Zitronensaft

Ricochet Infinity coming soon to the iPhone

2010-02-19T02:13:00.009+01:00

We're remain pretty busy porting games to the iPhone, iPad and Android platforms at Lemon Team. Probably the next game you will see from us is Ricochet Infinity, developed for Reflexive.

Check out this teaser site for screenshots. If write for a games site or blog and you would like to review this game before it's released, contact me and I will try to get you a pre-release build.

DOID Mag #2 now available

2009-07-14T18:34:00.003+02:00

The second number of DOID Magazine is finally available for download at DOID's website. Many thanks go to all those who contributed to this release.

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

2009-04-12T00:37:00.011+02:00

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

2009-03-09T23:40:00.004+01:00

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!

2009-03-02T12:57:00.005+01:00

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

2009-02-08T22:57:00.006+01:00

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

2008-12-03T23:33:00.003+01:00

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

2008-10-26T02:53:00.006+02:00

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

2008-09-14T02:18:00.002+02:00

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

2008-09-09T22:09:00.005+02:00

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

2008-08-25T14:11:00.004+02:00

Tachikoma-looking PC mod

2008-08-05T02:26:00.002+02:00

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

2008-07-13T23:50:00.006+02:00

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

2008-07-13T01:05:00.009+02:00

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

2008-07-09T13:42:00.003+02:00

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

2008-06-10T22:48:00.003+02:00

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)

2008-06-07T21:12:00.003+02:00

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.

Less than two months away from the MPM Stage

2008-05-03T23:22:00.009+02:00

I don't think I have commented on it here yet, but since last october I've been taking La Salle BES' online Master in Project Management, or MPM in short. But, what is it for? The programme introduction reads:

The Master in Project Management (MPM) is aimed at professionals whose positions demand coordination skills and who are either presently in charge of project development or will be in the near future.

During the 'stage' in Barcelona —27th June to 5th July— I will be attending the final lectures and seminars of the course. I'll also have some spare time so anybody reading from Barcelona: just drop me a line if you want to meet up =)

AirportMania is out!

2008-04-15T12:05:00.007+02:00

AirportMania is out!

Although my involvement in this game –developed by SouthWindsGames for Reflexive– is limited to the development the Mac version (I don't like the term 'port'), it is really a project I'm proud of having worked on.

The game has been designed by Rusell Carroll from Reflexive, and the programming has been the doing of Juan Pablo Ferreyra, a friend with whom I already collaborated on Dylo's Adventure. Some interesting excerpts from the interview with Rusell Caroll on GameTunnel.

Q - So it sounds like Airport Mania had a three person team working on it then?
A - Well the team was a little larger than that. I did the game design and also the level design, South Winds Games had 3 people involved, doing coding, art and Mac porting. Reflexive, who is the financer and owner of the game, also had several people involved doing sound and music (along with lots of interesting suggestions and feedback along the way).

Q - Sounds like a pretty big project then?
A - It was, especially for Juan and I, though we've both worked on games before, neither of us has been involved with something of this scope. Creating the full game, start to finish, ended up taking close to 14 months.

Q - So with it being an easy game with friendly graphics, doesn't that make it a kid's game?
A - You know, I'm always disappointed at that kind of generalization. Airport Mania is really for everyone who is a kid at heart. Unfortunately, I have seen some people turn up their noses at the game's graphics, so I would guess that some people feel it is somehow beneath them. While I did make the game easy, there are a lot of challenges built in to push players of different skill levels.

Preview of AirportMania at Reflexive.com
Press release on GamesIndustry.biz

I finally jumped in

2008-03-19T18:42:00.002+01:00

The new prices of Xbox 360 bundles were too good to pass on them, so I finally bought one. Obviously I don't have many games yet, but I plan on getting Halo 3 and COD4 in th future. Feel free to add me as a friend on Xbox live or leave your gamertags on the comments section : )

Caracol of Duty [WIP]

2008-03-10T10:27:00.004+01:00

I'm developing a 2D game with other students as part of a video games course at university. This is a work-in-progress capture of the first thing you see when you start the game:

By the way, 'Caracol' means snail in Spanish. More details in a few weeks.

Do you carry sensitive data on your laptop?

2008-02-12T17:18:00.003+01:00

Do you carry sensitive or confidential data on your laptop on a daily basis? Have you ever thought what would happen if you got it robbed?

Despite the obvious loss of the laptop, it's the data loss that matters. Because I usually carry source code and other information that is supposed to be confidential on my laptop, I use Mac OS X's Filevault to keep the contents of my home folder encrypted. In Apple's marketing dept. words:

FileVault secures your home directory by encrypting its entire contents using the Advanced Encryption Standard with 128-bit keys. This high-performance algorithm automatically encrypts and decrypts in real time, so you don’t even know it’s happening.

Although Filevault uses 3DES effective 112bit, AES-128, and RSA-1024, it has some limitations. Firstly, it is vulnerable to dictionary attacks. But you probably are using a 'secure' password, don't you? Secondly, some proof-of-concept Filevault attacks have been developed by hackers, although certain special conditions must be met and it would be very rare for a thief to have enough knowledge to use them on your laptop.

If you want to know more about he internals of Filevault and how good it is from a security standpoint, be sure to check the following resources:

Unlocking Filevault: An analysis of Apple's disk encryption system
http://crypto.nsa.org/vilefault/23C3-VileFault.pdf

Secure Your Mac workshop at METALAB
http://metalab.at/wiki/SYMWorkshop

Using hash_map on GCC

2008-02-09T22:35:00.000+01:00

If you have tried to use some STL containers with GCC, such as hash_map:

// error: hash_map: No such file or directory
#include <hash_map>

int main()
{

 // error: ‘hash_map’ is not a member of ‘std’
 std::hash_map<int,int> hm;
 
 return 0;
}

Then you have realized that the code above does not compile. That's because on GCC, hash_map is not regarded as a standard container, but rather as a extension included in the __gnu_cxx namespace. In order to use hash_map and other extended containers with a minimum impact in your code (which is very important if it's intended to be cross-platform), you can use the following solution:

#ifdef __GNUC__
#include <ext/hash_map>
#else
#include <hash_map>
#endif


namespace std
{
 using namespace __gnu_cxx;
}

int main()
{

 std::hash_map<int,int> hm;
 
 return 0;
}

Hope that helps.

It's a great time to buy foreign goods

2008-01-14T17:22:00.000+01:00

EUR 1 = USD 1,489

GBP 1 = EUR 1,318

If your currency is Euro, now is the time to buy some stuff on Steam, E-bay, Amazon or Macheist. Shall I recommend:

SunAge at TotalGaming.net ($29 / 19€)
Dylo's Adventure ($19 / 13€)
Garr Reynold's Presentation Zen Book ($19 / 13€)
Gish (5$ on Steam for a limited time / 3€)

Where's my flat stomach?

2008-01-04T22:43:00.000+01:00

Oh, the horror. For the first time in my life, my stomach isn't flat anymore. Damn christmas. However, I am not letting this last too long! This shall be hereby one of my new year's resolution.

How am I going to do it? Well, I used to do some light abdominal and weight-lifting at home for muscle-building. Gotta go back to it to get rid of this small fat belly. But this is not a clear enough goal. What's my goal 'flatness'? How often am I going to train? When will I stop? Should I stop at all?

Oh noes!

Let's set an S.M.A.R.T. goal:

Specific – Objectives should specify what they want to achieve -> I want to get my flat stomach back.
Measurable – You should be able to measure whether you are meeting the objectives or not -> Is the curvature of my belly zero?
Achievable - Are the objectives you set, achievable and attainable? -> I hope so. Probably it's not too late.
Realistic – Can you realistically achieve the objectives with the resources you have? -> My resource here is time and determination. Hmmm.. this is a risk, as I am not sure if I have those.
Time – When do you want to achieve the set objectives? -> Before spring comes would be EPIC WIN, after summer would be EPIC FAIL.

So I got an smart goal. However, I detected a risk: I may not have the time or determination to train often. I must do something to mitigate this risk. I know, I'll set a training schedule, this will help me allocate the time I need:

45-60 min aerobic, abdominal and light weight-lifting sessions at home, five times a week.

