Elonian Nomad - 3rd Strike

I ran into this great little nugget just a few hours ago. If you’ve seen it, good for you. If you haven’t, then sharing it will be my little Chirstmas 2007 present for you.

“Battleships Forever” is a free indie game made by Sean “th15″ Chan, a 22 year old Singaporean. It’s a space-ship themed tactical RTS focusing on the control of a handful of ships with varying capabilities.

This game just has to be seen (and played) to believe. It’s 2d (well, that’s technically debatable, but for all intents and purposes, it is 2d), but it’s 2d done very well. Rather than just copying mechanics from the different RTSs around, Sean has added little twists that, combined with the tactical focu, makes the whole experience very fresh and innovative. The visual effects he put in shows care in craftsmanship, and the amount of control and you have with your ships (each ship has individual targettable parts, each weapon/contraption can be manipulated individually) shows depth.

This guy has pulled out all the stops, and it shows. It’s already very impressive as it is, and remembering that practically just 1 guy made this makes it an even more impressive achievement.

More screenshots can be found in the website, but why just look at screens when you can download it and play for free!

Kudos to you, Sean! This little gem was one of the things that made my Christmas this year.

• » Comments (0)

Can’t sleep, and it’s annoying. I really want to sleep, but a lot of stuff is floating in my head, as usual. Perhaps a little typing will help.

I just finished watching “The Contender”. Normally I’m very excited about the fights, but the fight tonight was a bit dirty, and I’m not sure I agree with the judges’ decision regarding who won. Perhaps they were right, Sugar Ray seemed to agree with them, so they must’ve seen punches I didn’t. Besides, I was a little distracted with setting up XNA Studio Express.

XNA is something Microsoft came up with to help in game development. The intriguing thing about it is that its a single development platform that can be used for both Windows and Xbox game development, you use the exact same code, you just re-compile it to the proper platform. It’s actually a very good idea, IMHO, given the rising development costs of making games, this is a welcome thing. The item I installed is the Express version which is mainly for trying it out and for hobbyists. As far as I know, you have to use C# for this. I’m not sure if C/C++ can be used with it in the future versions, or perhaps in the Professional version (which ain’t available yet).

As much as the Wii has carved itself a niche, I don’t think it’ll take the crown from Sony yet. Xbox 360, on the other hand, has a shot, but I think it may not be in this generation. Microsoft is doing a lot of things right with the direction they are taking Xbox, and I honestly think that the Xbox has a good shot at beating the PS in Western countries. Will it be in this generation? That I doubt, but I think Xbox will be taking a greater share of the market than Sony would be comfortable with. Perhaps the next console war will be on Microsoft’s side.

As much as the PS3 started out on the weak side, we have to keep in mind that Metal Gear and Final Fantasy are really huge Sony exclusives, and the new versions haven’t come out yet. Before “Gears of War”, Microsoft only had Halo. PS still has a historical and library advantage, but I think Nintendo had that advantage too when the first PS came around. Xbox is doing a lot to make the system developer friendly, which will probably appeal mostly to the Western developers, but I think the other key thing they are doing right is Xbox Live. For me, online play IS the new frontier, and Microsoft has a huge advantage in that area (compared to Sony and Nintendo at least).

This is gonna be a very interesting next few years for the consoles. While the battle rages on, I think I better start learning C#.

• » Comments (0)

The past few days have been those of adjustments. I’m slowly moving to my next phase, although I think I’m still a few months overdue for this. I found myself in the middle of a struggle to get moving and to stay relaxed, and I’m trying to get a grips on how I want things done. I have been looking back into the ways I wanted to make a living years ago, and I’m slowly getting back into the verges of wanting to accomplish things instead of resting.

In the process, I have found myself going slowly back to my roots in video games and animation. I have resumed my Guild Wars and Warcraft III, and I’ve been watching quite a few works of animation. Illusions of grandeur in excellence of playing is slowly being replaced by the old honest fun and adventure of gameplay.

Chance would have it that at my routine course of scouring for information I run across a topic close to my heart, Street Fighter. I have actually been thinking of purchasing an XBOX360 if it offers Street Fighter online play, but at this point in time I fear that there are still some
issues to be overcome (ie. official XBOX support in the Philippines, remnants of the old network lag). Then these issues are fixed, I will seriously consider finally getting myself a console.

In the meantime, I ran into this software development/game development topic regarding “Street Fighter: The Movie” video game, based on Van Damme’s film. It was a pretty bad game, and apparently one of the developers of the game decided to let some things out of his chest. It’s a story of how a dream opportunity comes and how even when all the cards are in place, things go to hell. All software engineers worth their salt have probably gone through such an ordeal, as had I. Being a software developer, video gamer, and Street Fighter fan just makes this a lot more personal.

I would recommend all software developers, video game fans, and Street Fighter fans to read his story.

• » Comments (0)

Given the longer periods of time I have for now, I was finally able to get the push I needed to move on from the pure games aspect of my vacation to “games + something productive” phase. I ended up deciding to learn Java. I’ve used it once in undergrad, but since then, I haven’t programmed anything in it. It’s ubiquitous enough to be useful to know, and I have been wanting to see it hands on.

For now, I’m going through the basic nuances, tinkering with small stuff (very small) so I can get a feel of how Java is organized, what you can do, and how to typically make things work. I’ll probably tinker in a progressive stuff that will allow me to learn certain aspects of the language that I want or need in preparation for the bigger stuff I may come up with along the way.

So far, it’s enjoyable. I wonder when the annoying stuff will start to surface…?

• » Comments (0)