Posted in Software on September 20, 2022

Some time ago I bashed Unity Game Engine (the Editor in particular) for its instability and lots of quirks and questionable changes that took place over the years following the version 4 release of the Editor.

Fast forward to this September. I'm done with my microcontroller shenanigans and have mostly finished the Design Document for the game I talked about quite a while ago (which took a lot of planning, for I am a project manager after all).

What's the next step then? — Exactly!

Prototyping!

So I've been playing with the latest "LTS" version of the Unity Editor 2021.3.7 and...

Wow!

And I mean a good wow:

• It's rock solid and hasn't crashed once even when I was importing some of my older code and extension methods from the previous game which I wrote in 2012-2015. And 95% of the code-base ended up being non-obsolete! I guess Unity APIs didn't change that much over the years, huh? How cool is that?
• Package Manager is amazing. Cutting some of the features of the engine from the binary/default assembly and turning those into officially supported packages with the added convenience of being able to download and update them as you please? What a deal!
• Unity Addressable Asset system (or "Addressables"). Nuff said. This is a feature Unity devs had been dreaming of for like a decade
• Nested prefabs. I know, I am a slowpoke, since this is not a new feature, but there is a difference: they work. Compared to my previous experience with nested prefabs in Unity when they would crash the editor like 50% of the time when I was editing them – now we're actually usable! Huzzah!
• Integration with Visual Studio is very solid, pleasure to work with
• I looks the same, feels the same and despite adding new features like DOTS and burst compiler, Unity team didn't change the paradigm too much, so being a knuckle-headed brute that I am I can continue using ScriptableObjects and MonoBehaviors for most of my objects and scripts. Yay!
• C#. Yes, C#. That C#. It's not new of course, but it's C#. It's C#, you see. It's not C or C++. It's C#. I love C#, I guess that's what I'm trying to say
• Also, Asset Store is still a thing. And can still save hundreds of hours of development for a couple hundred bucks
• Oh, yeah, it's still free of charge for indie devs. Just sayin'

All in all, the time has come...

Unleash the monkey coder!

Posted in Games on July 25, 2016

Run and rock-it Kristie, a "rayman-esque" iOS platformer was the first game I released publicly. Making the game was quite an experience, but seeing people actually play it was something else.

Less than a week after release it was featured on the European App Store as one of the best games of the week for iPad which was cool as hell.

Over half a year has passed since and I think it's time to let everyone experience the whole game for free. In the initial version only the first tour was available free of charge, and it wasn't the most exciting one of them all, which didn't quite let people truly experience the game and its mechanics. Hence, last week I finally decided to remove the only in-app purchase from the title and make it free for everyone to enjoy.

So grab a copy of the game for yourself or your kids and have fun =)

And maybe... Just maybe... Android port of the game might be in the works ;)