It’s called a ‘cowcatcher’
for a reason
It’s been pretty quiet here for a couple of months, but I’m now back on track with some great news..
My wife and I have driven the final spike in our own figurative transcontinental railway, as I have just accepted a transfer to Locomotive Games in Santa Clara. Our cross country adventure from Massachusetts to California is underway with a full head of steam, and short of derailing this post with what (to the un-trained eye) may be a series of truly awful railroad references, we’re thrilled about the move.
I’m leaving behind some great friends and talented folks at Helixe, but I’m excited to join the Locomotive team. New horizons!
I expect posting to be sporadic as we settle in. I’m not even sure what state my computer is in, and I mean that in just about every sense of that phrase.
Ok. I owe you a Lazarus and the Time Machine Part 2, but I can’t resist the chance to post a quite nearly timely World Cup inspired design.
I’ve consulted with experts in the field, and the consensus is that the World Cup involves Soccer.
In my mind this is quite nearly the same thing as Foosball, except that in Soccer the games are much longer and harder schedule.
I admit it. I’m not really an organized sports guy, and today’s design is less inspired by the World Cup and more by Rockstar’s latest table tennis opus.
The idea is simple:
Foosball + Wii = Awesome.
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Which seems to suggest to me that it was offline at some point, almost as if someone had deleted the gallery entry page by accident, and failed to notice it for a few weeks.
Not that could happen on a well run site like this one.
I took the opportunity to update the gallery software, so something good came out of this in the end.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.
I have been spending a bit of time with macro photography of late. I have a penchant for crawly critters [ link fixed ], which I have indulged for over a year now.
I’ve always had issues trying to take these photos indoors, or in dark places. Because the subject matter is so close to the lens, the built-in flash will frequently cast the shadow of the lens into the picture.
So, armed with a high-output halogen flashlight, a few bucks worth of supplies, and some junk I had lying about the house, I built a hands-free rig for lighting these tricky macro photographs*.
I documented the project over in the Chrome Cow Labs section. Stop by and take a look, then build your own!
*In the spirit of full disclosure, the wolf spider photo above was taken before I built the rig. I just like that photo…};^)
I’m testing a new WordPress plug-in I’m working on, and the site may behave a little erratically in places.
If you have been following the Design-A-Day adventure, you probably are aware of my goal (I mispelled that gaol…probably means nothing) of becoming proficient in Flash/ActionScript to the point where I can use it to prototype gameplay. I came back from GDC all fired up about prototyping, due in large part to the talk by Chris Hecker and Chaim Gingold. Sadly, it doesn’t seem to be available on-line, so you’ll have to make due with a summary.
I posted a couple of small games over in the game design section, but I have also been making noise for awhile about posting some of the lessons I have learned during this process, along with the code to back it up.
It begins. Gambol on over to Learning Flash, and start coding!
Look up at the top of the main page and you’ll see a new addition.
The Design-A-Tron Lite. Rewritten, a mere 20k, not counting the text for the database. I think it’s up to about 890+ billion potential combinations.
The new version of the full implementation is in the works. It has…more.
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