Ok, I can surely find time for that, even during exams. In order to maximize my determination, I will be hearing one episode of the PM Podcast every session, and will never give up until the show is finished. So.. that's it, I could keep narrowing my goal and making my training schedule more specific, but I think that will make it for now.

And rest assured, I won't post any "after and before" pictures ; )

My 'cave' during the last five years

2007-12-27T16:38:00.000+01:00

Be warned, this is a sort of a geek story.

This is how my desktop looked like five years ago. I had an Athlon XP 1600+ plugged to a 15" CRT, plus a iron strong neck (if only LCDs had been affordable back then). After many upgrades, that big white box today serves to my father.

I spent the 2005-2006 course in Vienna as exchange student, living in a flat located in Obere Donaustraße. That year, my only companion on the desktop was the tiny 12" PowerBook.

Back in Spain, different flat. This is from the last summer, the very same day I got my iMac. I was importing all the data from the PowerBook via Firewire, with the PC of the first pic still on the bottom-right:

Today my working environment looks like this:

Note: I keep my laptop's AC adapter on the desktop because I usually take it with me everyday. After three years and countless charge cycles, the PowerBook's autonomy has decreased from the original 4 hours to a mere 2 hours. Maybe it's the time to buy a new 'akku'..

BugMeNot widget for Mac OS X

2007-12-11T22:28:00.001+01:00

Almost two months after the idea, I'm proud to present my very first Dashboard widget! The BugMeNot widget:

Yes. I know.

There is a bookmarklet for Bugmenot. FireFox has a plugin. Right.

But! For those using Safari, I think this widget is a god-sent, and a better solution than the bookmarklet. From the micro-site:

This widget allows you find logins for webs that force you to register, using the Bugmenot.com database. Check the BugMeNot terms of use for more information about the service.

By default, it displays the URL of the top-most window of Safari, although you can also type in any URL on the search field. The copy buttons do what you’d expect them to do. However, to save you some clicks, every time you request a new account, the username is copied automatically to your clipboard.

If you try to search a URL without a top-level domain(.com, .net, etc.), the widget will automatically append “.com” to it.

What are you waiting for? Visit the BugMeNot widget site and download it!

WipEout for PSP - for free tomorrow at the PSN

2007-11-21T13:00:00.000+01:00

If you got a PSP, and register a new PlayStation Network account between the 22nd November and 7 December, you get the original WipEout(PSX port) for free, thus saving 5 euro. In order to transfer the 90MB download to your PSP, you will need to download the Windows-only PSN Downloader available at the PSP European store.

A good move by Sony, despite leaving Mac and Linux users out, once again.

More details

SunAge teaser trailer

2007-11-16T13:42:00.000+01:00

At last, the long-awaited teaser trailer for SunAge is online. Although it is short, it manages to show off the new features that make the game stand out from others RTS. You can watch the teaser in Flash, QuickTime, Windows Media or iPod formats clicking on the image:

The teaser has been my last contribution to SunAge, which is expected to hit european shelves at the end of November, and a bit later in USA. Production of the video took me four weekends, and although I got some headaches about technical issues, the biggest problem came from keeping everybody happy about the final cut: team members, the publisher, and me. As always, we had to reach a compromise which is what you can see on the released trailer.

I must also thank team member Angina P. for the awesome soundtrack she provided, and for being the easiest person involved to deal with ;)

Finally, I learned some things about video editing:

- Dual-core processors are a blessing.

- Adobe Premiere is good, but not enough to get all the work done. I had to stick to it, but I was jumping to other applications all the time to get some basic tasks performed, such as putting fade in/outs in audio tracks. The title editor in Premiere also lacks the ability to animate the text parameters, so if you want something as simple as an animated glowing title, you either work your ass off with tricks, or purchase one of the commercial plug-in packs, or get some composition done in After Effects.

- My external Lacie hard-drive USB is slow. Getting a firewire one in the mid-term.

Japanese is on the rise

2007-10-25T20:20:00.001+02:00

Picture taken at my local Fnac in Alicante:

Yes, it says 7th edition. And that bookshelf is facing the main corridor. Sehr interessant. Bwahahaha. (· ·)

Radiohead - In Rainbows

2007-10-12T17:49:00.001+02:00

When Radiohead left the iTunes Music Store because they didn't like people purchasing individual songs, I thought that was a bad move on their side. I agree that most music should be listened to as whole, but sometimes you really only want a like track and don't care about the others. But that wasn't the whole story. Since Radiohead is one of the still few (big)artists that is not tied to an specific record label, they are now trying to skip the middle-man and reach the fans' pockets directly. Now that's interesting.

They recently made their new album "In Rainbows" available in exclusivity through their website, in a DRM-free MP3 format(only 160kpbs though). But the shocking thing is that they are asking customers to pay whatever they feel for the album. That's right. You can either pay 1 euro or 10, or even 50 cents. This way, the final customer says how much value is the music to him.

So I paid 1 pound and I am now listening to the album... so far it sounds more of the same, which is not that bad if you like Radiohead music : ) . After all, it's the kind of music that fits those moments before you go to bed at night.

I expect more artists to follow this trend in the future, but I still think iTMS is a good marketplace, and much easier to buy music from than the Radiohead site.

Jam Sessions

2007-09-30T12:53:00.000+02:00

I've been playing around with Jam Sessions for the Nintendo DS. I was firstly disappointed by its 'game' mode. Putting that aside, Jam Sessions is a truly amazing guitar simulator. Not only succeeds on (somehow)feeling like a guitar, but it also lets you apply FX such as reverb, chorus, tremolo, flanger and echo. Only two effects can be stacked simultaneously though.

However, the real power of this game/guitar simulator can only be exploited when plugged into a computer. As if it was a real guitar connected to an amp, Apple's GarageBand can transform the input waveform into more interesting sounds and rythms.

A week ago, with little previous knowledge of GarageBand and after 3-4 hours I was able to produce this low-quality piece:

W00t.mp3

Four tracks use the guitar-sim as input(e.g. the first thing you hear), then I added a drum-kit and bass rhythm from the app library. For the distortion thing in 40-50 I used an Audacity-edited sample of a distorted guitar chord.

The bottom line is, I had a lot of fun composing this, and I'd like to spend another afternoon with GarageBand and JamSessions soon.

Improving video capture performance with Fraps

2007-09-27T23:02:00.001+02:00

As some of you might already know, I'm in the process of making some videos of SunAge. I am using Fraps to do the video capture on a Bootcamp partition on my iMac. After some weeks capturing full-screen 1280x780 clips @30 FPS, performance started to degrade until a point where it couldn't handle video capture at all.

I spent quite some time figuring out the cause of this, and it turned out that HDD fragmentation was the cause. I had been installing/uninstalling a lot of things recently, and the several SVN repositories with thousands of files had caused a massive fragmentation on the FAT32 partition, thus severely degrading the HDD write throughput.

Finally, after a full defragmentation, Fraps works as a charm again and I can keep taking gameplay clips for the SunAge trailer ;)

PD: New blog theme! Moving away from the former dark tones to a cheerful 'sandy stone beach' color scheme.

Games I look forward to

2007-09-16T23:52:00.000+02:00

So many games, so little time! In no particular order:

Mass Effect (X360, don't have one though..)
The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass (NDS)
Geometry Wars: Galaxies (NDS)
Team Fortress 2 (PC)
Half-Life 2: Episode Two (PC)
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (PC/Mac)
Jam Sessions (NDS)

Upcoming events for Fall 2007

2007-09-03T16:52:00.000+02:00

London Game Career Fair, 23-24 October - The perfect place for newcomers to apply for jobs in the industry. Entrance is free and you can start sending your resumes now to set up interviews in advance with the attending companies. I *might* go with a couple of friends... even if it's just to attend some sessions. I must get done with other things first, and I want to finish my degree too before I start looking for a fulltime job again.

Lyon Game Developers Conference, 3-4 December - The european version of the GDC, taking place in France for the first time. I'd love to attend –mainly for networking– but tickets are usually quite expensive, in the 300-500€ range. So not GDC for me yet.

