So a few projects have stuck out to me recently that either struck my interest or that I feel compelled to participate in.


This amazing nonprofit teaching site that I'll be contributing to on the tutor side:
http://www.askadev.com/

Here's a scratch built game engine, Banshee, that the author is currently advertising:
https://github.com/BearishSun/BansheeEngine

And finally, a linux/mac JS based browser:
http://breach.cc/


That's all for now!

Next

I haven't used .NET and I decided I should get familiar with it.  Especially since it's kind of a joke among some friends that I've done C# development but have never used .NET.  I have used mono, the open source variant, but only in relation to Unity.  Also I haven't used Visual Studio since college, so that will be a nice refresher.
Anywho, for my first project I have two main goals:

1. Make a web based report tool using SOA, similar to ones I've worked on in the past

2. Use a new BDD framework, I picked SpecFlow.


So, to fulfill these goals, here are the steps that I need to do, which I'll cover in this blog:

Write specs out in SpecFlow
Follow the flow to create a page in C#/ASP.NET
Create a service in ASP.NET that the page will use
Create a database with SQL Server compact for the service

And then I should be done. I'll post to youtube with a walktrhough of the finished product.

iOS game in store

I decided to release an app to the iTunes store(it's something I've been meaning to do since...well, since I became a developer a few years ago).  It's a matching game I made to try out the iOS SpriteKit.  Previously I had just used core animation and GLkit(or did it in Unity), I had set up a library that let me do most of the same things, but it's nice to have a fully functional native option for 2D games.

That being said, if anyone has a toddler it would be a great for them. 

The code for a basic version of the game is available on my bitbucket and github accounts.



https://github.com/milam/IOSGameSample

And the actual game is available at:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pet-rescue-adoption-center/id888264230?mt=8

I really need to figure out a better name =/.  And I need to find decent open source animal sounds.

Codemancer

Here's a kickstarter I noticed for a great game that is geared toward teaching coding skills in an abstract way:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bobbylox/codemancer-a-fantasy-game-that-teaches-the-magic-o?ref=home_spotlight

CSS

After doing some work on a webpage of mine, I browsed around to find some more esoteric properties of CSS.  During that search I came across this nice list:

http://www.webcredible.com/blog-reports/css/css-tricks.shtml

I already knew some of it, but the ones I didn't were pretty nifty

SleepyDEV

SleepyDev, a company I'm doing work for finally launched a site over at sleepydev.net.

They are a unity shop that does prototypes for Kickstarter projects, and also work on some minor full game projects as well meant for licensing and rebranding.  If anyone needs a service like that, you should check them out.

Just a quick note

 Procedural platformer levels seem to be a thing in some circles.  I came across this decent rundown for creating the AI and I'll probably be putting together some code for a simple one soon. 

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/170049/how_to_make_insane_procedural_.php?print=1

A game released last year that made use of it to a challenging level is Cloudberry Kingdom.