent projects, to let go and be creative.

Whatever we end up creating, I’ll let you all know on Monday.

Congrats Lucas!

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare has been released!

I posted about the game a while back when it was first put up on Kickstarter and again in its last moments when it successfully cleared its funding goal.

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare began as a mod on the source engine, called Age of Chivalry. From its success Torn Banner studios was created. Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, created with the Unreal 3 engine is impressive to look at, gritty/brutal melee combat coupled with the chaos of siege engines makes for a truly unique experience.

Lucas, who graduated with us in May, went to work for them a few months ago and now emerges with a shipped title under his belt that is now available on steam. For more information, or to purchase the game head on over to Steam!

 

8.

I am not a big television person, in my opinion its already been eclipsed by the superior services of Hulu (ads are terrible), but yesterday I turned it on and saw for the first time a windows 8 ad.

The new OS will be arriving in less than 2 weeks now and I don’t know of anyone who is holding their breath in anticipation.

It’s actually quite the reverse, from all reports Windows 8 could be one of the biggest blunders by Microsoft since the abomination they called Vista. I jumped in on the developer preview almost sixth months ago and watched as it blue screened when I tried to install some drivers… On the upside, they had one of the best Blue Screen images I have ever seen and sincerely hope that they kept it.

Metro – The new flagship layout of all things Microsoft will be an integral feature in Windows 8. Mike has a Windows 7 phone with Metro and I can’t help but say it does have a sleek and well organized appearance. The Developer preview also came with an early layout of Metro and from my experience adding its look and feel was a poor choice.

Metro is perfect for touch interfaces with large panels (easy to tap) and sliding features (simple to drag). However in a mouse and keyboard interface, the reality is that the interface is too simple. Scrolling left to right with the mouse is unintuitive and because of the high fidelity of a normal computer monitor the panels feel as they are a waste of valuable space.

Windows 8 is not all bad. We finally get native multi-monitor support (finally), native USB 3 support, improved Task manager, etc.

But the biggest news will be the introduction of the Microsoft Store, a blatant attempt to copy iTunes, and where everything becomes controversial. Gabe Newell, President of Valve, spoke out against this feature, saying that the top tier PC/OEM’s will leave the market and that margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people.

The issue is that on the Windows RT version will only support applications that are sold directly through the windows store. Which means that only applications they approve will run on these devices, in short they are creating a monopoly on a platform, which has long been open and free for users to do what they want with.

Keep Them Coming Back

Games, like all media, demand a time commitment.

But unlike many others, games usually have a much longer lifetime. Books, depending on your reading speed, can take anywhere between a few days to a week at most and film only asks for about an hour or two of your time.

But Games, games can last anywhere between a few minutes to an endless number of hours.

For reviewer’s sake, a games length is usually determined by the time it takes to “complete” them. This “completion” point is determined usually by a story element, if there is one, ends. Yet most games have additional content that extends beyond the primary narrative arc of the game. This additional content, whether in the form of multiplayer, side quests, world completion, etc. changes the definition of completion.

A player may continue to explore and interact with the world of the game beyond its predetermined length, which is often built into the design. Games are becoming less of a product, and more of a service. Content is continually rolled out to entice players to continue their experience. The longer a player plays, the more likely it will be that they will spend additional money on said game.

And now it’s October 15^th, which means according to retailers Halloween stuff was in the windows two weeks ago. And now games have jumped on the bandwagon. Guild Wars 2 will be coming out with holiday Themed Content, when Borderlands was released the Zombie Island of Doctor Zed came out during the end of October, The Festival of Blood DLC for Infamous 2, TF2 now has an annual Halloween event, and the list goes on.

The events will start up this week and into next week. I’ll post some of the best ones here.

#’s

Over the past few days I have seen some articles written in not only the gaming press, but in the normal media as well about the current NPD numbers of the industry.

Gaming Faces Its Archenemy: Financial Reality is head line for the New York Times article, I recently read through. The article goes into depth in how much sales have dropped over the course of the year and then begins to make comparisons to the famous crash of the game industry in the 80’s.

The article paints the industry to be in dire straits and on the verge of another crash; however the truth could never be farther. These numbers, as stated in the article, are purely based on retail only sales.

Game Informer just released a similar article about NPD numbers, stating the same facts the physical sales were on the decline by 20%, however they did acknowledge that if digital sales had been added, the resulting NPD numbers would have shown that game sales are on the rise.

I attended MIGS, the Montreal International Game Summit, which is a miniature version of GDC about 2 years ago when a representative of Valve gave a keynote. During his presentation he reveled the sales data for just Team Fortress 2 (TF2). The graph was unbelievable… When Super Meat Boy was released on Steam, the Super Meat team said that the game sold four times as well as it did on Xbox Live (XBLA)

I for one cannot remember the last time I bought a physical copy of a game, nor do any of my friends. With the advent of Steam and other digital distribution platforms who needs physical media anymore?

The thing is other industries have trouble accepting this fact.

As a rule of thumb, every three years is a major technology shift. The Game Industry is one of the leaders in creating new technology, so naturally it adapts to the new practices developed. Others like Film, Television, Newspaper and Print, have a lag time in adjusting to these technology changes and are suffering for it.

At the end of the day, the Game Industry is here to stay and it’s not going anywhere.

Reaching for the Sky

Yesterday, the team at Irrational put up a countdown timer. In 9 days we will finally be getting another taste of the world of Columbia in Bioshock Infinite.

For those who may not know, Bioshock came out 2007 and was heralded as one of the most ground breaking games of a decade. It took place in Rapture, a ruined underwater city where scientists, free thinkers, and geniuses of all professions could work in peace without having to be under the heel of the government.

The world, heavily influenced by the writing of Ayn Rand in her novel Atlas Shrugged, predictably falls apart and the player must find a way to survive to reach the surface.

Filled with some of the most unique art direction of its kind, a powerful story, and tight gameplay, Bioshock went on to win dozens of awards.

Four years later, the Irrational team revealed their next project: Bioshock Infinite. However, players will not be returning to the underwater city of Rapture, instead they will take on a new persona and be traveling to the floating city of Columbia.

The trailer, seen HERE, is simply amazing and promises to deliver a game that will once again rock the game industry.

Since its release in July 2011, the drip of information covering this game has dwindled to silence. A set of four videos showcasing a few enemies were released later in the year, as well as podcasts from the development team and voice actors, but throughout the entirety of 2012 there has yet to even be a whisper.

But the quiet will end! In 9 day something is happening, and the whole of the game industry will be watching.