First official DOID meeting, 29 September - The brand-new spanish game developers association will have its first official meet-up in Valencia later this month. I will be there : )

Art Futura 2007, 25-28 October - Once again the Festival of Digital Culture and Creativity will be held in Barcelona. I had the opportunity to visit the city last year and attended most sessions. It's a must if you live near or you have the resources to spend the weekend there.

The family grows + SunAge PR is tough

2007-08-24T21:35:00.000+02:00

My second Mac is now complete with its RAM upgrade! I can finally get rid of the Windows box since the new iMac can run XP too! BTW, it's the early-2007 revision, not the aluminum one. The new Radeon HD 2600 in the alu sucks, and I found the old model to be heavily discounted at a local store... so I went for it, despite already being 'obsolete':

The Radeon X1600 performs better than expected, and I'm now playing Far Cry (1), enjoying every bit of it. It's gonna take me ages to finish it though –highest difficulty level + lack of free time–.

Regarding SunAge, we are already at crunch time, aiming to deliver the first solid builds during mid-september. It's gonna be tough, because I also have the university exams soon.

Finally, I want to thank NoticiasJuegos for being the only spanish site that acknowledged my latest pseudo-PR e-mail about the new SunAge website. Someday, when I get to the top, I will reserve them a seat in my limousine for exclusive interviews :D

/falls off the bed

Update: Meristation did finally post about the new SunAge site!

New SunAge website online!

2007-08-12T14:33:00.000+02:00

Here it is. Finally, after nearly a month of work, the new site for SunAge is up. Follow the link to read all you have to know about our upcoming RTS ; )

CP07 - Finished

2007-07-30T19:04:00.001+02:00

Esta ha sido mi segunda Campus, y la verdad es que he disfrutado como un enano. Estoy encantando de haberme reencontrado con muchos amigos, y haber hecho nuevos. Aun arrastro bastante cansancio, así a falta de un resumen en condiciones de la party, simplemente os dejo algunas fotos de los últimos dias:

Ager y Mars currándose el juego para el concurso de 72h

Necesito datos...

Abandonando el recinto

Yo y mis pelos de los últimos dias :-P

EX3 con muuuucha falta de sueño ;-)

CP07 - Esto es un infierno!

2007-07-26T23:40:00.001+02:00

A falta de menos de 20h para entregar el juego, nos encontramos ya en la recta final del desarrollo. Esta noche no dormiremos para poder terminar el juego a tiempo :P. Una muestra del "infienno":

CP07 - Menu principal

2007-07-26T04:00:00.001+02:00

Antes de irme a sobar he "casi" acabado el menu principal:

Ale!

CP07 - Mas cositas..

2007-07-26T03:21:00.000+02:00

Estamos ya a jueves ( 3:00 AM), y la entrega es el viernes a las 19:00. La verdad es que vamos muy justos de tiempo para que el juego sea todo lo que queremos, pero bueno...

Ya sé que que sólo con las imágenes que estamos poniendo es difícil imaginar el juego final, o cómo se juega. El último dia habrá más detalles, de momento queremos perder el menor tiempo posible con el blog para poder dedicarnos 100% al juego : )

¡Ale, mañana más!

CP07 - Los enemigos

2007-07-25T19:01:00.000+02:00

Una mezla de dragón y gárgola..

La parte de programación está algo atrasada pero poco a poco va tomando forma la cosa..

CP07 - Primeros avances en el juego

2007-07-25T01:22:00.000+02:00

Al final nos hemos animado a hacer algo para el concurso de programación rápida de juegos en la CP07. Hemos elegido las siguientes tres temáticas:

Persecución
One button
Terror

Y unas fotitos:

Mañana más..

Monday night pics

2007-07-24T02:20:00.000+02:00

Some more pictures from the Campus Party 07, taken with my phone:

First pics from Campus Party 07

2007-07-23T16:39:00.000+02:00

Road to Campus Party 07

2007-07-22T16:30:00.000+02:00

Tomorrow starts the Campus Party 2007 in Valencia, Spain. With more than 5,500 attendees and 6,5000 total visitors expected, is is considered one of the biggest LAN parties in the world.

I'm happy to say that I will be there, in the "developers" area. Expect some live-blogging as early as tomorrow morning!

I'm going to see if I can setup my N70 to blog/post pics on the road..

See you all there!

One good thing about J2SE 6

2007-07-08T17:30:00.001+02:00

I just installed the "J2SE 6.0 R1 Developer Preview" for OS X 10.4, because the Point2D.Float class now implements the Serializable interface. I know it's not such a big deal, since I could've coded an extended class.. but anyways, I love to have the latest dev tools, just in case.

Thing is, I'm currently coding a Java/Swing based tool for Kana DS , and I was trying to serialize a class hierarchy that contained an array of Point2D.Float. It seemed to me quite stupid that in J2SE 5.0, Point2D.Float lacked out-of-the-box serializability, whereas Point2D(for integers) didn't.

Here ends the rant of the day : )

Vuelta al trabajo

2007-07-04T02:24:00.000+02:00

Ahora que he terminado exámenes, estoy colaborando de nuevo intensamente en SunAge. Además de ajustar la UI de los menús, estoy preparando una nueva página web para el juego, que espero le haga justicia. La página actual tiene sus años y la verdad es que no está para nada al nivel del juego...

Si todo va bien, espero poder anunciar la nueva web durante este mes ^^, y algo mas adelante, el primer trailer.

StarCraft musique!

2007-06-26T01:30:00.000+02:00

This is awesome. Do you want to listen to the StarCraft, Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 soundtracks while surfing? Then try using this web-based player from Blizzard:

Click on the picture or in the following link to open the player: http://www.battle.net/window.shtml

I have my last two june exams this week, so expect some yummy updates next week! The topics? Kana DS and Sun Age ;-)

PD: This is my 150th post!

Safari 3 BETA: first impressions

2007-06-12T01:07:00.000+02:00

As you may know already, a public "beta" of Safari 3.0 is available for both Windows and Mac OS X. I have installed in on my PowerBook G4, and so far I'm very impressed by the update. Take into account that it's still beta and your mileage may vary.. but I have noticed:

Improved responsivity. Loading and scrolling through Kotaku before was a pain in the ass. Much smoother now.
Improved compatibility. Now I can correctly navigate sites I couldn't before, including some from my college and the Campus Party one.
Rich Text Editor control!! Finally I can edit Blogger posts from Safari. Previously I had to fallback to FireFox or Camino.

On my Windows box, Safari crashes whenever a bookmark operation is involved. Despite this, it feels very solid and speedy, on par with FireFox or even slightly better.

Webmasters should be happy because now they can test their sites for Safari compatibility without owning a Mac.

Hell Snails

2007-06-09T22:38:00.000+02:00

Hell Snails is a little game developed mostly for fun, but also for the Tu Tambien Puedes game competition. It's been developed in spare time during the last 2-3 weeks by Ruben Penalva (code) and me(graphics). For the music we took this CC-licensed song from Soulprawn.

The game uses the Python/Pygame framework, available for Windows/Mac OS X/Linux. The gameplay is very simple, and we couldn't tweak it as much as we would've wanted because of the contest deadline. It also has some small bugs but it's quite playable nonetheless. Some sprites from the game:

Designed in Paper 1.0, then redesigned in FireWorks 8 and animated with the same program. We don't expect winning anything with this game, but it's been fun because this is the first time I participate in a game without touching a single line of code. I should focus exclusively on graphics from now on... ? No way ! :P

However, I think I will try to improve my artistic skills. ~~It will prove useful when I become Hokage!~~.

Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2

2007-06-01T23:17:00.000+02:00

Today arrived my copy of Osu Tatakae Ouendan 2!

Ordered from Play-Asia.com and received 13 days later. This 2nd part addresses many of the problems of the original DS title, plus it also has some new features and 19 new songs.

Some features I'd like to highlight are: the ability to *completely* skip the song's introduction, the possibility to store replays, the new cheer squad characters, and the ability to replay the last seconds of a game when you fail to beat a level. All of this summed up makes this the best "ouendan" up to date. Whereas some Ouendan fans(like me) disliked the americanized abomination that was Elite Beat Agents, here the J-Pop/rock is back.

