‘Ello again!

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So, what’s happened since March? Well….

  • Rackspace screwed up my server. Tried restoring from a known-working backup, only for it to exhibit the same behaviour. Cue lots of “it’s your fault”, “no it’s your fault” emails between myself and Rackspace, and in the end I realised life is just too short and closed the account. So my plan to avoid downtime due to incompetent web hosts was foiled by an incompetent server provider instead. Now using FatCow, who seem marginally less gibbon-like than Dreamhost, but even they’ve had downtime already. How hard can it be?
  • The Effervescing Elephant has squeezed out a number of games already. Check out Bloxo, Big League Brawl, and a nifty little app called iVinyl Junkie. BLB Android will be released just as soon as Unity release v3.4, which contains lots of ‘droidy fixes. Streaker is about to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting public, too. We’ve got another seven projects underway at the moment, so releases will be coming thick and fast.
  • Following a couple of trips to the UK, I finally passed my motorbike test. I can legally wrap myself round a bike of any size, whilst nervously trying to avoid wrapping myself around the lumps of metal hurtling in the opposite direction. I’m sure I’ll be posting more on these experiences soon….

Site Revamp

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After last week’s cock-up by Dreamhost, which saw all the sites and email go down for a day, I’m moving everything over to a dedicated VPS. More expensive, but it’s a lot quicker and now if something goes wrong it’ll be all my own fault!

So, this blog will be getting an overhaul and all the downloads and stuff will be moving to a new home; but more on that when I get around to it!

Domino Solitaire Released

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A game I worked on last year has been released today. Whilst I was developing it, I had to use placeholder graphics which didn’t look too good, so it’s great to see it in its final, polished form!

There’s more info, screenshots, and a download link here.

Coming up for air

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Nine months since my last post. A lot has happened in that time. During the first half of last year, I was lucky enough to be in a position where I was turning away work. As the year went on, the number of offers increased, until I received a work offer so big it was too good to lose.

But, I was already busy, so I just had to bite the bullet and start hiring people. And lo, Effervescing Elephant was born. I’ve always been a bit odd when it comes to company names – Friendly Giants and Cheeky Group aren’t your usual game company names – so an obscure song by Syd Barrett felt a natural choice. That is, until you have to try and spell it down a crackly phone line to someone in India. Doh!

Since then we’ve developed seven games, some still in development, from a team of 8 programmers and 4 artists; mostly using Unity, one using Flash. All work from home, something I’ve been keen on for many years.

I still can’t believe in the current economic climate just how much business is coming in, but while it does I’m just going to enjoy it and ride the wave!

Alongside all that, there’s a few personal projects underway, so there’s going to be new outings for Blobbit and co, as well as some new ideas. Now all I need is a time machine!

Road Trip to Thessaloniki

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Back from a road trip to Thessaloniki. Started out by taking a wrong turn leading to the treacherous mountain road that freaked me out. Turned back and eventually found the nice new motorway. Lots of long tunnels that had Dee hyperventillating – what a pair we are!

Got to ‘saloniki, checked in the hotel, and wandered around the city trying to find a tourist map. None. Nowhere. Not a sausage. So we just wandered around and had a fantastic meal in the evening.

Checked out the next morning, and you know those cardboard things they put your key in with your room number written on it? On the inside of that was a detailed tourist map….

Next time we’re going to fly :D

Busy!

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So, you can tell I’ve been beavering away from the fact I haven’t touched this thing in ages. Again.

Just emerging from a breather from a long music visualiser project I’ve been working on. It’s very funky, and technically very demanding. Aside from all the graphics animations and stuff, responding to beat detection, it’s networked; so it’s got to transmit and respond to network traffic and display the results within 20ms so it stays in sync with the music. Involved writing lots of Objective-C code on the Mac and iPhone, which kept me on my toes too….

So while I’ve been wondering what project to do next, I’ve been revisiting our old friend Blobbit, and preparing him for his iPhone and iPad debut. Was originally going to port the Flash version using beta CS5, but seeing the performance I decided against it. Just as well, considering the recent childish events between Apple and Adobe.

So, I’m using the XNA version as a starting point, as both XNA and Unity share C# as a language. There’s still a lot to do to make things fit in with “the Unity way”, but it’s quite painless.

When I’m not doing that there’s a lovely multiplayer iPad game I’m working on too. That should hopefully be a quickie, but the design’s so wonderfully simple I’m hoping it’ll be a good’un.

Aside from that, I’ve been dieting. In short, I’ve high blood pressure and type-2 diabetese. I’ve managed to lose a stone in 2 weeks, so I’m hoping eventually the continued weight loss will resolve both conditions. Not had a beer for 3 weeks!

Doh!

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Well it seems the fix to Blobbit Push resolved the problem with Level 36, but another restriction in Flash has prevented the remaining levels from loading properly.

Hopefully I’ll fix that within the next two years!