Big action moments, great story telling and plenty of action. It was a fantastic roller coaster ride and hugely inspiring. My hats off to the Naughty Dog guys! From a game breakdown standpoint I don’t really have much to add to the breakdown from Uncharted 2 that I did a couple years ago.

Uncharted 2 is one of my favorite games of all time and is still the best in the series to me. Two things made Uncharted 3 not quite  reach the Uncharted 2 level for me. First the story is more focused on your relationship with Sully than it is on the female character dynamic. To me the complexity and difficulty in doing a good romantic plot in the second game made me more impressed. Secondly I found the overall execution of the single player not as polished. There were great moments but there were a lot that were boring run at the camera missions that seemed to repetitive including some Max Payne like dream sequences that didn’t really pay off. With all that said, Uncharted 2 is one of my favorite games of all time so I still heartily recommend Uncharted 3 and I haven’t even dived into the MP/COOP yet.

Short version

I’m going to say up front that I enjoyed this presentation and thought that it was worth the time and cash investment.

Who is it for?

Personally I think everyone should have an interest in design aspects. The course is great for anyone new to mobile web design as it is a good overview of the practical issues and solutions available as of early 2011. If you are looking for technical specifics, implementation details or a step by step how to make your application work you should look elsewhere as this course really focuses on presenting a very design focused, implementation light presentation. I was up for that and therefore found the course rewarding from an analytical and a design point of view as it provides lots of data to backup the points made. It reminded me a little of the great book Don’t Make Me Think in that everything he said sounded a lot like common sense (the truest form of “good design”) but did I know it was common sense before I heard it? That is the best type of design discussion, one where you nod your head in agreement the entire time.

Key things I learned

The following are thoughts I had while watching the course, most of which are related to the topics but some of which might not have been Luke’s points and if I am wrong, blame me not him!

1. Mobile web is probably bigger than desktop in terms of customer base or will be soon
2. Unique features are available and accessible for web
3. Designing for mobile first is probably easier than the other way around as it forces you to design simple things
4. Design around maximizing content and have navigation as the secondary thing
5. Support full client experience including input on the device, old rules do not apply of it being limited/hard
6. People use the website frequently even if there is a native app, so don’t mess that up!
7. Small options or difficulties can have a huge impact on usage
8. Mobile browsers are arguably more compatible with each other than PC’s history. HTML5 and CSS3 are fairly safe to assume.

What was missing?

I wish that there were more references or links to implementation details for the content. I’m fairly new to web development in general and some fast pointers or tips for people who don’t have “web legacy” would be great.

What does this change for IGAMEMAKER.COM?

I’m wondering if I should focus on some HTML5 based games in order to maximize exposure of my games. No app store, no platform limits and due to time constraints the games that I can make are fairly limited in feature set anyway. With both Unity and Unreal outputting to flash, how long is it before people are authoring to WebGL and canvas for games? Perhaps that is the best place to start. Build an audience and then make unique clients if the games are popular. I might look at doing an online version of my Tic Tac Toe game and perhaps a mobile version of my site.

I am thinking of a turn based Tic Tac Toe game as a “Hello World” application and how I could do it with a minimal amount of work. For example getting rid of AI completely and only letting you play friends and keeping it super clean.

Out with the old and in with the new. One of my goals for April was to get my tutorial site updated so it didn’t look…pathetic. Rather than spend money on a pre-made solution and not learn much of anything I decided to read Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML and code the sucker from scratch. It took longer but I learned a lot given that my last hand coded webpage was probably in the 90′s.

At some point that site will become the main igamemaker.com and this blog will be a link off of it. You may also see some HTML5 games in the future.

A 7-minute tutorial on how to get a basic skinned mesh through to unity. I ran into this issue and thought I would share my discovery of a way that works.

The short version if you know blender well is that you have to use vertex groups instead of envelope weighting. If you don’t know what that means, watch the video, if you do, you can probably figure it out from there. Apologies if this is rather basic but I am new to blender.

There are still a couple of issues with the armature itself not being oriented how I would expect after export but the animation data seems to work correctly. If you have any additional hints or tricks on this please let me know.

If you are getting an error like this:

ImportFBX Warnings:
Mesh ‘Cube’ has 12 (out of 12) vertices with no weight and bone assigned (they will be assigned to bone #0 with weight 1). The list of vertices: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and so on…

Then the video should fix this.

Skinned Meshes – Blender 2.5 to Unity from IGAMEMAKER.COM on Vimeo.

A couple of generous people got a hold of the Makeroids Project file and made an updated version of the game. It now has music and improved artwork. I am glad to see others having as much fun as I did with an old classic. Check it out here.

The main two IGAMEMAKER.COM achievements from last year were:

1. Finishing a Tic Tac Toe unity web application
2. Posting a how-to video tutorial

My main goal last year was to do one small project and finish with with a fairly high level of polish. I’ve had roughly 850 people watch the making of video and roughly the same number play the game so I think this was a success.

