#html5sdf or bust
Last Tuesday (June 21st) I went to an unknown to me place called The Waldorf Hotel for the HTML5 Summer DevFest. Was an awesome web talks and beers day and really got me excited about all things web related. I’ve said that before about the #WPIEBCVan talk but this is exactly what I needed. I was in a slump and after going to other talks, conferences and meet ups I was beginning that the good ones really are hard to find, but no I was wrong, this was awesome.
The day was kicked off by a nice intro by John Bristowe (@jbristowe) really just showing how awesome HTML5 is and can be by constantly reciting his link blog, which to be honest I do look for inspiration, make awesome web. Next up was Brian LeRoux (@brianleroux) of PhoneGap fame (or infamy). TBH honest I can’t really remember the details of what he talked about beyond the extremely meme slides. It was just really cool hearing him talk and chatting with him afterwards about what they have to do for PhoneGap to give people an great application/service.
^^(@jbristowe and @brianleroux doing html5 DJ)^^
The rest of the day kind of went by in a haze but the rest of the speakers were Boris Smus (@borismus) talking about mobile web and touch events, Brian Fling (@fling) talking about how mathematical, psychological and just pure iteration design is. Brian Flings talk really did help me think about design from a far different perspective. Then there was Tom Dale (@tomdale) talking about SproutCore, and finally there was Thomas Lewis(@TommyLee) who made me admit it, publicly, that I do use <tables> far more than I should even though I know they should be left back in the 90s with <marquee> and <blink>. He actually went on about an IE development in the form of CSS grids which definitely perked up my ears.
Massive thanks to John Bristowe (@jbristowe), Boris Mann (@bmann) and the Vancouver HTML5 Meetup Group (@HTML5Vancouver) for putting the event on and I am well looking forward to the next one.
Filed under: Programming, Vancouver | Leave a Comment
Tags: beer, html5, mobile web, standards, summer, touch events
Over the weekend of June 17th I finally partook in my first game jam. I’ve helped out a many a Global Game Jam but finally thought that yeah sure my game coding skills are very lackluster and normalized databases don’t make for good gameplay but when I head Full Indie was holding it’s first ever game jam I just knew I had to give it a go.
I honestly had no idea what I could put my skills to and had a creeping feeling that I’d be useless to any team, have to learn something completely new in 48 hours or a bit of both. This feeling was calmed a little bit when I was at an IGDA Vancouver meet up at Radical Entertainment the Tuesday before and met James Karg (@Twisted_majic) who was also taking part in the Full Indie game jam and we batted around some ideas about Twitter. On D-Day we got talking again and with the inclusion of Cody Labossiere (@codylabossiere) we started to hammer out any ideas that came into our heads. (I had met Cody previously at another Full Indie meet up).
The main theme given to us was “Spawning”. This was due to it being Fathers Day on the Sunday and all fathers have spawn little mini thems. As you can see from the photo above we just went with any idea relating to spawning we could think of, even Kevin Bacon got mentioned. Once some core themes were out there we started on any game idea we could think of, these ranged from god games to fertilization. We kept trying to think of better core concepts but it just wasn’t happening, once bacon was mentioned earlier pizza was soon planted in our heads and this made our stomachs growl like nothing else so we decided on a small break and some food.
Once we had pizza half stuffed in our faces we knew we were missing something ….. beer. So a quick trip back to the jam via a liquor store we were sorted. We kind of all agreed to drop all the half ideas we had and just do something with Twitter. Only a half full of half “maybe …” sentences later and we came up with a word battle fighting game. #Fighter was born. (that’s not the final name. actually it’s not even a working name, I just thought of it now).
The premise of the game is to sign up easily using your Twitter account and then challenge friends using keyword hash tags and then just do battle using Twitter, somewhat, normally using predefined hashtags as battle commands. This is all record by our server and then determines the winner. A simple conceptual idea I had for explaining it, Pokemon but through Twitter, and less animal cruelty. It is a rather simplistic core concept but we all had very busy weekend plans besides the game jam, which involved drinking, and so the game never got to a working state. I do apologize for this as it was my coding skills that weren’t able to deliver in a short time frame. Though I do believe that with only an hour or two of work I can get it working in some form. I really just need to set some time aside for it.
The Full Indie game jam was a brilliant experience and I cannot wait for the next one to come up. Hopefully then I will not have so many beers and other plans on the weekend and actually come out with a working prototype. Until next time #KAPOW!!!! Also photo credit and beer cheers to Chevy Ray Johnston (@ChevyRay)
Filed under: Game, Life, Vancouver | 3 Comments
Tags: beer, game development, game jam, indie game, json, php, twitter
Full Indie Game Jame :: 01
And so it begins. I’m at the Full Indie Game Jam at the moment and after a few hours of deliberation I’ve teamed up with @Twisted_majc and @codylabossiere. And you wouldn’t have guessed but it’s a game involving TWITTER!! What’s a web dev to do. Hm ….
Right, anyways, quick update. Now back to programming.
Filed under: Life, Programming, Vancouver | Leave a Comment
Tags: php, twitter
Mo Money, Mo Time
Yeah just wanted to write a quick wee update on what I’ve been up to. Working. That’s about it. It’s cool because of the money and friends I am making but I really need to set aside some time for my own work. Anyone know of any great personal organizer apps that could help me with this?
Anyways, that really is all. Currently at Make Web Not War so will do a post on it soon. In the meantime just check it out on Twitter, @WebNotWar
Filed under: Life, Vancouver | Leave a Comment
Tags: html, job, php, web, work
An Irish Man Abroad :: 03
As you may have noticed, the “An Irish Man Abroad” series has rather halted after only two entries. Well that has happened because I wanted to make Vancouver my bitch and well, it made me it’s bitch. I came here being rather cocky thinking I’d just walk into some job and well, it’s been humbling to get the “no” response so much. This along with the fact I was determined to get a job before doing my next post, it appeared to get very quiet. Finally that silence can now be broken
John Geoffrey Wins At Getting A Job
Wednesday last I stared work at QuickMobile. WOOOOOO. As Patrick Payne (@quickmobile), CEO/Founder, said today, we’re not called Quick for nothing. The business is based around smartphone apps and mobile websites. Due to this it is a very fast paced environment with app talk going on everywhere. Submissions this, version that. Thing is, I LOVE IT! I have been nursing a nerd tenting since I started. I’m sure the sheer excitement will pass soon but I love just working in an environment where it’s peoples job to talk about this stuff. With my web background, I’m working on the mobile web side of things, mainly dealing with data. It’s well cool.
This really has just been a short update on what’s been going on as an Irish man abroad, and well, you’ll get more frequent updates from here on out. Also, read through the Scott Pilgrim books again. Loves them. Also, that’s where the “winning” comment came from.
Filed under: Life, Vancouver | Leave a Comment
Tags: app development, canada, Ireland, irish, mobile web, quickmoble, scott pilgrim, vancouver, work
