My New Image Editing Tool

Originally, when I got my mac, I was using Paint.NET on my PC to generate or manipulate any art that I needed.

This has been a pain.

Yesterday, I tried Pixen.  While I’m still getting used to how it handles selections and such, it looks like its going to suit my need.

So I recommend this tool.

My Ten Dollar Bike

I purchased a bicycle on Saturday.

My wife and I were cruisin’ the rummage sales, and a bike was on my list of things to get.

It’s kind of old and dinged up, and looks like it took some abuse from a teenage rider or two.

Stuff was rusty, the tires were flat.

And it was ten bucks, so I bought it.

It turned out that the flat didn’t come from a busted tube, so I was able to inflate, WD-40 the gears and chain, and it was usable.

The seat was horribly uncomfortable, and visually the tires are cracking, so when my wife and I went to Wal-Mart, we bought her a new bike for $70, and a few things for my bike:

• new brake pads – $5 (the old ones are dried out rubber and not working as well) for the back set only
• new seat – $16 (much better than the other one)
• two new inner tubes – $12
• one new tire – $12 (they only had one that was the type I wanted, so I’ll get the other one when they restock)

I only put the seat on so far.  I’m not sure how well the brake pads are going to work, or if I’ll need a new set of brake clamps.

But so my new $10 bike has cost, so far, $55, and will likely cost somewhere in the range of $80-100 before I’m done.

So, my $10 bike will cost more than my wife’s brand new shiny bike.

And my wife kept asking me why I didn’t just buy a new shiny bike if I wind up costing the same anyway.

And she also objects to me calling it a $10 bike because it costs more than that.

And I told her that if she has to ask why I’m going about my bike this way, then she can’t possibly understand why.

In other news, I’m making a significant change in the direction of PlayDeez Games.

Since it has made very little money in and of itself, and it pretty much remains a free repository of my games, I’m not going to mess with that, but the direction and focus will get a bit of a nudge.

Since I’ve already got the mac mini and the ipod touch, and the ability to publish to it, I’m going to concentrate there.

PlayDeez Games is going to be a electronic games ministry.  The products are going to feature a nice button with a a cross on it, or the little fish symbol that, when pressed, will go to a screen that tells a person about Jesus.

The games themselves will not necessarily be bibically or religiously themed, but they will not include subject matter incompatible with my beliefs either (which means – basically no change to game content, as I don’t write games I’d object to anyway)

I’m not going to bible-thump. I’m not going to nag the player every three seconds with “Jesus Loves You!” popups. I’m not going to attempt to proselytize.  But the icon will be there, just in case you want to investigate.

But you will, from looking at the title screen, *KNOW* that a christian created this game, and be able to get more information about that, if you wish.

Also, there will be two identical versions of the game: free and paid ($0.99).  These versions will be completely identical other than the name. This gives people a completely voluntary means of donating to the effort.  This is at least at the outset, and we’ll see where this goes.

So, this is a new direction, and I’m excited about it.

The first game is called “Feed The Fish” and is roughly based on the electronic toy I made for facebook of the same name, but more fully featured.

Next on the list is  another “virtual pet” called “Touch the Rhombus”, which has the same basic theme of my old “Click the Yellow Rhombus” games, but completely different gameplay. The rhombus will have a “mood” and “say” things to you when you touch it.  It’ll be cute.

I choose these two because they are quickly implementable, and I want to get the ball rolling.

So now I’m a missionary to iTunes and the internet in general.

Also, this is my 100th post to my new blog.  Unlike traditional 100th posts, this post is not totally consumed with talking about how it is the 100th post.

God Bless.

iWerewolves and iWanderer

Here is a game written a bazillion years ago in line number basic. 

And these are images of a quick port I am doing (to practice my newly developed Interface Builder and UI skills).

Me v. Interface Builder, take two (or probably five)

After a great deal of struggle with it, I believe I have finally made a breakthrough in understanding how to use Interface Builder to make a UI that I can actually use from XCode.

In fact, it is actually starting to make sense to me, which is a scary thought.  This is what happens when I force myself to use my Mac for a week.

HamQuest Progress

I’ve got some new screenshots of the iPhone version of HamQuest. Behold and otherwise enjoy.

Far, Far Away

I’m in Saint Paul, Minnesota for a week of training for my job.

Which means I’ve got an ample opportunity to work on a game.

I brought my mac mini with me.  It’s small and travels well.

I arrived on Sunday night, and played at attempting to learn Interface Builder and Make It Work.

Over the course of two evenings, I can now confidently put controls onto the same exact form that comes in the view based application boilerplate.

However, putting multiple view resources into the application and having them load them and change between them is something that eludes me still.

So, I went back to hamquest.

I’ve been quite a distance from Objective-C for a while, but I’ve gotten back into the groove, and so the next three evenings should be productive.

However, I don’t much like not being home.  I prefer being at my house, in the company of my wife and dog, not some best western in the middle of a former train yard.

But so it goes.

Installation Weekend

This weekend, I installed apache, php, and mysql on one of my home boxes.

You know, just to have a local dev environment.

It’s hard to make anything more complex than Feed the Fish without having a local web server and all of the plumbing behind it.

I also started a bitstrips series.  This is about my fourth attempt at something worthwhile.

I’ve been watching the old filmation Flash Gordon cartoon, so I’m starting out by lampooning some of the cliche elements of Flash Gordon.

I suppose I also have a heavy influence of 60s television and pulp sci-fi in general.  I’ve watched a lot of Star Trek: TOS lately.

So, I present to you: Peptide Kangaroo Umbrella! (click to go to bitstrips for the rest of the, for the moment, short series)