2011

On January 1st I became a registered iOS developer. An hour after registering I launched my current, incomplete and top secret, game onto my iPod. This year I am hoping to do the following:

1. Create and launch a game on the app store
2. Create more projects/video tutorials
3. Add in the ability to donate or purchase larger tutorial source files (allowing you to download the video if desired)

If you have an interest in further tutorials please let me know your suggestions/preferences. Here is my list as it stands today:

• Tic Tac Toe – Cocos2D, Cocos2D-x, UDK (why now?)
• Google App Engine – Hosting Unity player with Google App Engine
• Top seller break downs – Flight Control, Angry Birds, etc.
• My game as it develops…
• Anything else that comes to mind?

Last year was more than a little hectic and there wasn’t much time for projects or blogging. I cut out the “fluff” posts and focused on getting meatier results. I’m going to do that again this year and focus on “doing” and then blogging when I have something interesting rather than something forced. I am planning on having more time to dedicate to development this year and I’m hoping to share some of it soon.

I see you – Na’vi

Introduction

Accessibility is a key in both movie making and in games and I believe that Avatar embodies the “simple but deep” development philosophy. This combined with cutting edge visuals and spectacle is where the film’s greatness comes from. I have heard a few people bash the script as being incredibly simple and I have also heard comments about the moving being an extremely “left” political message. For me as a viewer I think there is some truth to these comments, Avatar should not receive and award for writing and I do think it has many left wing things to say but I believe it tells a much more potent message than some people may think. The message is so blatant and simple that I don’t think many reviewers actually see it. The thesis of the film is “I see you” and I want to take a minute to describe how that message is told in a way that includes everyone but is ultimately and expression about Art rather than society.

To make and engaging story you have to create characters on screen that people can identify with and then you have to tell a story where those people progress and change throughout that story in meaningful ways. I think that one of the cheapest ways to make people connect is by making fun of people that are dislike them. I personally think Avatar sells its experience by using stereotypical caricatures to make fun of and include everyone all at the same time (no group other than the Na’vi miss having stereotypical digs).
Military

People that are military supporters get the initial buy in for the marine grunt (read protagonist) on the ground and a get things done attitude. They get to make fun of the science geeks and show that a Jarhead can come in and learn everything and blast some people up, get the girl and ultimately save the day. This is a very satisfying film on this level and is probably the best executed and the one that took the most on screen time to develop. I think this story is where the majority of ticket sales are actually from.
Corporations

Corporations and economics do not make good entertainment. So this movie easily targeted something everyone has understandably had a run in with. Phrases like unobtanium and slaughtering people to get at resources is a very powerful message.
Scientists

Scientists are one of the most interesting commentaries made by Cameron. It would be easy to make this movie a pro-science movie but instead I think Cameron even took a dig at scientists by making them unable to see the Na’vi for what they really are, due to their preconceived notions. The jealousy they have for Jake is sort of “last one picked for dodge ball funny”. I think this example is where Cameron takes his biggest step in layering the meaning into the picture. I read this, even on my first viewing, as a message to movie critics and viewers everywhere to really stop and see and occasionally admit that you are prejudiced and biased at times and cannot see.

After making fun of so many groups, the only core message I can really in the movie is purely artistic and a bit of an ego trip. Come into my created world and revel in the art. I say making fun of other groups and ego trip fairly lightly as well. I loved this movie and I think it used simple techniques to establish character. The battle scenes and heroes journey stand on their own without comment! Yes there are political messages included in this artistic film but at the end of the day the artistic brilliance created by a  masterpiece created by a huge collaboration of people it what will stand the test of time. I think that at the end of the day, this somewhat simple plot tells the tale of artistic achievement and fulfillment in the best way I have seen to date. To me, that is where the greatness of the film is. Does art include commentary on social and political issues? Yes, but even more it is a window into artists worlds and imagination rendered in a way that has never been more real. Avatar is the Star Wars of this generation and I am excited to see the inspiration this work of art drives in years to come. Hopefully “I see you” James Cameron and what your collaborators brought to the screen.

“I see you” – James Cameron (Golden globes)

Buidling a home theater
I had been planning on building a home theater in my new house since August and I finished the majority of it in December 2009. Here is what I went with:

For roughly $3500 I have a 110″ 1080p image projected on my wall and great surround sound. I am by no means an audio or a video expert so this upgrade in quality has blown me away and was well worth the investment considering that you can spend the same about on a 55″ TV which is 25% of the size and the sound would be lacking. Some days I still wonder if I should have gone with the TV as the projector requires a bit more maintenance and doesn’t look good during the day. When I put a movie on at night, those little niggling thoughts go away and I remember how awesome theater can be! If you can control the light in your room and don’t mind playing around a little to set it up then there isn’t a better value on the market.

Repairing/Upgrading a broken PC
Moving my PC ended up being a series of unfortunate events.

What did I learn?
Research the chips a bit better. “Supported” and “Supported at full speed” are different things.
Don’t power off a machine during a bios update (duh…this was an accident as I left the disc in the drive at boot up)
Check everywhere for a delivered package, even if it required a signature.
Run x86memtest or something like that when you get new RAM.
Keep in mind how easy pre-built laptops are!
Next time consider just buying everything new to start with as I have probably invested what a reasonable new machine would have cost if I was searching for deals.