Today, the first test version of Bubblomania Online was released to a selected group of testers! So that means the first milestone has been reached!

I spent a lot of time this week coding the gameplay, and improving/finetuning it. But it will still evolve following the feedback I receive. Also, I was able to improve the graphics somewhat, but I’m going to redo some of the graphics coming from Bubblomania X, to fit more with the new look of the game.

There’s still quite some work left though, but by this time next week I hope to have a much more complete game! Unfortunately, I’ll have to wait until the release of the final LWJGL 1.0, before I can deploy it as an applet…

Last weekend, I was planning to do some serious coding on Bubblomania Online. But saturday afternoon, I decided to take a break and have a look at this Tiltilation game I downloaded recently. I didn’t get any work done…

This must be the first time I played through the demo of a game, and immediately paid for it! For $6.99, this game’s a steal. And it’s incredibly addicting, and a lot of fun! The Tiltilation website describes the game as follows:

Tilt the board to guide your ball through the maze to the exit collecting the gold tokens along the way. Sound easy? Why not play it and tell us that after! Bounce, fall and dodge your way through over 50 levels of challenging fun.

What I like most about this game is it’s focus on skill, and the competitive aspect. Each of the levels has a time limit, and the 3 best times for each level are published online. You receive points if you score one of the 3 best times, for the online ranking. I’m currently ranked 3rd!

The game also features a number of unlockable levels and balls, to keep things interesting. And it’s available for Windows, MacOS X and Linux, so go ahead and download Tiltilation! I don’t usually write game reviews on this blog, but then again, I’m not usually this excited about a game
It’s also nice to see that Tiltilation was coded with Java and LWJGL, which I’m also using for my upcoming games!

It’s been a couple of days again since I last posted on this blog… The reason is that I’ve been working very hard on my upcoming webgame Bubblomania Online!

The game is already playable and all game elements are on screen, including text. I’ve been adding some cool effects which were not present in Bubblomania X, because they’re a lot easier to code using OpenGL.

There’s still quite some work left though: finish coding the gameplay, maybe make better graphics, adding online topscores, adding some sound, … But I fully expect to be able to put an early alpha version online next week! This release will not be available to the public, so contact me if you’re interested in testing it.

I was sitting outside on my terrace this afternoon, enjoying the sun, and coding on my old Powerbook It sure has advantages to work from home, I haven’t regretted it for a single moment!

Sitting there, I had to think about the song Wonderful Days by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo, which was one of my favorite happy hardcore tracks about 10 years ago

Something else which happened about 10 years ago, was the very first release of Bubblomania! By doing so, I discovered the fun of creating and releasing games. And even back then, I knew I wanted to do this for a living one day! I’m planning to write some more about Bubblomania’s history later this month.

Since I started work on Bubblomania Online last week, I have made some good progress! It’s going a bit slower then expected, because I’ve written a lot of useful utility classes along the way. But I will save that time again for my next projects, so I don’t mind. It’s not like I have a deadline anyway

Expect to hear more about this soon!

Yesterday was the first day in my new career as an independent game producer. It was a very productive day actually! I organized my existing code, from the prototype of the Smiley Puzzle, and started a new mini project. Furthermore, I did some organizational tasks.

The new mini project I started is called Bubblomania Online. As the name suggests, it will be an online version of a part of Bubblomania X, my MacOS X arcade game. The reason I start with this project, is to get up to speed with the LWJGL API, and create some reusable components in the process.

Since I will reuse part of the artwork, I can concentrate on the development, and get a feel for how fast I can work in this new environment. The online version will be limited to only 1 game mode, compared to the 8 modes in the downloadable version.

From a marketing point of view, having a webgame online will increase traffic, maybe even enough to monetize it with ads.

Today was my last day on the job. It was a bit hard to leave, after more than 5 years of working there. And it has been a great job, with great colleagues, so no regrets about having worked there!

But I chose to start another life, as an independent game producer, something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time (since I was 16 or something ). So there are exciting times ahead, and I have no regrets about quitting either!

I won’t spend all my time on game development though. There are some side projects, like this blog, my girlfriend’s website (Speeltijd), and my music, on which I will spend more time.

I still haven’t fully realized I’m totally free and independent now. That will probably change on monday…

A few days ago, I resumed development on the Smiley Puzzle Project. I am using LWJGL (Lightweight Java Game Library) for this game, an OpenGL and OpenAL binding for Java.

I was excited to learn that in the mean time, beta 3 of version 1.0 of LWJGL has been released, featuring some cool improvements:

• The DevIL library works again on MacOS X, making it possible to use it for my cross-platform projects. DevIL is an image library, that allows to load and convert images to OpenGL format natively. I changed my texture loading code to make use of DevIL, which made it 5 to 8 times faster! This code used to take about 26 seconds on my 4 year old PowerBook, and now it executes in about 4 seconds!
• But perhaps the coolest feature of all, is that LWJGL can now be used in a Java Applet! It can temporarily install the necessary native libraries in the users temp dir, giving you the power of OpenGL, OpenAL and DevIL in your applet! Converting an existing game to a webgame can thus be done with minimal effort, as you can see in the LWJGL tutorial.

After finding out about these, I’m confident I made the right choice by using Java and LWJGL for my game development. Maybe I’ll make a free online version of Bubblomania with this API. It could be a nice project to get up to speed with LWJGL, and start off my life as an independent game producer next week!

It’s official now! Last week, I agreed with my boss I would leave the company, and today I handed in my letter of resignation. My last day at the job will be the 6th of october, so that means only 37 days left until I’m a full time indie!

These are exciting times! Can’t wait to get started!

My first project will be the Smiley Puzzle Project. I’ve been working sporadically on the prototype of this game, and I think this one will be a good learning experience. The game is not very complex, so I’m sure I can actually finish it.

And I have several other game ideas, including one I invented in a dream!