Osu!

PD: If you own a Nintendo DS and you haven't played the original Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! then GO BUY IT NOW!

Fiesta del rabo: 10º aniversario Meristation

2007-05-18T15:58:00.000+02:00

Sorry, post in Spanish!

Ayer estuve en Madrid, en la fiesta del 10º anversario de Meristation. Os comento un poco por encima lo que se coció por allí. Por cierto, las fotos y vídeos están tomadas con el móvil, así que no espereis mucho :P. Normalmente no me meto con nadie, pero bueno hoy voy a rajar un poquito, que me apetece. Además este es *mi* blog y me lo follo cuando quiero!

Lo primero es lo primero. Festival del humor por parte de Pep Sánchez:

Habia presencia de las tres grandes, Nintendo, Microsoft y Sony. Empecemos por la primera:

Tres stands de Wii con el juego de fútbol de SuperMario en dos de ellas y el WiiSports en la restante acaparaban las colas más largas. Los azafatos algo tocapelotas, pero bueno.
Nintendo regaló varias Wiis a "VIPs" y tambien (si no me equivoco) a los ganadores del concurso Wiidea. Ojito al tipo de la serie "Cuéntame", menudo guayón.. o.O! Tenia que haberle sacado alguna foto al notas.
Poco más por parte de ninty..

La zona Wii

Microsoft:

Tenian varias máquinas con la beta multijugador de Halo 3, conectadas a Internet. Empecé una partida pero lo dejé a los tres minutos, porque yo suelo jugar a los FPS con el eje Y invertido y no me apetecía ponerme a joder con la configuración de controles.
Había un setup de Forza Motorsport 2 a tres pantallas! La verdad es que era impresionante, aunque tardaron hora y pico en hacer funcionar las tres pantallas. En realidad el sistema funciona así: hay tres consolas conectadas a sus respectivas pantallas, todas con una copia del juego, y conectadas en red. Una vez configuradas las tres, las consolas izquierda y derecha se unen a una sesión en red creada por la central, lo que les permite ir actualizando la vista adecuada.. en realidad es algo parecido a una sesión con espectadores. Una idea muy interesante(para los ricos), y la verdad es que iba muy fino.
No habían más juegos para 360 en exposición, pero sí habia un servicio de camisetas exprés:

Por parte de Sony:

Stands de PS3 con los siguientes juegos: MotorStorm, Resistance, Formula-1, y Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Éste último era la "exclusiva", y la verdad es que pintaba fenomenal. Del resto nada que comentar.
Habian un par de azafatas con PSP's, no sé que juegos tenian.

Pese al título del post, la cantidad de mujeres que había era sobrecogedora para un evento de este tipo.. no sólo por las numerosas azafatas, sino por otras muchas que parecían estar ahí por iniciativa propia y sin cobrar XD. Vamos progresando..

Pude reconocer y hablar con gente de Enigma, que están trabajando ahora en el War Leaders. Tambien andaba por allí Gonzo Suárez, aunque no me pude acercar a la zona VIP y me quedé con las ganas de preguntarle sobre la situación actual de Arvirago. Me imagino que tambien habría gente de Pyro, Mercury y otras desarrolladoras, pero como no llevaban IDs ni me conozco las caras no pude hablar con nadie, cachis. Y bueno segun Pep Sanchez(ver video) en la fiesta estaban "todas las compañias"(de España? de Madrid?).

El señor de las criaturas..

..en un baño de wiimasas

Al final de la noche hubo un sorteo, y por desgracia no me tocó nada. Ni la PS3, ni la pantalla de 40" ni el viaje al Caribe. Tongooo.. tongoo..

Eso sí, a la salida nos repartieron unas bolsitas con más camisetas y merchandising vario. Cada bolsa tenia contenidos algo diferentes, y en mi caso fue una grata sorpresa fue encontrar un CD con la BSO de este juego:

Eso es todo. Seguro que me dejo cosas en el tintero, pero para eso están los comentarios :)

Jobs for freelance game developers

2007-04-30T14:40:00.000+02:00

If you want to work as freelance in game development, there are several sites you can check for job offers.

Help wanted thread at the IndieGamer forums: Only paid positions, with requests covering a wide array of profiles, such as translation services, art, concept art, coding, testing, music, etc. Fulltime USA and Canada positions are advertised here also.
Rent a coder: It has many categories and works under a bidding system. As the name implies, it's mainly for coders.
Developia's Jobbörse: Not all the positions are paid, but you can filter those out using a list-box. Suitable for 2d/3d artists, coders and musicians. Fulltime positions for Germany and Austria are also often advertised here.
Jobs thread at the Game Studio forums. Most positions are unpaid, but worth checking for artists or musicians looking for experience.

Now, some advice:

Don't sell yourself too cheap. By doing so, you risk not being taken seriously, as well as spoiling the business of other freelancers. If you want to earn some experience, I would recommend to apply for unpaid positions first.
Make sure the contractor can be trusted. Google him, check his projects, and have a look at his forum posts to get an idea of what kind of person he(or she) is.
Beware of industry-outsiders contractors. It is not uncommon to find jobs posted by businessmen who don't have a clue about videogames, yet they have a *great* game concept and are willing to pay for it. Working with these people is problematic for several reasons:

1) They will usually fail to communicate what they want effectively.
2) They will change requirements on a daily basis.
3) They don't understand the process behind developing a game, so they will fail to set an acceptable budget and schedule.
If you are an artist, always have your portfolio ready! Contractors hate applicants who say "-This is my online portfolio, but work there is old :P. Give me some days to update it plz ;)". I read things like this every month.

Finally, do you readers know of other sites offering freelance positions in the industry? Please comment!

Internet everywhere with PowerBook + N70

2007-04-21T23:43:00.000+02:00

I finally dumped my troublesome N-Gage QD (well, to be honest, I lost it last saturday.. but it was almost dead already) for another Nokia series 60, the N70.

I also dismissed my mobile phone operator Telefonica/Movistar. Service was a bit expensive and both their trade-in and renewal deals were a blatant ripoff. So I switched to Yoigo despite all the negative comments from early adopters I've read on some blogs. Now the good things:

N70 for 79€. Ok, I'm locked into a 6€/month contract for a year and a half. I guess it's not that bad after all.
Fixed rate calls, slightliy cheaper compared to others.
Internet everywhere, for a maximum of 1,4€/day(taxes incl.) over GPRS or 3G depending on spot availability.
Paired with my 12" PowerBook, this means flat-rate mobile internet! In Spain! And if you don't use internet, that's OK, you don't pay anything, and you aren't tied to a monthly fee whatsoever. Awesome, I tell ya, awesome..
The phone itself is nothing special, used to the QD as I was. Naturally, I can keep using Salling Clicker(grea app btw) and syncing my contacts, calendar and to-do's with my Mac at a single click, as usual.

Flamin' forums everywhere :)

Click 'connect', ready to surf

Typical uptime [edited]

2007-04-11T14:40:00.000+02:00

Just checked my PowerBook's uptime today:

18 days without rebooting, not bad for a 12" laptop, uh ;)

Edite: New personal record, 27 days!

Amadas Estrellas

2007-04-04T19:22:00.000+02:00

Este pedazo de disco lo descubrí de casualidad en una emisora de radio por Internet, donde escuché el single "Amadas Estrellas". Suelo escuchar bastante los canales ambient/electronica de Shoutcast, y normalmente no presto mucha atención a lo que ponen, pero esta canción se me quedó grabada.

El caso es que me quedé con la canción, y luego "conseguí" el disco entero, y me ha encantado.

El disco ha sido producido por Jens Gad en Ibiza, y cuenta con la voz de la española Mª Luisa Fernandez. En AllOfMP3 podeis escuchar 30s de todas las canciones. Es uno de esos álbumes de ambiente que puedes escuchar una y otra vez, sin cansarte.. algo así como Getz/Gilberto, salvando las distancias en género, claro.

Pues eso, que 100% recomendado tanto si lo comprais como si no. Yo personalmente compré el single en iTunes, pero hasta que no saquen el disco en 256Kbps y sin DRM paso de comprarlo entero. Además no sé si lo venden en España, de momento en la Fnac no lo tienen, y de importación se sale de los 10€, que es el límite que suelo pagar por un CD de música.

