Daily Things

Yeahhh!!!! Just got an email a couple of hours ago confirming that Vizati for Windows Phone 7 won first prize on Microsoft XapFest. Here’s a link, be warned it’s in Portuguese, although it’s on the Microsoft official webpage I couldn’t figure out how to translate that to English on the website itself. Just use Google translate or so. This is great for us since Vizati has now 2 awards and this time the prizes are a Xbox360 + Kinect and a Windows Phone 7 device. This is really great since I don’t have a device and I can now test the game properly and use it for future games development. The Kinect is also great but I more excited on using it for my own projects that actually playing it (geek). ...

UPDATE: Pressure works, Microsoft backs down over XBLIG changes: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a286779/microsoft-backs-down-over-xblig-changes.html Let me start by saying that this is just a personal opinion, nothing more, nothing less. It was with great sadness that I saw what the latest update to the Xbox360 dashboard did to Xbox Indie Games See? XBLIG is now on the “Speciality Shops”, right next to Avatar Marketplace, not even worthy of being the Games section. Even if you search a XBLIG game there it won’t return any result. ...

I don’t usually write reviews about games, maybe mostly because I don’t play as often as I used to. Most games today are just graphics graphics, I use super shader ray-traced lights but I forgot gameplay because I’m a tech demo. I grew up with a Super Nintendo playing Super Mario World and Zelda A Link to the Past, yeah shocker, no Spectrum to me :P, so I’m 2D gameplay type lover. ...

Engine/Framework considerations I’m currently struggling with the decision of dropping or not XNA support for PC and just keeping it for WP7 and Xbox360 (if XBLIG ever comes to Portugal). Why? Well one of the reasons is for porting purposes. Took me too long to port Vizati from C# to C++ and then having to implement an OpenGL render layer. If I had an C++/DirectX engine from the start it would be a question of replacing the rendering stuff to OpenGL. Or maybe just using OpenGL for Windows as-well. ...

Finally and after several weeks locked inside Different Pixel “dungeon” making my engine compatible with iOS, namely with iPhone/iPod touch I submitted today my first App to the Apple Store. The binary didn’t reported any issues so as of 15 September 2010 it’s “Waiting For Review” I have mixed feelings about either it’s going to be approved or rejected. On one hand we tested as much as we could, handed to some testers using iPhone 3, iPhone 4 and iPod touches. The only issues reported were usability or with game logic itself. No one reported any crashes, so I’m a little reassured on that part. On the other hand I’ve heard and read some major horror stories surrounding the submission process. Crashes that you can’t reproduce, people resubmitting same build again after failure being accepted, meaning that something is wrong there. Right now it’s a shot in the dark… ...

Just a quick post. GamersGate is having a Summer Special and Vizati is with a 50% discount, costing $4.47 / €3.72 during this week only Buy your copy here and check out other awesome promotions here This deal end up this August 15th

I think the first game I ever played was Tetris on a 286 if my memory isn’t failing me. My father worked at restaurant nearby a small apartment rental office, one of the dudes that worked there occasionally would let me play. I remember one day he had this new game, Prince of Persia, my chin just fell, awesome, I thought games couldn’t get any better. I remember always asking him to “type the code to play” as I called it, since it was DOS based. Probably something like “cd /games/prince~” =P I spent hours playing that game, I do know I never managed to see the end thought. ...

See the little black country on the map? It’s Portugal. The green zone are countries around Portugal that have XBOX Live Indie Games. We are surrounded by countries that can place their games on Creator’s Club but we were left behind. I won’t say there aren’t many others but they can speak for themselves. I’m tired of watching developers from other countries being able to place their games there and we have to sit and watch. ...

Ok, I know I’ve been making far too much posts about Vizati but this time it’s for a good reason, anyone interested in trying out the game can do it…right about NOW… http://www.differentpixel.com/2010/06/vizati-demo-available/ Also on a quick update, yesterday I had the chance to test Vizati at Windows Phone 7 Developer’s Hub on a real WP7 device, which was awesome. I want to thank João Antão, Nuno Costa, Ben Riga and Neil Hutson for the opportunity. ...

Damn you should see my face when they told me we won the competition XNA Pizza Night 2010 at Microsoft. Originally we developed Vizati to enter Dream Build Play 2010. We started developing the game on the beginning of February and during that month we discovered another competition would be held near Dream Build Play deadline. We went there with the same demo we sent to DBP. The audience really liked the game and we got very positive feedback. I remember during the first minutes someone in the audience asking if the game was already on sale and where could they buy it. ...