Video Games — Game Development in particular — is often viewed as a geeky thing that guys do. I doubt my romantic app “Secret Admirer” is going to significantly change that perception. However, if you are a geeky game developer guy, you might not want to overlook the construction of this app. I’m pleased with the way the Secret Admirer pinball game turned out. The secret — hitboxes. Invisible rectangles and circles define the areas of collision.
Continue reading “Hitboxes – Using Rectangles To Make Complex Shapes”
It’s not easy to find love. But with hundreds of thousands of apps on the iTunes App Store, there’s probably an “app for that” too. With Valentine’s Day on the way, I decided that I would try to create my own app for the season of romance. Inspiration stuck me when I was looking at greeting cards. A piece of paper with words — such a simple thing seemed expensive when compared to an app. I set out to create a 99¢ app that could work as a creating card. The result – 
If you’ve been following this website, you might have detected a strong hatred toward Adobe. I consider their software to be overrated, bloated and expensive. Sure, Photoshop and Illustrator were great — BACK IN THE MID 90’s — but the software just hasn’t progressed all that much since then. True, there are some nice new features in the latest version of Adobe’s Creative Suite. Are these features worth hundreds of dollars? I don’t think so. That’s why I purchased Pixelmator. I like to encourage competition!
Competition – that’s the basis of a capitalist economy. It’s the American way. The theory is that consumers will support the best products and services. Thus, the inferior companies will go wander off into the snow and die. It’s the stuff from high school history courses. It’s one thing to theorize about competition, it’s another to experience it first hand. New software called “SpriteDeck” reminded me of the intensifying Corona vs. GameSalad battle. It’s beautiful and frightening sight to behold.
When I first learned about the 2010 Apple TV, I thought it was an amazing. This device represented an opportunity for Apple to truly enter the living room — with a gaming console. Apple’s iTunes App Store is already putting fear into Nintendo. The biggest threat to the Wii and the Nintendo DS is not from Sony or Microsoft, but from Apple. With 99¢ games and ubiquitous Apple hardware, Nintendo is in trouble. The Apple TV can literally be a game-changer. But instead, the latest version of Apple TV has been rather wimpy.