http://www.xiotexstudios.com Just another WordPress weblog Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:05:55 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I read on a forum somewhere that the screenshot I show of Containment looks like either a 'Snake' or 'Light cycle' game and while it might be fun to write one of those it aint one of those :) Basically the player's viewpoint in Containment is one of a 'radar' style ... http://www.xiotexstudios.com/snake-or-light-cycles/ When I started the 'WiiWare is a lie' blog post I had no idea it would go as far as it would. Instead of just me venting my frustration after going through a lengthy application process with Nintendo it seems to have taken a life of its own including getting ... http://www.xiotexstudios.com/out-of-control/ The saddening thing about the WiiWare rejection is what it really means to be an indie developer. It appears that unless you have an 'office' location they won't consider you. This means you have to have funding, how else are you going to be able to afford to rent or ... http://www.xiotexstudios.com/wiiware-is-a-lie-redux/ A couple of months ago I was invited to the WiiWare summit in London. It was a great event and as a small developer I was greatly inspired from the talk given by Takao Yamane who is head of Nintendo Europe. I can't give too many details because of NDA ... http://www.xiotexstudios.com/wiiware-is-a-lie/ Containment comes in three parts. The first part is the C++ DirectX application. This serves as the main user interface for the player. The second part is the MySQL database that contains the world and status of Containment and the final part is the PHP scripts that allow the user ... http://www.xiotexstudios.com/architecture/ It has been 13 years since I left college and started working in the IT sector and after all that time I have finally come to the conclusion that you should never believe an employer when they say that they want your opinion or your contribution to their business because ... http://www.xiotexstudios.com/you-are-a-resource-nothing-more/ I spent most of this evening trying to figure out why a particular PHP script was reporting obscure errors. I kid you not - I spent at least 2 hours modifying, uploading and modifying again, inserting echo statements etc.. all in aid of tracking down a strange parsing bug. I ... http://www.xiotexstudios.com/php-coding-is-fun/ Containment contains a lot of text parsing with a very limited Natural Language Understanding system which it turn leads to a problem - localisation. Because the parser is looking for english it obeys the rules of english which means it is very unlikely that the game can ever be localised ... http://www.xiotexstudios.com/text-parsing-and-localisation/ I have been working for a while on a game concept called 'Containment' but got side-tracked into writing small flash games that while were fun didn't really lead anywhere useful. I may still continue to do them in the future but for now I need to concentrate on Containment otherwise ... http://www.xiotexstudios.com/containment-and-a-new-blog/