Mark Ripley

Back from a road trip to Thessaloniki. Started out by taking a wrong turn leading to the treacherous mountain road that freaked me out. Turned back and eventually found the nice new motorway. Lots of long tunnels that had Dee hyperventillating – what a pair we are!

Got to ’saloniki, checked in the hotel, and wandered around the city trying to find a tourist map. None. Nowhere. Not a sausage. So we just wandered around and had a fantastic meal in the evening.

Checked out the next morning, and you know those cardboard things they put your key in with your room number written on it? On the inside of that was a detailed tourist map….

Next time we’re going to fly

So, you can tell I’ve been beavering away from the fact I haven’t touched this thing in ages. Again.

Just emerging from a breather from a long music visualiser project I’ve been working on. It’s very funky, and technically very demanding. Aside from all the graphics animations and stuff, responding to beat detection, it’s networked; so it’s got to transmit and respond to network traffic and display the results within 20ms so it stays in sync with the music. Involved writing lots of Objective-C code on the Mac and iPhone, which kept me on my toes too….

So while I’ve been wondering what project to do next, I’ve been revisiting our old friend Blobbit, and preparing him for his iPhone and iPad debut. Was originally going to port the Flash version using beta CS5, but seeing the performance I decided against it. Just as well, considering the recent childish events between Apple and Adobe.

So, I’m using the XNA version as a starting point, as both XNA and Unity share C# as a language. There’s still a lot to do to make things fit in with “the Unity way”, but it’s quite painless.

When I’m not doing that there’s a lovely multiplayer iPad game I’m working on too. That should hopefully be a quickie, but the design’s so wonderfully simple I’m hoping it’ll be a good’un.

Aside from that, I’ve been dieting. In short, I’ve high blood pressure and type-2 diabetese. I’ve managed to lose a stone in 2 weeks, so I’m hoping eventually the continued weight loss will resolve both conditions. Not had a beer for 3 weeks!

Fixed the Flash problems with Blobbit Push, so all levels are now playable! Also added a level skip feature, for dirty cheaters.

You can play it at the Blobbit Web Site, or on Facebook.

Mail me for the level skip code.

Well it seems the fix to Blobbit Push resolved the problem with Level 36, but another restriction in Flash has prevented the remaining levels from loading properly.

Hopefully I’ll fix that within the next two years!

There’s been a bug with the Flash version of Blobbit Push, where you couldn’t complete level 36. We’ve known about it (and constantly reminded by irate players) for over two years now, but I’ve finally got around to fixing it.

Now, because the flash file has changed, you may find that Flash has decided to ignore your savegame, meaning you’d have to play through all the levels again! So, to avoid any death threats, I’ve put a level skip feature in there – email support@blobbit.com and one of us will let you know how to find it.

We’re currently working on iBlobbit – yes, you guessed it, Blobbit for iPhone – as well as new Blobbity goodness on the way, as time allows.

You can play Blobbit Push here and there’s an updated Facebook version here.

There’s also been an update to Facebook Blobbit Dash, as I’ve fixed the highscore database.

Phew! I think I need a lie down….

Wow, two months since my last post! But then I have been a busy bunny. Lots of things I can’t talk about, but one little project I can mention is an adaptation of a friend’s space invaders game for a games exhibition in Liverpool.

There’s prizes for the highest scores, so get zapping here and a Facebook version here.

Now you can get a taste of it for free: http://bit.ly/1eetWy

Finally, after 11 months, the Squeeballs are unleashed! I had great fun making this, and I managed to hit the App Store in time to coincide with the Wii and DS releases.

Squeeballs on App Store

More screenshots here.

Following my last Forex post regarding Fat Ern, I started thinking about how I could make a new robot which would be more cautious, so it wouldn’t need as much margin (“float” money) to ride out bad trades.

I’ve been running this new one – “Bertha” – since late July, and on its 50th day of trading it doubled its initial deposit of 1,250 to 2,500 euros. During that time the USD/JPY market was all over the place, but Bertha managed to ride the storm. Besides, it was a good test.

So, I’m confident enough to set Bertha loose on a live market, with real money. Other people’s money, of course! I’ve demonstrated the system and the trading history to one investor, and he’s signed up already, so I’m on the look out for more.

Email me for details.

On Sunday, after spending the weekend earning money for a new kitchen, I posted the following Twitter message, which then appeared on Facebook:

“Ikari Warriors now on 3 Sidekick phones. Time for Vindaloo!”

A couple of hours later, I received a Facebook message from a colleague, warning me that the publisher is notorious for non payment. On Monday morning, a friend confirmed the warning. Then an email arrived from another developer saying work they’d done had been published, but payment never came. He provided details of yet another company with a similar story.

So, from an innocent message on Sunday evening, I cancelled the project Wednesday morning. If it wasn’t for Social Networking, I’d be working this weekend for money that’d never arrive. Luckily I’d only spent a couple of weekends on the project, so better to have found out early on.

It just goes to show though how powerful word of mouth is these days. It also shows that, because there’s so many eager and naive developers out there, it’s actually a feasible business model to systematically rip off developers, progressing onto a new developer once the current one gets wise to your actions.

It also highlights that, as a developer, you need to be as good at litigation as you are at coding. Developers are typically hobbyists-turned-professionals, so when a client goes bad they don’t know the options open to them. Many typically just quickly get started on another project to cover the shortfall of the bad one. This is what the publisher is counting on – rip them off, because they won’t fight back anyway.

In the last 10 years I’ve taken 3 publishers to court and sent a winding up order to a fourth, so I’m no slouch in going after people, and I try and perform due diligence on every client I take on. Plus, there’s the Cheeky Private Forum to check out. But it shows that even with all that, you can still get caught out.

Hopefully, with Twitter, Facebook and the like, these sorts of business practices can’t continue. It’ll only take one of these events to happen, and everyone will hear about it. Which is what I’m doing now