Lertulo ([info]lertulo) wrote,
@ 2008-03-10 00:25:00
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A New Platform!

I've been a big fan of the Danger Hiptop cell phone, and have made a decent wage writing games for it. But writing in Java hurts my pride, and when my third Hiptop in a row died a hardware death I decided it was time to rethink my choice of platform.

See, the Hiptop just doesn't seem to be going anywhere. After about four years now, their hardware has changed slightly: a two-directional wheel has replaced the one-directional one, and the screen resolution is better. The camera is maybe 1.6 megapixels instead of 1.0. Wow. But it still doesn't have anything more than rudimentary bluetooth, doesn't have any kind of GPS, its CPU-power-to-display-pixels ratio is *decreasing*, and its radio... god help me, but GPRS connectivity sucks even when it actually works. Four years, and they haven't done anything about some fundamental problems.


So I've swapped brands, and am now one of the herd playing with an iPhone. It's a new world, baby. Looking forward to picking up some Objective-C, learning some xCode, and capitalizing on the latest fad.

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[info]piscis_lj
2008-03-10 01:28 pm UTC (link)
It's like the end of an era. I ... I just don't know what to say... :O

Cat

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[info]piscis_lj
2008-03-10 01:29 pm UTC (link)
Sorry thought of one more thing - does this mean your games will be cross platform now?

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[info]lertulo
2008-03-13 03:14 am UTC (link)
Well, sort of. I've written games for the PC, for the PocketPC and for the Hiptop cell phone, and I'm now working on adding the iPhone to the list.

The problem is that PC/PocketPC content is written in C++, the Hiptop's content is Java, and the iPhone's content is Objective-C. So it's really hard to write something once and use it everywhere.

Worse, they all have different feature sets. Desktops clearly use keyboard/mouse and maybe joysticks for their primary input; PocketPC has a touch screen but also has Gameboy-like controls (hardware buttons you can mash and so forth); iPhone is purely touch but has some neat motion sensing tricks. So it's hard to even come up with a single game that's compelling on all platforms without significant revisions.

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[info]guruzilla_lj
2008-03-10 03:38 pm UTC (link)
Heh.

Do you think you'll have mastered Obj-C this afternoon, or will it take you until next week, do you think? :D

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[info]lertulo
2008-03-13 03:14 am UTC (link)
Oh, at least two weeks; I'm getting old. :)

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[info]saanen
2008-04-21 11:31 pm UTC (link)
I saw Matthew yesterday and he said Mike just got an iPhone, or whatever the next thing they released after it is. He says it's awesome to a breathtaking degree and he wants one too now.

Um, I just tagged you over on my new blog (http://kcshaw.blogspot.com/). You don't have to do the tags (two of them), but I included you on my list because I don't know enough people well enough to pester them. You I can pester. :)

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[info]jackiejj
2008-07-20 10:31 pm UTC (link)
So you're with AT&T now?

Sigh.

Well, I do have a camera on my phone...

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