Zombie Ninjas available for Android
The beta of Zombie Ninjas has finally been published on Android Market!
https://market.android.com/details?id=air.au.com.escapetheory.ZombieNinjasGame
The development cycle from Flash to Android is now complete 
Still to come:
- Sounds
- Music
- Leaderboards
- Sharing on Facebook
I will make another post when the game is complete with music, sound and a working leaderboard!
R18+ rating for computer games
It's been a few years since my open letter to the then South Australia Attorney General. I'm happy to hear that the voices of the wider community has finally been answered.
The Standing Committee of Attorneys-General decided a few hours ago to introduce an R18+ rating for video games in Australia, in line with films and television.
With the exception of NSW which has abstained from the vote, all states and territories have agreed to implement the rating at some stage, and NSW is likely to follow after a separate meeting.
If you didn’t know, Australia is one of the few countries that do not possess an R18+ classification for video games.
This means that games rated Adults Only in the USA or Europe (like Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto 4, Left 4 Dead 2 and Mortal Kombat) are refused classification and can’t be sold here.
What this meant was that some games (Left 4 Dead 2) are edited and released in Australia with toned-down violence to meet the MA15+ rating.
Other games are barred from entering the country since the developer refuses to edit the game (Mortal Kombat).
The worst scenario however, is that big budget games (Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto 4) are given preferential treatment, and reclassified as MA15+ with little to no edits in order to sell here. Year 10 students end up playing games that are meant for adults only.
Luckily for us, the end to misclassification looks near, and we adults can soon play the same games that the rest of the world is playing, while ensuring aussie parents know the difference between games for children, and games for adults.
Yeah!
Playing with the Microsoft Kinect SDK Beta
The first tweet I read this morning was that the Microsoft Kinect SDK Beta was available to download. I installed everything and got it working in around 30 minutes.
Now it's time for me to brush up on my Visual Basic and DirectX to start making some more impressive demos.
-G
Microsoft Premix/Remix 2011
This year, Felthy and I went to Microsoft Premix/Remix 2011 to check out some keynotes and announcements from the team who are bringing out Kinect SDK, Windows 7 Phones and Windows 8.
If you follow @garry_law, you can re-live the event tweet-by-tweet, but here's a chronologically-ordered summary of the tweets over the two days. Will post more in-depth articles on some highlights soon!
Premix 1/Jun
- cannot wait to see web tech keynotes @REMIXAU (and #premixau drinks tonight of course
) #remixau #RIA - Mini hotdogs ftw @remixau #premixau
- Awesome! Mr percival live jam @remixau
- Michael (guitar) Cordahil takin the floor to introduce Dan Ilic, proves all cool people wear dark clothes @remixau
- Dan ilic believes #tv is killed by #internet . Netflix takes 20% of usa bandwidth. Farmville 70%, planking 10%
- @danilic great insight into building brands @remixau funny guy!
- #ie9 speed test on windows phone 7 mango. Deeplinking into apps looks so useful
- Music played by human body via #kinect sensor #remixau so much cooler than interpretive dance
- Good to see oldmate #microsoft researcher give insight into the future of lifeblogging for pensioners #remixau
Remix 2/Jun
- Will continue tweeting the #remixau conference today... after i sleep off the #premixau drinks from last night
- Just saw glasses-free 3D monitor in action. Effect works well in discreet viewing angles #remixau neet one for my portal 2 gaming
- Cordahil discusses midern web devs with aaron powell. 'Supporting lowest denominator is actually targeting a minority' #remixau
- Vaughan knight intro- wearing a portal 2 shirt, disappointed with lack of portal love in audience. Will talk about html5 gaming l8r #remixau
- Intro of dan beaty (he built the mr percival music app from last nite.) Will talk about SVG tech l8r #remixau
- Dan beaty wantd to build mrpercival app in html5, but it cannot support sounds. Needed sulverlight plugin #remixau . #flash also gets a nod
- Aaron powell takes the stage #html5 #remixau . html5 Boilerplate demo. Conveniently sets up your html5 project via template
- Aaron powell introduces modernizr and yepnope.js to simplify browser feature detection #remixau
- Vaughan knight takes the stage on #html5 games #remixau . Why? Ubiquity, broad reach, instant on, distribution, amazing community
- Impact JS demo- the html5 game framework looks like a great entry point for #flash devs to start building #html5 games #remixau
- if(zombies) { run(); } #remixau great advice
- Shane morris and nick randolph talking about 'inspirational' #windows 7 phone (mango). Qantas smart boarding pass app #remixau
- Nick randolph vs shane morris typify conflict between dsignr and coder: one hates version control, other ends copy with semicolons @remixau
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@soapcreative talkin abt worlds biggest pac man #html5 game, wont need worlds biggest monitor to play @remixau
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EaselJS allowed similar coding style as #actionscript. Mootools n modernizr also helped @soapcreative build pacman #html5 #remixau
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Final #remixau presso by dan beaty on canvas n html5- points out #silverlight is used to get around #html5 audio limitations.
- Just saw #windows8 preview @remixau thx for following my live tweets on #remixau
RIA, Animation and Industry Processes
This week I presented a guest lecture for the firstyear students at the UNSW school of media. It was a pleasant trip down memory lane as I visited the same school I graduated a few years back.
Brigid Costello, my lecturer, generously allowed me to set the students' Flash assessment task, so I look forward to seeing the result of their work.
Unlike the previous years, a much smaller group of the students were actually looking to pursue a career in animation or web development. In fact, the majority of the students turned out to be journalism majors, so I did my best to tailor my presentation for the writers in the room.
After working in the industry for almost 5 years, the process of design, development, approval and deployment had been drummed into my approach to work, so it took some time to put myself into the shoes of a uni student once again.
The life of students are jam packed with parties, drinks and the occasional assessment, so I did my best to emphasise the importance of actually planning out projects before diving into them. Secondly, I kept bringing up the importance of open communication to the client and getting consistent feedback. Of course, the theme was not just applicable to Flash or digital advertising, but to everything in general.
Judging from the oohs and aahs when I showcased some of our work, I think I got at least some attention to the importance of approaching work in a structured manner, but I think the real test would be to see the quality of the Flash assessments created by a class of journalism majors in 2 weeks' time.
Will post updates!