Por cierto, mirad que pedazo de equipo se gasta el señor Gad:

Mac Pro Quad 3 Ghz with Logic Audio Platinum, 5GB RAM, 96 Analog / Digital In- / Outputs, all existing Software Samplers, virtual Synths, Plugins (Waves Diamond) installed

40 Channel Controller Surface

2 x 23" Apple Cinema and 2 x Sony N 50 TFT Flat Screens, switchable between Computers

N 50 TFT installed in front of Vocal Mic (wired to control room PC)

Rosendahl Nanosyncs Word Clock Generator

PC with ACID, Reason, Storm, Reloop, Cubase, Gigastudio installed, ADSL Internet Access

2,5 Terrabyte of storage space

Dylo's first hardcore fans

2007-02-21T02:32:00.000+01:00

A kid who bought Dylo's Adventure got so hooked that he has created a blog and even stuffed Dylo figures, with the help of his parents.

Isn't it lovely? :)

It’s not perfect, though. I forgot to draw the tail. And his shirt is blue instead of white because we didn’t have any white fabric. But I still love him. He sleeps with me at night, and sometimes when the day breaks, I take him downstairs.

Check out his blog if you want to see more Dylo stuff, including other home-made dino figures and some tips and tricks about the game.

This is one of the things that makes game development so special.

Warning Warning Intergalactic

2007-02-18T13:27:00.000+01:00

Ayer empecé un curso de japonés intensivo en mi universidad. Somos 20 personas en clase, y para mi sorpresa, sólo la mitad somos estudiantes. Parece que oriente está de moda. Y bueno, aunque hemos empezado con cosas que ya conocía, seguramente en un mes ya hayamos superado todo lo que he aprendido como auto-didacta hasta ahora. Y aunque leo a diario historias de terror sobre el desarrollo de juegos en japón, sigo pensando en trabajar allí algun dia, aunque sea sólo un par de años. A largo plazo. Y tal.

Por otra parte, tendría gracia querer hacer un juego para aprender japonés sin tener unas bases sólidas del idioma... :P

Para acabar, si me lee alguien de la UA, hay dos actividades del Centro de Estudios Orientales esta semana:

Lunes, 19 de febrero, 20:15 horas, Sede Universitaria Ciudad de Alicante: Lunes de Oriente, (V.O.S.E.), El ocaso del Samurai, del Director japonés Yoji Yamada.

Martes, 20 de febrero, 20:00 horas, Sala Multimedia de Rectorado: El Ninja. Historia y tradición hasta nuestros días, conferencia a cargo de Juan Manuel Serrano Guillén, Shihan 15ª Dan de Ninjutsu Bujinkan, Maestro Internacional diplomado en Japón por el Sôke Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi.

La entrada a las actividades es libre, sujeta al aforo de la sala.

PD: Oh, el grandioso videoclip de los Beastie Boys en Japón, Intergalactic
PD2: Tambien salieron en Futurama: clicky

En el campito

2007-02-14T20:59:00.000+01:00

El pasado fin de semana me pegué una buena paliza con la bicicleta y unos amigos por las afueras de Megalicante. Casi 30Km campo a través me dejaron para el arrastre ese dia... y es que lo que para mí fue una hazaña, para mis amigos fue solo la rutina del sábado por la mañana :P

Un servidor, preparado para el combate

Desierto de San Vicente, con la fábrica de cemento(aka Mordor) al fondo

Este sábado no habrá bici, sino algo aun más jodido: curso de Japonés xD. Por cierto, tengo más fotos -en general- en mi cuenta de Flickr, por si quereis curiosear un rato.

Rudolph Steady Go! takes 2nd place

2007-02-05T23:20:00.000+01:00

I'm glad to say that Rudolph Steady Go! has taken the 2nd place in the DrunkenCoders.com Christmas Compo!

It will surely encourage me to restart the work on Kana DS after I finish my exams this week.

Now, back to 'Algoritmia Avanzada' :-P

New SunAge screenshots

2007-01-27T01:12:00.000+01:00

Lighthouse Interactive, the publisher behind Vertex4's SunAge has released 12 new screenshots from this RTS. It should hit shelves around Europe and Asia by May. I finished working on the menu GUI in September, and I am now helping to test the game on my spare time. It's taking shape nicely .. and I look forward to seeing the final package on the stores : )

Kool Pool sales stats

2007-01-23T01:09:00.000+01:00

I want to share the sales stats for Lemon Team's very first commercial game: Kool Pool. Several European and Chinese operator and content-aggregators acquired it from the now extinct Mophun Marketplace, selling it later through their own channels and reporting sales back to Synergenix/Mophun which was our only link to the market. So, here we go:

Title: Kool Pool
Developer: Lemon Team
Released: March 2004
Team: 1 programmer, 1 musician
Time of development: 3 months part-time
Platforms: Mophun - Sony Ericsson T610/T630/Z600
Published by Synergenix Interactive AB

Sales

Price: Variable. Between 0.20 and 0.80 EUR from whole sale price.
Units sold: 1829 (in 2004-2005)
Net income: 1420 EUR

Expenses

No additional development expenses. I was able to handle the art as well, and Pablo produced a couple of sfx and a MIDI track.
No marketing expenses either.

The stats are far from impressive, but we learnt some things from it. Something to be proud of for a couple of college students. Last year I was in talks with a spanish publisher regarding two J2ME games but in the end the deals were turn down.

My advice for the indies out there today would be not to enter the mobile market unless you own a brand or development deals with 3rd parties. Just wipe from your mind the commong thought of "let's make a cool Java game and then try to sell it". You'd be better off producing actually playable games for PC or Mac, in my opinion.

Ready Steady Go!

2007-01-22T23:06:00.000+01:00

DrunkenCoders ya ha publicado la lista de juegos recibidos para la Christmas Compo '06. Entre ellos está Ready Steady Go!, mi pequeño homenaje navideño a Osu Tatakae Ouendan! de Nintendo DS.

He habilitado un microsite(que profesional suena) para el juego. Para probarlo os hará falta una Nintedo DS y un flashcart. O quizá funcione en algun emulador de NDS para Windows.

Ready Steady Go!

Ahora a esperar los resultados de la compo, a ver si me llevo argo.. :P

Christmas Compo WIP (II)

2007-01-13T03:13:00.000+01:00

Sólo queda una semana para la deadline de la Christmas Compo de Drunken Coders, y no me va a dar tiempo a meter todos los detalles que quería. Sin embargo, estoy contento con los resultados de momento. Principalmente me queda sincronizar la mayor parte de la (única) canción y mejorar algunos efectos de sonido. Os dejo aquí unas capturas work-in-proress:

Fondo

Pantalla de resultados
(en la DS salen números en vez de los cuadraditos)

iPhone

2007-01-10T00:48:00.000+01:00

El iPhone me ha dejado alucinado. Es todo lo que esperaba de un cacharro así y más. Aunque se desconoce su precio y condiciones de venta finales *en Europa*, ya sé que quiero uno :D. Segun Gizmodo.es, Jobs debería reunirse con César Alierta a principios de Febrero, lo que podría indicar un posible acuerdo de exlusividad entre Movistar y Apple respecto al iPhone. Veremos.

Mes jodido + MacWorld?

2007-01-08T00:57:00.000+01:00

Este mes voy jodido con las prácticas de universidad, tengo tiempo libre *cero*, y además tengo que terminar el juego para la Christmas Compo de DrunkenCoders con deadline el 20 de Enero. En resumen, estoy jodido.

Además, el martes a las 18h(en España) dará comienzo la 'keynote' de Jobs en la MacWorld San Francisco, donde seguramente se presenten:

- Las características aun no vistas de Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard", y quizás su fecha de salida.
- Detalles finales sobre el iTV, del que ya se habló el año pasado.
- One more thing. iPhone? true video iPod? Quien sabe.. aunque creo que Apple aun no está preparada para esos dos lanzamientos. O sí? Ya veremos. Sólo dos dias para que se descubra el telón.

