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 – 
“The Princess Bride” is a great movie. It’s one of those classic films from the 1980’s. It has adventure, comedy, romance and lots of great quotes. The lines from that movie are memorable. It’s something that I think is lacking in today’s movies. What does that have to do with today’s free .wav file? I was reminded of a quote from Vizzini, “Go back to the beginning.” When something went wrong with a plan, they had to go back to the start. Nothing’s wrong here today, but starting at the beginning is a great place to learn. That’s why I chose Boop #3 for this week’s free sound effect.
While creating the “Sound Effects — By Photics” collection, I researched Hollywood style audio techniques. Quite often, I would see references to coconut halves. Even from just watching old Bugs Bunny cartoons, I knew that a coconut could be an excellent way to mimic the sound of a horse galloping. I attempted to recreate such an effect, but I was unsuccessful. It’s a lot harder than it looks. I was especially astounded by the sheer difficulty of splitting a coconut in half.
After creating 500 sound effects,