Yep, I'm still here

Sorry about the recent lack of updates. I wish I could say it was because I was doing something frightfully interesting. To the contrary, it's because I'm doing something frightfully uninteresting. Actually I'm streamlining my build process. I've noticed that some game portals like to see customized games (i.e. ones that show their logo). Or occasionally I set up side-deals that want stuff done with the games like bigfishgames who like my games but have their own ad-revenue and don't want the mochiads.

So I've been putting together a little process that'll make it easier. Flash itself isn't really intended to be used as part of a build process. It really wants to be a big polyglot build environment that has every possible build tool you'll ever need. Unfortunately it's never quite like that. Flex seems have changed that quite a lot with their command line builders and suchlike, but I'm too entrenched in Flash to bother with that.

Flash does have JSFL, which is a javascript language used to actually script the Flash IDE. It's usually used for building custom tools for FLash because the hooks into the Flash UI run pretty deep. It can, however, just be used as a batch language that runs within Flash itself. Flash doesn't have a preprocessor that I can abuse, so some of my build-steps are a mite inelegant, like copying custom include files and plugin classes from a temp directory into the build path.

And it's working. I now have games that'll talk to just about every high score system out there and a few custom builds for major game-portals. And if there's no high score system available, I now pop up an in-game leaderboard that works across all instances. Cool.

I'll probably update it on the play-n-share page today.

My meaningless prediction

We now have some very well-proven bits of technology available to us. . .

1. Battery powered devices that can be charged through induction, namely electric toothbrushes

2. Devices that can sync with servers and computers wirelessly, like my Zune

3. Headphones that connect to devices wirelessly, ala bluetooth

So why haven't we yet combined all three technologies and made completely sealed media players and cellphones? Seems like the biggest reliability problem with the devices lies with 'em getting wet or getting their ports broken from being dropped or improperly removing a cable. If the devices were completely sealed, then those become nonissues.

Batteries and SIM-cards would be a problem, because you need to penetrate the device to replace those. Perhaps some kind of sealed door held on with screws for the occasion that you need to replace a piece of innards. Heck, we've been able to make waterproof watches for decades. Why not waterproof tech?

And now that we have laptops with no internal moving parts, why not sealed laptops? I'd love a laptop that I could toss in the dishwasher when it gets dirty.

Welcome welcome!

Welcome to all new viewers who learned about The Code Zone from Games Magazine!

I hope you enjoy your stay and have fun with some games!

Me the namedropper

Well look at who's suddenly taken an interest in me. . .



Methinks a certain presumptive presidential candidate is looking for a science advisor for his cabinet.

If that's the case, I'll take it, presuming that the job includes some decent cheap health insurance.

Something clever

I guess this could be germane to the whole "doing something clever on the cheap" meme that I always push.

This is George Hrab, a funny music-guy who I've been following for a little while. With nothing more than a webcam and a little planning ahead, he made what is, IMHO, one of the cleverest music videos I've seen in a while.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtiUdF4sGY0

He also has a weekly (warning: R-rated) podcast here. And he has some records (also R-rated) here.

Spot the looney

I have. . .

* a relative who went to a two-year trade school so she could take a job as a pretend doctor who blames most human ailments on spinal alignment

* a relative who sends me a yearly Christmas card wishing me and my family the happiest of holidays and encloses with it a little comic book that promises me exquisite and unending posthumous torture unless I convert to their religion immediately.

* a relative who prides himself in his amazing ability to spot gay actors on television and who is only too eager to show off his abilities whenever the teevee is on.

* a relative who hires new-age in-home healers who wave their hands in the proximity of their children to unruffle their auras and keep them safe from disease.

* a relative who constantly extols the virtues of a particular teevee psychic, despite his show displaying an extensive disclaimer explaining that he should not be taken seriously AND the show appearing on the Science Fiction Network.

* a relative who made a pilgrimage halfway around the planet to visit a statue of a virgin that allegedly bleeds, sheds tears, and heals the diseases of those in its proximity.

* a relative who believes every medical claim made on television commercials, going as far as purchasing "Japanese" maxi-pads that you stick to your feet while you sleep so they can remove all your body's toxins.


Yet if you gathered all of those people into a single room and demanded that they come to a single belief that they all shared, the only consensus they would be able to reach is that there's something wrong with ME for not seeing the value in any of it.

So, given those hints, I ask you to spot the looney.

And I'll give you a hint.

It's me.

Go figure.

Blogs and design

First off, next month is the tenth anniversary of your humble reporter's Bargain Basement Blog. Since tenth birthdays of blogs are rare things (so rare in fact that I can only think of a couple other examples), I must do something interesting to commemorate the event.

And I'm thinking a contest. Here are my ideas.

1. Haiku contest with a cash prize. Yeah, it's been done, but it was fun last time.

2. Whomever can successfully get Wil Wheaton to wish my blog a happy birthday from his blog gets a fabulous cash prize.

3. Whomever can successfully drive the most traffic to www.thecodezone.com gets a prize. While this would work out best for me, I'm not sure how to score such a thing.



On another note, I'm at a design quandry. I'm working on a sequel to my most popular online game. And since I wanna be as obscure as possible, I'm going with the enigmatic name of "ConFusebox 2". Thus far it's going to have three different modes of play.

1. Standard ConFusebox. The one you know and love (google for it if you haven't played).

2. Loop ConFusebox. Instead of a maze with bulbs, the board is a big loop that connects to itself. I have that working now. It plays just fine and is a bit easier than the classic, so I compensate by making the board denser. Shelly likes it.

3. Connect ConFusebox. This is gonna be a licensed knockoff of TANS's "connect" Javascript game.


In addition to that, I'm going to have easy/medium/hard buttons for each game type, so ConFusebox 2 will really be nine games in one (three different ways to play, with three levels of difficulty for each). And there's no problem there. What I'm wondering is if there's really a way to make a coherent scoring model outta that mess. Many of the more successful Flash game portals have global high score tables. I connect to many of 'em now, and it's a good way to drive traffic to your game, because people like to beat their buddies at the game.

There are problems, though. The object of ConFusebox is to get the lowest score, and I have yet to run across a system that does "low is best" tables. While I could easily remedy this by doing "bonus" style scoring (i.e. your score is (250-moves) plus (240-seconds)), that doesn't solve the problem of having so many different modes. It'll be nigh impossible to get a scoring model that'll fairly score an easy loop-level against a hard standard-level. A couple of game portals have remedied this by having multiple tables, so I could do something like this. . .

submitScore(120, "Loop Level - Easy Difficulty")

and it'd add the score to that named table so people playing on easy levels are scored against the same. Most game-portals don't do this, though.

The easiest solution is to not mess with high score tables, as ConFusebox isn't really a good candidate for scoring outside the model of the "even playing field" scoring that I have for my daily puzzles.

My other worry is that if ConFusebox 2 has all the functionality of ConFusebox 1, am I possibly cannibalizing my hits from the original game and/or would game portals feel like ConFusebox 1 is an anachronism because 2 does all the original did and more?

Your opinions?