Lo que yo espero:

- Actualización silenciosa del MacMini durante la próxima semana. Core 2 Duo, 1GB Ram, resto igual: 599€. Soñar es gratis.

Como de costumbre seguiré atentamente la keynote con unas palomitas y coca-cola desde MacRumors.com y el canal de irc de Faq-Mac.com.

1er Concurso de Desarrollo de Videojuegos "Tu también puedes"

2007-01-04T15:58:00.000+01:00

Directo desde el Blog de Nae:

[...] convoco el primer concurso "tu también puedes". Porque si chaval, tu también puedes. Las bases son muy sencillas: Antes (hasta las 24 horas del 4) del día 5 de Junio de 2007 hay que mandar un videojuego desarrollado por la persona - personas donde el primer elemento hostil que nos encontremos sea ... un caracol.

[...] homenaje a todos los caracoles que nos invadieron en los videojuegos de los 80, donde representaban la maldad suprema, maldad que juegos como "the mapple story" han recuperado. Y es que un caracol puede tener... mucha mala baba.

En cuanto al premio... 300 euros. Si, de los de verdad.

Más detalles en esta entrada.

PD: me voy al kiosko comprar la Edge de Enero (sumario)

Gamepad support for Dylo's Adventure on Mac

2007-01-01T02:08:00.000+01:00

Here is my New Year's present: The latest version of Dylo's Adventure for the Mac, now with joystick support! It's been done mostly because of a customer ~~request~~ suggestion. I've used a PS2 gamepad for testing(via el-cheapo^TM USB adaptor), so both digital and analog pads should work equally well.

Best wishes for 2007, the year that shall finally make me rich and famous... or else.

A fifth of New Yorkers poor

2006-12-31T13:22:00.000+01:00

I don't usually talk about social matters here, but this article from Reuters caught my attention:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Food or rent? That is the daily choice faced by about 1.2 million of New York's 8.2 million people.

Faced with that choice, mostly they pay rent and rely on emergency or charity food to survive, poverty activists say.

...

"It's a struggle," said 53-year-old Pierre Simmons, who has a part-time job, as he wrapped up a bagel from his soup kitchen lunch for later. "I have a job, but the cost of living is so high it makes it hard to buy food."

...

But, of all places in the United States, New York has perhaps the most visible income gap.

While the city's Wall Street bankers are due to collect nearly $24 billion in bonuses this year, more than one-fifth of New Yorkers are battling to make ends meet below the national poverty line of $10,000 a year for an individual.

Meanwhile, the rest of the (U.S.) online press talks about Saddam, terrorists, sports and the random 'policeman-gets-shot'. Getting ontopic with this blog, I don't know if I'd like to live in that country yet, even if they offer the higher-average salary for game programmers.

The same article can be read in Spanish here.

Inquisitor - Spotlight for Safari

2006-12-30T16:29:00.000+01:00

This plug-in is so cool I feel I must blog about it :)

Inquisitor is a Safari plug-in that displays realtime search results as you type in the searchbar. Once installed, it can be customized via Safari preferences dialog.

On one had, it gives some hints autocompleting the typed word

or phrase. On the other, displays the first results from Google or Yahoo.

Oh, yes. It's still a 'BETA'. But which software isn't today? :-\

Song intro

2006-12-23T01:48:00.000+01:00

Song intro sequence is now complete. I'm not an artist but I think I managed to capture the "Ouendan" spirit:

Christmas Compo WIP

2006-12-13T00:37:00.000+01:00

Despues del 'spam' de Jove en el planet stratos ;) , aquí van algunas capturas work-in-progress de mi entrada para la Christmas Compo de Drunkencoders. He decido apuntarme para así tener un juego -aunque sea pequeño- hecho en Nintendo DS antes de comenzar con la implementación de Kana DS. Mirando las fotos no es difícil adivinar el juego que voy a malclonar xD. Como el límite de las ROMs caseras(sin meterse en sistemas de ficheros) es de 4MB, sólo meteré una canción.

Despues de un intensivo de dos dias el puente pasado, ya he sido capaz de dejar los planos del modo de video como yo queria, cargar imágenes, programarme un blitblt básico, un fundido a negro de paletas, y algunas rutinas esenciales más que necesitaba. Es lo bueno y malo de la libnds, que viene pelada. Pero así al menos sabes lo que haces en todo momento y aprovechas los recursos al máximo.

Lo próximo serán algunas animaciones de las ardillas y el pintado de círculos por Bresenham.

This would never work in Spain

2006-12-09T16:00:00.000+01:00

You are supposed to take the newspaper from the bag and leave the coins in the box. It probably exists in many other 'civilized' countries besides Austria, yet still a shocking concept for the average Paquito.

Water trough for 1st class citizens

2006-12-07T22:51:00.000+01:00

I like the way dogs were sometimes considered 1st class citizens in Vienna.

It was very common to find them on the bus, metro, and even restaurants and bars. No more excuses not to take your dog for a walk when you go out with friends for a bier. I laughed when I found a water trough for dogs in the queue for a rollercoaster in the Prater:

Cool, isn't it!? I will publish some other 'bizarro' posts about Vienna this month. It's funny I'm actually missing the cold... Alicante is way too hot :-/

Super-Tirititran en Mac OS X

2006-11-24T09:57:00.000+01:00

Los chicos de Canino Studios lanzan hoy finalmente la versión para Mac OS X de Super-Tirititran:

Super-Tirititran es un video-juego en 2D Open Source con licencia Creative Commons al estilo de los clásicos juegos de naves. El juego está ambientado en Cádiz, ciudad donde nacieron los 3 integrantes de caninoStudios. Los escenarios, personajes y ambientación del juego son parte de esta ciudad.

Si la ciudad ficticia de Metrópolis tenía a Superman, ahora nace un nuevo superhéroe: "Super-Tirititran" que salvará a Cádiz de la tiranía del Profesor Bizcone.

En septiembre ví que el juego no tenia versión Mac, así que me puse en contacto con Javier Perez-programador de Canino Studios- para asesorarle en el proceso de portado a Mac OS X. A partir de hoy está disponible el resultado de todos los e-mails y consultas intercambiados : )

Non-spanish speakers: Game is only available in Spanish, but since the installation process and the dialogs are straightforward you should be able to give it a try as well. Game can be downloaded here, and is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X platforms.

Bizarre Adventures

2006-11-15T00:05:00.000+01:00

Recommended anime of the month: Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Instead of trying to explain what the manga/anime is about, I will just post some stills from the second OAV series(which precedes the first one according to the story timeline), and say it rocks. Talking about the story, the characters and their powers would just make the story sound retarded-as with most manga- so just watch it :)

Finally: What happens when you watch too much of this? You start behaving like these otakus. They cry: "Ora! Ora! Ora!.... shineeee! (die!)". Next post will be related to Japanese culture as well.

Dylo 1.21

2006-11-13T01:10:00.000+01:00

After 5 months of its original release, a new version of Dylo's Adventures is available. New features:

Improved graphics.
Save points during stages.
Easier control and tweaked overall difficulty.
Fully localized into English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Finnish and Italian.
And you know.. bugfixes, performance improvements, etc..

Available for Windows and Mac OS X (runs on both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs). Ah, and let me say again that I just ported the game to Mac OS X, so all the credits should go to Juan Pablo Ferreyra from SouthWindsGames, Argentina.

Impresiones sobre el ArtFutura 2006

2006-10-31T00:31:00.000+01:00

He aquí un brevísimo resumen sobre mis impresiones del ArtFutura 2006:

Moló:

La inauguración: visionado de A Scanner Darkly y aperitivo
La carpa de Sony
Los PC's de HP para probar los finalistas del Concurso de Videojuegos
El experimental arcade
El nivel de las conferencias y conferenciantes
La performance de UltimateVisualArtists en el Espacio Movistar
Y sobre todo, la gente : )

No moló:

Conexión inalámbrica a Internet algo inestable
El troll al final de la charla Games In Spain.. XD
La chica que no sabía japonés... y casi ni español
Los stands de Guitar Hero(PS2) estaban a un volumen demasiado alto
Las entregas de premios son muy tarde(de 19:00 a 20:00), y apenas dejan tiempo para ir a cenar luego y celebrarlo, ya que la mayoría de asistentes deben viajar muy temprano al día siguiente. Creo que un horario matutino para los premios sería lo suyo, no sé. Tendría menos glamour pero sería más práctico para los ganadores.

