Monday, 02:49 pm, 13 December 2004

I have been thinking about writing a simple Mac desktop game. The game that always springs to mind is Daleks for the Mac. I would like to write a cityscape game - were the game moves from buildings to streets. The object of the game would be to clear the city of rebel fighters. Ideally you could play either the rebels - who have benefit in numbers - or the other folk who have the benefit of air strikes.

Basically the game is counter based. Square grid. Limited movement. Limited vision into buildings and no vision limits along the streets.

The look and feel of the game is important. Initially I want do develop the gameplay in monochrome and then move to colour. More soon. Good afternoon.
Monday, 08:47 am, 13 December 2004

Sometimes Good Software Actually Dies

There are some programs I can't imagine not using. This is one of the sticking points in me dropping the Mac as my primary development platform. A few programs have never been ported to the PC and the ease of use of these programs - many of them free programs - isn't replicated in anything of a similar price on the PC. I've not estimated the functional cost of moving everything over to the PC. But I imagine all these factors considered, for me, the Mac is still a cheaper alternative. My wife's XP machine - whilst initially being the star of the show - has lost gloss with mounting hardware issues. Its level of general use has dropped dramatically and after a complete re-install the CDROM drive will only cope with smaller CD copies. No games etc on the machine. Limited internet surfing. An expensive mistake that needs reservicing to keep it useable.

It could be that if we had spent a little more initially we would have a better PC. But from my initial Windows flag waving - I've been wrong all my life narrative - the benefit of having a machine I can use without random crashes is great. It must be said, all my Mac at home hardware is circa 1997. But it doesn't cut my productivity in any real terms and without the ability to play the latest PC games - productivity plus.

There is a blip in this Mac forever narrative and that is the Classic, Carbon, Mach-O (ie Mac OS X only) break Apple made. Through Apple's Mac OS transitions there was a jump between the 68000 and the PowerPC. This was hardware and architecture related and there was a calming emulation period with mixed mode magic. But with the launch of Mac OS X which ran older Classic software through emulation of the old OS, the writing was on the wall that eventually you wouldn't be able to run the old software on the new machines. Not for hardware reasons, but because the software had changed.

I have a huge number of Classic programs that fill the I can't live without this category. Increasingly I am thinking, can I live without it.

For my own development, I have dropped Classic completely. In real terms, converting all my old code to Carbon (the transitional interface) took about a year and a half of very part-time work. In terms of functionality I could have added rather than implementing a Carbon version... I'm not clear what the time was productively worth. I think I would have written a Windows port sooner if I had the time free. But that is another issue.

Personally, I can't drop Carbon and move exclusively to Mach-O yet. I can't because my home Macs still run OS 9 exclusively. But in the interim, there is still a lot of development to be done. In the next few months I plan on reducing the number of Mac OS 9 machines I have. Hopefully with this reduction I will get a Mac OS X machine at home. The price on second hand machines has dropped over the past year. My plan is to move my home machines to a circa 2000 era of computing within the next 18 months.

Orks in Space

Following recent narrative about the sculptor and painter, Kirill, and an earlier narrative about the early Citadel Orc/Ork sculptor Kev Adams, I've asked Kirill for a sculpting/mould commission to create some metal Space Ork-esque rank and file figures of a Waffen-SS/Afrika Corp style similar to Kev Adams' earlier work. For me, this is what is missing in Games Workshop's range. Standard metal rank and file troops. I'm looking to commission five bodies, five heads and five weapons/arms etc. I'm thinking with this mix, diversity and difference of appearance will mask the same nature of the components.

Of course, as the figures will be original, I won't be able to use them in any official GW games. But for the new club army, of recent discussion, this makes real sense. I think Kirill is a genius when it comes to sculpting and setting a theme.

Good morning.
Friday, 09:11 pm, 10 December 2004

Platform Specifics

A change of servers during the week and some sidestepping on the website. Over the past few days, a lot of reading in the evenings and some code editing. The big work-throughs before the end of the year;

(1) Carbon events,
(2) Altivec/Velocity Engine, and,
(3) Contribution back to the CHUD toolkit.

Three Apple specific developments. Whilst going through this work, I'm also looking for an improved modularity so I can link improvements with the OS changes in the Noble Ape Simulation through to Noble Warfare.

Zug-gagoo WeFunk In Switzerland

Tonight WeFunk play the first of their Swiss shows. What kind of WeFunk fan am I? I should be front row popping and locking. But I'm at home in whitebread Wilmslow.

My MP3 stick has been playing the best of WeFunk to and from work for the past couple of weeks. It has been a luxury although I typically just hear the first twenty to thirty minutes. So my show preferences are the ones that start with a bang.

The MP3 stick also has sound recording possibilities. It makes me want to record another album. If nothing more with high fidelity mixing and low fi vocal samples. Give it the 'vocals recorded in prison' quality.

Good night.
Tuesday, 10:25 pm, 07 December 2004

Time Commanders - Take Two

I have an idea for a television program. Take four people who have never played tennis. Perhaps people who couldn't normally play a game of tennis for whatever reason. So let's assume you can find four people who have never seen a game of tennis played. Although I don't want to dwell on it, these players are probably physically restricted from playing tennis normally.

So you introduce the tennis ball and the racket. The tennis court. Then you film them playing a game of tennis. Is it watchable?

About a year ago (and you can see this in the Log Archive) I was transfixed by Time Commanders. Having played Total War: Rome and Medieval Total War, the pace of the program is lost. UKHistory is playing Time Commanders. I watched it again this evening.

The emotion that remains is why are these people on the program? Wouldn't it be better to watch actual professional tennis players. So what has happened over the past year? The amazement of the technology and the emotion of currency is removed. The lack of currency with Time Commanders - the single session nature of the program - I won't feel bad if I miss an episode.

The Heist

In contrast, tonight I watched the Heist on Channel Four. The glamour of theft. Old thieves tuning their skills. It's almost a tear jerker. But the program builds to the adrenalin of the actual theft. Similar to Time Commanders in progressive movement towards the crescendo except the Heist is about professionals.

This begs the question, who would be the expert tennis players of Time Commanders?

A Doll's House For Toy Soldiers

In April, I picked up a small bunker on eBay. I was a fan of the film 'the Bunker' and the bunker mentality is something I find fascinating in warfare. The early scenes of Saving Private Ryan - what does a bunker give you in warfare?

Running with this emotion, I commissioned a three level bunker from the eBay seller, cut into the side of the hill. Like a number connected with miniature battlefields, the commission has taken many months to take shape. But I received the following snaps from him last night.



It's a doll's house for toy soldiers. Stunning. Good night.

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