I’ve been really excited about the Mobile platforms future, so i’ve been looking at either programming for the iPhone or the Android. I think I’ve finally come to a conclusion but here’s some of the pro’s and con’s that I found while trying to pick a platform.

iPhone Pro’s
1. Large user base.
2. AppStore for distribution.
3. Fantastic IDE.
4. Good OpenGL Library (something I’d like to get in to).
5. Pretty good documentation on Apple Developer Connection.

iPhone Con’s
1. Objective-C language barrier.
2. Have to pay $99 to take part in the standard developer program, debug on iPhone, App Store etc.
3. No multi platform IDE, this is a real shame.
4. Did i mention Objective-C….

Android Pro’s
1. OpenSource! No paying for debugging on your phone.
2. Has it’s own MarketPlace (think AppStore).
3. Googles documentation for the SDK is extremely thorough, much better than Apples.
4. Operating System’s integration with Googles services is great.
5. Java! Easier to pick up and probably a good language to have under my belt.
6. Uses Eclipse as the IDE…. Cross platform and OpenSource!

Android Con’s
1. I’ve heard that the OpenGL implementation isn’t very nice.
2. Not much of a user base… yet. It will grow rapidly as it’s a really nice piece of kit.
3. Lastly and the most influential for me. It just isn’t an iPhone.

Now I’ve even replaced my iPhone with the O2 G1 Android Phone, and on paper the Android SDK seem’s to win for me but (and this sounds really stupid I know) developing for the Android platform just isn’t as glamorous or as sexy as the iPhone. For the last three days I’ve been learning the Objective-C language, it has a mishmash dot syntax, confusing structure and not an easy learning curve (understatement it’s like a brick wall). Despite this I’m starting to get hooked!

anton.

It’s probably been blogged to death by now but I’ll post about it here for my sake more than anything else! I’ve just found a video tutorial on how to include snippets in a vanilla FlexBuilder 3 install. It works pretty well but doesn’t include the import statements when creating handlers etc, so double check all these.

Check it out: http://theflashblog.com/?p=480

It always makes my day when it’s time to start a new project. The possibilites of what the project could become. The chance to use new idea’s/concepts or even technologies if the project allows for it. The chance to improve on my code from the previous project. A chance to make something really special….

Then reality hit’s home. Project Managers telling me there’s next to no budget, time constraints are tight and I’ll have to cut every corner possible in order to get it out of the door. sigh.

anton.

I stopped development for 2 days while I’ve been rolling the game framework architecture (try saying that fast, yeah) around in my head, trying to think of the most logical way to lay everything out.

Usually when making applications or games I tend to jump straight in and get my hands dirty and that’s exactly what I’ve done this time, so I’ve tried to step back and put more thought in to the framework. Here’s the result.
 

application heirarchy

You’ll have to get used to the spiderlike handwriting. This is a rough (but pretty accurate I think) version of what I’d like to create. This is all pretty anal I know but it’s a breath of fresh air to actually have a good understanding of exactly what I’m going to create rather than get deeper in to the development cycle and realise I’ve planned it all wrong.

The next step I think is to try UML for the first time and see if I can map it all out. If anyone knows any good tutorials/resources on UML and AS3 Stub code please give me a prod with them :)

anton.

If you’ve read my end of year review post then you’ll know I’m planning on creating a lot more games as a sideline and hopefully getting them sponsored. I’ve been slowly piecing together a framework of sorts that I’ll be using with these games and I’ve been looking through my library of classes and found two that I’ll hopefully implement in to my framework.

1. Navigation.as – This is currently a State Machine class that I use to manage the state of the visual display. Inside is a predefined Tween in transition and a Tween out transition and is used like: _navigation.showContent(_navigation.SHOWTITLE);

2. AudioManager.as – this is a Singleton class with a list of sounds and executed like: _audioManager.playIntro();

I’ve come across a post of GamingYourWay’s nGFX on his own bespoke ScreenFramework. My Navigation.as works similarly as I tend to have each view or screen self contained and it simple calls a startFunction or stopFunction depending on the views state, but I liked his idea of having it as a Singleton with a list of all available screens so I wont have to post around a load of class references. I’ll have to abstract or even create a new State Machine to control this framework. I also hadn’t thought of abstracting the transition code and pass it along as a parameter. Nice post nGFX! 

I’m unsure what to do with the AudioManager yet, it works ok as it is but I’m sure I can find a better way to implement it. More to come.

anton.

As soon as I read on Keith Peters blog that the follow up to Actionscript 3 Animation was being written I logged straight in to amazon and placed it on my Amazon pre-order list. Actionscript 3 Animation has been sat firmly on my desk since I bought it over a year ago. It’s a fantastic repository of maths, trig and physics that is invaluable to any Flash game developer. Seriously if you don’t already own this book go and buy it. 

I was absolutely thrilled the sequel turned up on my doorstep today especially as I had completely forgotten that I had placed it on my it on my pre-order list. I’ve not had time for a full look yet but a quick thumb through shows topics such as Pathfinding, Isometric Projectection and Advanced Collision Detection… Can’t wait to read it. Take a look at Advanced Actionscript 3 Animation here Nice work Keith!

anton.

Now things are beginning to return to normal after Christmas and New Year, I’ve had time to reflect on the previous year and have some thought on where I’d like to go in the up and coming year.

2008 was a significant year for me. I bought my first house in June and have rather successfully (if I do say so myself) bodged quite a few jobs around the house since then. It was also marked the end of my previous role in Crumble Creative and the start my new role in Wales’ largest digital agency Sequence. The role’s taken a lot out of my time so I’ve not worked on many other projects this year which has been a shame but I’m looking at putting some bits and pieces together soon so this is hopefully changing. While we’re on the subject, 2008 was also the year for Actionscript 3 for me, while I’d been slowly trying to adopt it in to projects September 2007, February 2008 I took the plunge to AS3 only, and I haven’t looked back at Actionscript 2 (well I lie, I find spiking ideas and general development takes a bit longer). Phew quite a lot of change in just one year, in fact 2008 was very good to me.

Looking to the year ahead I’d like to set some sort of goals or direction. Personally I’d like to keep my running up and perhaps enter some small events like 5k/10k’s, I just love running. Career wise I’m unsure especially with the current climate, a change of company’s could be on the cards. As for technology and projects, I’m a proud owner of a Google Android phone and an older iPhone (I’m gadget crazy), I’m unsure which one yet but I’ll probably commit to making mobile app’s/games in my spare time. I’ve played with both SDK’s and spent some time with both language’s. I really like the Android SDK and Java, Objective C has been an initial hurdle with iPhone but it does seem a great piece of hardware to create for…. It’s an exciting time to be spoilt for choice! I’m also looking at developing a few flash games and getting them licensed (more curiosity than anything else). Finally a third and final project that I’m chipping away at slowly, I won’t divulge yet in case it doesn’t come off anyway.

I’m excited about 2009 and I’m hoping that 2009 proves to be every bit as exciting as 2008 was, and with any luck, even better.

anton.