Archive for the 'Video Games' Category

Caster 1.1 for iPhone is out!

October 5th, 2009
Spencer Nielsen Follow snielsen42 on Twitter

After a long time coming, Caster 1.1 for iPhone was released about 2 weeks ago to the App Store. A lot of care has gone into listening to feedback and deciding what can be addressed now. It is a really nice update that should be a delight to existing customers and more enticement for new purchasers. Changes include:

  • The first three levels of Episode Two are playable.
  • Caster theme music cover by Mega Ran.
  • Controls tweaked to fast-paced shooting perfection.
  • Customizable draw distance (for people with the new 3GS or iPod Touch).
  • In game menu re-arrangement (to avoid hitting menu buttons inadvertently).
  • Tweaked visuals like the lifebar.
  • Small gameplay tweaks.

We learned a lot at GDC Austin 2009 about iPhone optimization, development and marketing strategies so be on the lookout for more updates in the future with improvements with regard to both technical aspects and content.

Caster for the iPhone is out!

May 6th, 2009
Spencer Nielsen Follow snielsen42 on Twitter

Caster for iPhone

My good friend Mike has released his 3rd person action game Caster on the iPhone App Store! The entire desktop experience has been faithfully reproduced and tuned for play on the iPhone with remarkable performance. The game is really fun on the Mac and PC but it really shines on Apple’s handheld devices. The graphics performance is amazing and the relatively complex control scheme has has been adapted perfectly for the touch screen without sacrificing any functionality and is arguably easier to use.

If you are a fan of fast paced action games be sure to grab Caster. I think you will dig the gameplay and love the unique pseudo Mega Man/Anime art style. It is only $5 but there is also a free Lite version with one playable level if you want to give it a test drive first. The best part of all is that the value of your purchase will increase over time as it updates with episodic content for free.

Why is it called Razor? I don’t know, I just needed a name.

December 18th, 2007
Spencer Nielsen Follow snielsen42 on Twitter

I actually had a very hard time thinking of a name for this project. Nothing really seemed to fit too well or sound that good. But I needed some sort of name for my new project. You have to call it something… I finally settled on “Razor”. What does it mean? Nothing. What does it have to do with the project? Nothing other than now that is what the project will be known by. After not being able to think of a name for a while and itching to just start coding on the darn thing I just picked the name and it has just kind of settled.

Ok, so what is it? On the Google Code page that it is hosted at I wrote:

Razor is a strategy game engine which is oriented around programming the AI of the units rather than direct control by humans. The idea is that human players compete by engineering the intelligence of the units under their control in order to fulfill an objective. The game world is in 3D and will employ some basic physics. Units, AI, physics models and many other aspects are extensible through a plugin system.

Razor is for Mac OS X Leopard only due to leverage of certain Leopard exclusive features such as dynamic loading/unloading of Objective-C, Garbage Collection and more as time goes on.

This is an idea I have had banging around in my head for a long time. Ever since I worked on an AI lab in college where the final semester objective was to program the AI of 5 tanks to play capture the flag against 5 other tanks controlled by one of the AIs of my many classmates. At the end of the semester the class had a tournament in which the prize was an instant ‘A’ in the class and didn’t have to take the final! My lab partner and I won the tournament and even though we both had As in the class at that point, not having to take the final exam was a big time relief at the end of a very busy semester. Perhaps I will make a blog post on our winning strategy later.

Along with that, I have always loved the great strategy involved in RTS games like Starcraft (which in my opinion is the best RTS ever made). I loved thinking of crazy new strategies that would find kinks in established defenses or play with the psychology of the other players. The only thing that prevented me from pulling off my grand designs was the limitations of my own reflexes. Some people just have the twitch and can bounce from scene to scene, keep everything in their heads at once and make lightning fast and precise mouse movements. But if the Korean Starcraft scene is any indicator, these cyber-athletes like gymnasts have a limited lifespan. Once you hit the ripe old age of 22 your reflexes aren’t what they used to be and some pretty young 16 year old is going to take your spot. What I want in some respects is AI programmable Starcraft.

Now the project is only in its infancy and is nowhere near doing anything of significant interest at this point but I decided that I wanted to get the code into an initial functional state that would at least be worthy of initial check-in. Because the project is open source I will be commenting here about the work that I am doing on it, future feature additions and other issues with great openness and frequency unlike my closed projects.

Below is a screenshot of the Simulation Viewer app that you can build and run right now from the source that is posted on the project page. It is not much but it is a start.

Razor, first commit

Neo Geo Cart Conversions

June 3rd, 2006
Spencer Nielsen Follow snielsen42 on Twitter

Neo Geo

I am pleased to announce the first of many tech oriented articles that will be placed here on the Blue Lotus Blog. Neo Geo Cart Conversions applies the black art of hardware hacking to one of the best video game systems ever. But this isn’t a plain old mod, this hackjob lets you play previously unattainable (read unaffordable) games for realistic prices! Although it isn’t extremely difficult, it can be an expensive mistake if done incorrectly. Come learn all about the underground world of converting arcade Neo Geo games to work with their counterpart brethren in the home.

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