Game For Review, Board@Work

Ben submitted our iPhone game on Friday last week. He expects it to take about a week to be released, since his last game took about that long to be approved. Since then, we've made a video to showcase some of the gameplay.


I also helped him update his website. I'm not one much for web design, because its often frustrating and time consuming, but I think simplicity is nice. Hence, the design of his site conforms to that. You can check it out, along with info about the game, at SpigotGames.com

Technology Rocks

DVD Wall

Mom's away, so I packed the kids along with some toys and headed to my parents new (and empty) house for the night. I packed a laptop and a projector and we rented a couple DVDs. But the laptop, being from 2000, didn't have DVD player software on it. There wasn't an unsecured network to be found either and I thought all was lost. Then I remembered my phone, the Google Android G1. I did a quick search through its browser and was able to download VLC, a 17 MB file, then transferred it to the laptop. Problem solved. Technology sure is neat.

New Logo for Spigot Games

I offered to make Ben at Spigot Games a new logo for his game company. It was selfish of me because I didn't like his existing logo very much. This is an improvement.

The drop shadow one is the one he is using. It helped give it some depth I think, though I'm 50/50 on which one I like more.

Board@Work

Board at Work
The game play is coming along nicely. The game is really fun to play. Game balancing and design is really an interesting subject, one that is undoubtedly overlooked by players. If we do this right, this should be one of the highest scores ever! (Only because the game score vs. time balance is in the works.)

FYI, Photo taken with my G1, ha.

Welcome to the Light Side

I own a iPod Touch now. Here you can see a development version of the game I'm working on. It's been really exciting. Ben at Spigot Games is really open to my suggestions and thoughts; its really awesome. So much so that I've earned myself a game design credit in addition to graphics. W00t!

My wife is a little bothered by the purchase and rightfully so. Hopefully this gig will pay out well enough to pay for my purchase.

What do I mean by "Welcome to the Light Side?" Well, certain people who know me know my issues with Apple. I applaud them for their success and innovation, but I'm disgusted by certain sales tactics. Case in point, the iPod touch doesn't use a standard USB interface. If you want to buy White cables to match your iPod, they cost 10x as much as the black ones. In all actuality though, the iPod is impressing me in certain ways. It's snyc with iTunes is pretty cool and easy (though iTunes is a weird application IMO). It also suffers a little compared to my G1 with its "keyboard". I can type 100x faster on the Android G1. See this.

DeVry Fall 2008-2009 Over

Last night I took the final for GSP-280, Simulation Design. It took me 30 minutes of the hour allocation. I need 49% to get an A. Interestingly, the professor e-mailed me today and said that the final was increased to 3.5 hours and that I could retake it if I wanted. I responded with a no-thank-you.

My other class, GSP-130, System Architecture and Assembler, was a different story. This class was a little more challenging. The logic of programming isn't hard, but the syntax of registers and the little gotchas were often frustrating. Regardless, I took the final tonight, going into it with 667/1000 points. The final worth an additional 300. I need at least 203 points to get an A.


My wife thinks I'm obsessed with getting A's, but I just want to know that I'm capable to my max.

Next semester (Spring 09) I've registered for something a little different.

CIS-246, Connectivity with Lab. This is essentially a networking class.
PSY-C305, Motivation and Leadership. Name says it all.

I had intended on taking something else, but when I called to register for it the adviser said I already took it. I hadn't, but my transfer credits counted towards it. My original adviser had misinformed my of my transfer credits. This advisor however made it a point to update the DeVry online information, "My Degree Navigator". A year plus and their database was out of whack. The whole time I just thought the tool was useless, but apparently it has some value. (Note a degree of sarcasm here. This is why I don't do any registering or bill paying online because what it says online hasn't yet meshed with reality.)

Back in the Box

My 360 is home now. It came back on Friday, but I had lent all my games and controllers to a co-worker since I wasn't going to get much use out of them. Thus, I wasn't able to play again until today.

The system is working well it seems, though my licensed downloads are acting funny. Braid for instance lost its saved games. Haven't tested much else. Far Cry 2 works and now that I've tasted of it again, its difficult to shelve it until after finals and my iPhone work is done.

I'm going to take my final in GSP-280 now, should be a breeze. I'm at 101%, so the 200 point final should be easy to blow through.

Board@Work

We came up with a game name, I think it really works too.

Here's one of the prototype icons for the game.