En la carpa de Sony se podía jugar a juegos de corte alternativo como Guitar Hero, Okami, Parappa the Rapper, Vib Ribbon, Shadow of the Colossus y Loco Roco entre otros

Ama de casa jugando al Popochi(Devilish Games)

Tambien era posible jugar a pasados ganadores
del IGF como Gish o Darwinia

Barcelona

2006-10-30T15:52:00.000+01:00

Some pictures from my trip to Barcelona. This time I played around with the color tint slidebar in iPhoto for several shots. I will also upload more pics to Flicker soon.

PD: I will comment on ArtFutura '06 later tonight, or maybe tomorrow.. but to sum it up: It was great ;)

ArtFutura 2006

2006-10-23T15:51:00.000+02:00

¡Me voy al ArtFutura! Tengo una de las codiciadas entradas para la inauguración :), con lo cual podré ver en primicia primiciosa la película A Scanner Darkly.

Estaré por Barcelona de míercoles por la noche a lunes por la mañana, así que habrá tiempo para reuniones, fiestas, turismo y quizá el Salón del Manga. Últimamente no paro, así que esta pausa me va a venir genial.. Adeu siau!

Imperial Glory to be released for the Mac

2006-10-15T23:52:00.000+02:00

I'm glad to discover that Imperial Glory, created by the spanish developer Pyro Studios (the one behind the Commandos series) is being ported and published for the Mac by Feral Interactive. Ther is a preview article on InsideMacGames. Release date and min. requirements have yet to be published.

click above to open the gallery

Feral Interactive offers a QuickTime trailer in both standard and iPod formats.

V for Vendetta

2006-10-07T18:10:00.000+02:00

Me compro el DVD de V de Vendetta por Amazon.co.uk(versión original), lo pongo a reproducir, y lo primero que me encuentro tras el logo de la Warner Bros. es un spot argumentando que "piratear películas" es igual que robar, que va en contra de la ley y que además está castigado. Todo en un tono bastante agresivo. Hace tiempo que ponen spots similares cuando vas al cine, y no sólo en España. Para una de las pocas veces que me gasto casi 10 euros en un jodido DVD, van y me vienen con esto..

Por cierto, he tenido que usar VLC para capturar las imágenes del comienzo del DVD, porque Apple deshabilita la captura cuando usas su visor de DVDs(otra colleja para ellos).

Ah, la película bien.

Flickr MiniCards by Moo

2006-10-04T16:37:00.000+02:00

Today I received my 100 pack of Flickr MiniCards : ). It works like this:

1) Select pictures from your Flickr account
2) Type your contact info or whatever you want to be displayed on the back
3) Purchase. The 100 pack costs 19$ with free shipping 'til the 15th October

The minicards are nice because they are small, taking so little space in your wallet.

Games I've been playing

2006-10-01T16:18:00.000+02:00

When you develop games, it's always important to keep playing and trying out new titles. I recently played these games:

Fren-ze, by Hermit Games. Originally relased for the PlayStation 2 "Yaroze", this retro-styled vertical shoot'em up has only 4 levels, but at a 5$ tag, it's a good deal. So I bought it, and contacted the developer some weeks ago to discuss the possibility of a Mac port. I already sent a follow-up e-mail but still no answer..

Defcon, by Introversion Software. It's a real-time strategy game in a thermonuclear war scenario, similar to those represented in films such as WarGames. The demo for Windows is already out, and the Mac and Linux versions are planned to come out sometime next month. I like the game but I won't buy it since it's a multiplayer-only game and I am already playing CS:Source and Warcraft III online. Anyways, Kudos to Introversion software for another fresh game.

Progress on Alpha One

2006-09-25T20:34:00.000+02:00

Two screenshots showing the progress on Alpha One -my entry for the Shmup-dev contest. There are already 33 registered entries for the competition, and some of the early screenshots and concept art look amazing so I will keep my hopes down about winning anything :P

XBLA no es para nosotros

2006-09-22T00:02:00.000+02:00

Tras el anuncio de Microsoft de que abriría las puertas del desarrollo amateur en XBox 360, muchos indies empezaron a hacerse pajas mentales sobre la posibilidad de publicar sus juegos en el Xbox Live! Arcade. Olvidáos de ello. Hace falta (mucho)dinero, recursos y contactos para colocar un juego en el portal de juegos casuales de Microsoft.

Joe Lieberman ya compartió su punto de vista al respecto hace tiempo desde su blog. Ahora, el presidente de Garage Games asegura que incluso un presupuesto de 100.000 dólares se queda corto para afrontar el desarrollo de un juego para XBLA. Por cierto, a ver cuando terminan el Torque Shader Engine.. que no sé cuantos años llevan ya en "beta".

A lo que íbamos. El dinero ahora está en el mercado "casual", y los grandes de la industria ya se han dado cuenta de ello. Sin embargo, eso sólo significa que cada vez será más difícil que juegos *realmente* independientes copen las listas de ventas de los grandes portales. Por ejemplo, PopCap Games. No tengo nada en contra de ellos, pero ahora mismo ya puedes jugar a Zuma en un PC, Mac, móvil, PDA o incluso en un iPod! Tienen un puesto bien visible en muchos portales, y ahora tambien en Steam y en la iTunes Music Store. Por fortuna, la gente de Valve parece estar dando un trato más equitativo a estudios independientes y a grandes desarrolladores. La entrada de Apple en el mercado casual ha pillado a los desarrolladores para Mac por sorpresa, y no están(estamos) nada contentos con la total desinformación al respecto.

En fin, desarrolladores indies, no os desaniméis, pero tened en cuenta siempre vuestros límites. Y el XBLA está, por ahora, fuera de alcance.

Contests

2006-09-21T14:20:00.000+02:00

Shmup-Dev, a site dedicated to "shoot 'em up" development, is now running their third competition labeled "Autofire 2007". I am planning to enter the compo with an horizontal shooter, using the PTK library, that will allow me to quickly port the game to Windows when I finished. I have started designing the player's jet fighter with Fireworks MX:

Are you a developer? Then you might be interested to enter the "1st University Open Source Contest", hosted by the University of Sevilla. Developers are encouraged to build open source applications belonging to any of the four categories proposed. The sign up process will end on the 13th October.

4 seasons in Vienna

2006-09-11T19:41:00.000+02:00

So, it's been a whole year here in Vienna, and here is how my street looked like during the 4 seasons:

I will probably set up a gallery next week with what I may consider the best pictures of this year, including a high-resolution version of this one.

Bears

2006-09-11T19:34:00.000+02:00

You can find the explanation to the following pictures here. I am not displaying the one for Austria because it was... ugly!

BTW, iPowerPod G5 tomorrow?

24" inches of love

2006-09-06T16:00:00.000+02:00

OMG! OMFG! Ponies apart, Apple today released the biggest ever desktop machine, the 24" iMac. All the models now sport 1GB of RAM across the board, and the higher-end model lets you customize the graphics card as well. For Apple to introduce such a great product today, it only means that we can expect big things for the press event of next tuesday..

Unless the MacBook Pro gets a huge-and unlikely- price cut this month, I will be buying a 17 or 20 incher next month :P. Did I mention that a maxed-out 17" is now dirty cheap? Check out your national Education Store for discounts.

What's next

2006-09-06T15:08:00.000+02:00

With only one week left to end my current job and resume my student life in Spain, I find myself dreaming about all the cool projects I could start now ^^. In the previous post I said I would go Linux soon, but that won't be the case anymore. My order for a Nokia 770 was cancelled because it turned out that the stated priced on the website of the seller "was wrong". At 220€, I just could not resist getting one. But now I don't think I'm paying the official price of 359€, especially when I am in the market for a new desktop and Apple is releasing new products next tuesday... yay!

So.. back to development, I'd like to make a "simple" game on my own, since the last projects were about "working for others". Looking at the revenue figures of some close independent games, I would not discard releasing my next game exclusively for the Mac... just to cut some development time and have fun reading angry comments of my PC-centric friends :). Chances are that I will end up working on some kind of 2D shooter..

