Four pictures I couldn't have taken with my old point-and-shoot

My old 5 megapixel HP R707 is not a bad point-and-shoot camera, as the late 2004 DPReview.com review shows.

But there are many things you just can't do with a pocket digital camera, so a couple of months ago I got myself an entry level DSLR, the Nikon D60. It has its shortcomings, as the (probably intentional) lack of EV bracketing or the absence of live-view and video recording features, but overall picture quality is great out of the camera. Here are four pictures I couldn't have taken with my R707:

Depth of field effect, almost unachievable with pocket cameras:


Continuous autofocus is best for shots like this one:


A small crop of a huge 10.2 megapixel image:


Another case of DOF:

For the curious, here's my flicker photostream with more pictures. I also recently used the D60 to take the office pictures on the udpated about and jobs sections at lemonteam.com.

Fracture

Fracture is not the title of an internet porn flick, though I must admit it'd make a good one. Anyways. Today I finally got my free copy of Lucas Art's Fracture for Xbox 360 from the very Xavi Robles from Eurogamer.es / AnaitGames. Thanks!

The game? Well, EG, Edge and 1UP gave it a 4... so nothing much else to add.

Airport Mania available on the App Store!

At last! Airport Mania, our longest running iPhone project surfaced today on the App Store. I'm really excited by all the positive reviews the game is getting on the US and Spain stores, and hope it makes it into the top 100 soon :)

Download Airport Mania for your iPhone / iPod Touch

(it's only $0.99 / 0.79€ !)

Half braggging, half marketing

This is how my workspace at Lemon Team looks:



Cool, isn't it? But this is not just bragging, it's also marketing. I want to tell any future prospective employees how cool our working environment is. So far we have been very lucky with our first hire (Renato) and intern (David), as they are both excellent programmers and have been helpful since the first day. But we might have trouble finding more local talent in the future, so we try keeping our studio visible by posting on blogs and forums. You never know who you'll end up working with!

Herod's Lost Tomb scores a 8/10 on IGN Wireless

It feels really good to read positive reviews of your games. IGN Wireless recently reviewed our latest game, Herod's Lost Tomb for the iPhone:

The game looks fantastic. The scenes are high-res and colorful; they pop off the iPhone screen. The game is also complemented by a great score, including the famous National Geographic theme at the beginning of the game.

I dig biblical history, so Herod's Lost Tomb had me at shalom. The lack of penalties makes the game a push-over if you don't have the strength to use the offered shortcuts. The special tools and between-stage puzzles are good additions. I got two plays out of the game before I was ready to move on, making it a solid value at its current $4 price.

Read the review at IGN.com
Download the full version of Herod's Lost Tomb
Downlaod the lite version of Herod's Lost Tomb

Mobile phones: a brief history of the models I have owned

Trium Aria-@ (Mitsubishi)

I was still in high school when I got my first mobile phone as a christmas present. One of my friends pushed me into a swimming pool while I was carrying it on my pocket.

Nokia 5210

After 6 months saving money  looking for a new mobile phone, I came across the Nokia 5210 on a magazine and fell in love with its rubberized design. It is now resting somewhere in the Pyrenees.

Nokia N-Gage QD

At just 199€ on its release date, it was the cheapest, sim unlocked Series 60 phone. It ran Symbian 6.0, and allowed me to code 3D games for the now extinct Mophun platform from Synergenix Kayak Interactive Oberon Media. It fell off the pocket of my jacket during a crazy night.

Nokia N70

Again, after a couple of months disconnected from the world, and attracted by Yoigo's mobile internet flat fee, I got a Nokia N70. A pretty decent handset —bulky yet powerful—,  handy to connect my PowerBook to the internet on the road. But then the iPhone 3G came to Spain...

iPhone 3G

After three consecutive Nokia phones, Apple made me jump ship. I had high expectations for it, and it didn't let me down: it just blew away anything I had tried before. At a minimum cost of 27€/month in Spain, it's not cheap, but what you get is well worth it. This is a phone I would not think of buying without a contract with unlimited internet access, as it would feel crippled and lose most of its appeal (for me).

Next?

Unless the smartphone market changes radically in the next two years, my next phone will probably be the next thing from Apple.

Another japanese language learning game is coming

DSFanboy.com has new screens of "My Japanese Coach". Link:

http://www.dsfanboy.com/2008/07/28/my-screenshot-coaches/

This time, Ubisoft *was* in the Competitor Analysis section of my business plan (which is a valuable tool, despite what some other industry people once told me). The game also seems to sport some kind of handwritting recognition.

Virgin Play to release Japanese learning game

Link: http://www.v2play.com/paginas/juego.php?Cod=19
More: http://www.siliconera.com/2008/06/06/virgin-play-brings-ds-japanese-training-to-europe/

On one hand, I'm sad because I was/am trying to do something very similar with my project. On the other hand, I'm happy because somehow I was right about the mainstream appeal of the game. So there it goes, non believers. Can't wait to play the game when it gets released... it will probably sell well even if it's bad.

PD: Yep, the second link is from 6/6/2008. Google Alerts is supposed to brief me once a week about any news on "japanese game learning ds", but somehow missed the most important articles on the topic. That, or I don't know how to use Google Alerts properly.

Back from Games Convention 2008

Tachikoma-looking PC mod

Pictures of an awesome self-made tachikoma (featured in Ghost in The Shell: S.A.C. anime series) containing a PC:

Seen at Campus Party, Valencia.

BugMeNot widget 1.02

I have released an update for the Dashboard BugMeNot widget. The widget had stopped working some months ago for some reason, but I didn't look into it until today. 

First, I looked at the BugMeNot.com HTML output and realized that it was now a bit more difficult to parse the accounts data due to some new javascript code. Reading the FireFox extension's source code revealed a special URL that makes BugMeNot.com to output the old HTML, so I made the widget to send all petitions to that URL instead. 

LemonTeam.com gets a revamp

The new Lemon Team website replaces the previous, two years old design. The revamp was needed to better reflect the recent activities and work of Lemon Team. The archive with old games is gone for the moment, but I will try to put a link to it somewhere on this blog soon.

Visiting the tower of Collserola, Barcelona

During the MPM Stage we enjoyed a guided tour of the Tower of Collserola. Wikipedia says:

Torre de Collserola (or Torre Foster) is a uniquely designed tower located on the Tibidabo hill in the Serra de Collserola, in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It was designed by architect Lord Norman Foster, and built in 1992 for the 1992 Summer Olympics. It features a pod for floor space like many towers but uses guide lines for lateral support like a mast. Mainly used as a TV and radio transmitter, this futuristic design provides the highest viewpoint over the city. The top antenna reaches 288.4m (946 ft) and the top of the pod, which has thirteen floors, reaches 152m (499 ft).

We were not allowed to take pictures of the 'war room', so I can only show the tower from the outside:

Video of Digital Legend's Kroll at the WWDC 2008

I've uploaded to Youtube the participation of Digital Legend's Xavier Carrillo at the WWDC 2008, where he introduces Kroll for the iPhone. Enjoy:

Books I've read this year (so far)

FireFox just ate the full text of this post, and I'm not writing it again. In brief: project management, typography, motivation, presenting and warfare are the topics of the five books I've read so far in 2008 (see picture below).

I'll probably pick up one of the Edward Tufte's books next.