3 semanas

2006-08-25T13:39:00.000+02:00

Tres semanitas me quedan por aquí, ya que el dia 15 de Septiembre vuelvo a Alacant. La verdad es que ya hay ganas de volver a ver a la familia y amigos.

Por otro lado, finalmente me he decidido a aprender algo de japonés, motivado sobretodo por mi afición al manga/anime y los juegos. El blog de Kirai tambien tiene parte de culpa, ya que muestra que es posible vivir y trabajar en Japón si uno se lo propone. Esta entrada en concreto contiene multitud de enlaces interesantes sobre el país y el idioma. Por ahora ya he aprendido el silabario Hiragana, el Katakana, y una veintena de Kanjis.. sólo quedan 1900 más :P.

Por último, una sorpresa: me paso a Linux ;) . Bueno, sólo parcialmente en realidad ^^. Ya comentaré algo más la semana que viene.

Visit to Graz

2006-08-01T20:44:00.000+02:00

The last weekend I visited a friend in Graz. It's the second biggest city in Austria and has a long tradition as a student city. Some firms related to the motor industry have offices and development centers in the city, such as DaimlerChrysler or Magna Steyr. Siemens and Infineon have also presence in Graz. As a result, most of the students are able to enrole in internships on some of these companies in the latest stages of their studies, such as my friend.

Now, as usual, some pictures taken during my trip:

Interview with SouthWindsGames + Gizmo Project

2006-07-27T20:19:00.000+02:00

Hace poco, Nae entrevistó a Juan Pablo Ferreyra(o Pogacha en los foros de Stratos) acerca de Dylo's Adventure, el juego que porté a Mac OS X. Por cierto, hay un pequeño comentario sobre Lemon Team :). Aprovecho para agradecer a Nae por invitarnos a la entrega de premios Desarrollador_es, aunque por desgracia no podremos asistir, debido a cuestiones de trabajo y/o lejanía.

Últimamente con los certámenes de ArtFutura, CampusParty y Desarrollador_es, a uno le dan ganas de ponerse a trabajar en algun proyecto propio. Aunque tengo algunas ideas en mente, por ahora tendrán que esperar :P

Sorry for not translating the information above, but it mainly links spanish sites. By the way, I recently discover Gizmo Project thanks to a friend(hi JoseLuís!). It's just another VoIP client. What makes it different?

There are Win/Mac/Linux versions
You can call landlines in some countries(such as Spain) for free!

Fresh!

2006-07-25T17:16:00.000+02:00

I can't think of anything to say, so just enjoy some fresh pictures of Vienna:

Railway next to the Danube

Nightlife in Donauinsel

Museums Quartier

Friedensbrücke

Square in 2nd district

Negratas con tres patas

2006-07-13T01:13:00.000+02:00

On friday the 14th July I am moving to another appartment within the same building. I still don't know who's living there, and I fear they won't have an internet connection.. so don't worry if I don't reply any e-mails until next week. I'm gonna miss the 4Mb/512Kb line :P

Pues eso, que me cambio de apartamento.. un fin de semana sin internet no vendrá mal.

Es curioso, que aunque apenas hablo con los amigos de Alicante, me voy enterando de las cosas que les pasan viendo los "screen names" y avatares del MSN. Que si a fulanito le ha dejado la novia, que si menganito ha estado en los San Fermines, etcétera. Ahora que está uno está tan lejos se agradece poder "marujear" un poco, pero recuerdo una época en la que incluso llegué a eliminar contactos porque me daban vergüenza ajena sus nicks xD.

Tambien estaba la gente(bueno, gente no, crías) que empezaba una conversación con el típico "-Hola, ¿qué haces?", que traducido al castellano significa "-Hola, me aburro. Dame conversación". A la segunda vez les daba el "warning", que les solía sentar mal y entonces me dejaban de hablar. Para siempre xD. Y es que soy poco fan de las conversaciones por internet.. la mensajería instantánea sólo la uso para comentar temas puntuales o como sustituto del teléfono nada más. Qué se le va a hacer, soy así de radikal.

Me despido con otro clásico que me ha inspirado para elegir el título de este post.

Still around

2006-07-12T02:24:00.000+02:00

Yes, there are some Erasmus still around, but most are gone. Anyways, I got confirmation that I will keep working in Vienna until mid-september, so now that I think of it, it's going to be a whole year abroad! Geez..

By the way, a new version of Dylo's Adventure compatible with Intel-based Macs is already online. I also solved some compatibility issues with Mac OS X 10.3. The game was featured in the cover of the Apple games site for a week, providing a noticeable revenue increase for the Mac version :-)

Now, a brief review. A month ago I got an Acer 1916WS LCD display for 200€. Overall a good display, with decent picture quality and a nice 1440x900 resolution, which lets me split the source code in two windows in Visual Studio. Working with two source code views at once really boosts productivity by reducing the tedious tab-switching between files.

However, a cheap LCD means VGA-only input. Somehow, when I connect my PowerBook to the screen(via DVI to VGA conversor), the image gets a bit noisy, which is really annoying if you are writing text documents or surfing. When playing or watching a movie the distortion is harder to spot. However, the image quality is excellent when connected to the VGA-output of the office PC.. with just a little bleeding on the lower-corners in very dark movies.

To sum up, a good entry-level widescreen display, perfect for office and entertainment. However, if your computer does not sport VGA output(and Macs nowadays don't), I would recommend spending the extra bucks on a model with DVI-in for those who can afford it. Dell and Apple displays are usually safe bets.

Widescreen is the way to go.. the fact that Apple doesn't offer computers with 4:3 displays anymore is enough proof :)

Last week for the Erasmus students

2006-06-26T01:03:00.000+02:00

This will be the last week in Vienna for most Erasmus students. Exams, farewell parties and mixed emotions describe these days, as friends and couples split to meet again their other friends and family in their countries. I already went through a similar situation back in February, so this time it will be less of a shock for me. BTW, I will stay here until the end of July at least because of my job. Quite probably I will stay longer but I still don't know.

You all know I love to post pictures, but I don't have any to post this time. Hopefully I will be able to perform a nightly photo-session next week. To finish, some recommended videoclips I came across this week:

Wishful, Sinful - The Doors. I find this clip really moving.
Whip it - Devo. The first time I heard this song was in an episode from The Simpsons (remember Smithers yelling "whip it!"?). Funny to finally discover the real thing :-)

PD: Blood Hound Gang live performances rock! ;-)

Esta será la última semana en Viena para la mayoría de los estudiantes Erasmus. Exámenes, fiestas de despedida y emociones contrapuestas marcan los últimos días de esta experiencia. Amigos y parejas se separan para volver a encontrarse con sus familias y amigos de siempre en sus países de origen. Yo ya pasé por esta misma situación en febrero, así que esta vez me afectará menos. Por cierto, que yo me quedaré al menos hasta finales de Julio debido al trabajo. Es probable que permanezca más tiempo, pero aun no lo sé con certeza.

No tengo fotos nuevas que poner, ya que he estado bastante liado, aunque espero poder hacer una sesión de fotografía nocturna la semana que viene. Para acabar, par par de vídeoclips que me he encontrado esta semana y que me han gustado:

Wishful, Sinful - The Doors. Conmovedor y melancólico..
Whip it - Devo. La primera vez que escuché este tema fué en un episodio de los Simpsons. Por fín he descubierto la melodía original xD

PD: Las actuaciones en directo de Blood Hound Gang son una pasada! ;-)

Trip to Prague

2006-06-10T01:04:00.000+02:00

El fin de semana pasado estuve en Praga con otros estudiantes Erasmus, un viaje que probablemente sea el último antes de volver a España este verano(a finanles de Julio o Agosto, aun no está decidido..). Como siempre, las fotos:

( No english translation this time :P! )

El Moldava

Haciendo el mono

Una foto mona

¡Como perras! (frase del viaje)

Con el loco de Izzet

Bienvenidos a Ciudad 17

Tomando una ~~cerveza como todo el mundo~~ coca-cola junto al Moldava

Coño.. un Talgo por aquí :-)