matt’s

…it just works!

(Source)

…one sophisticated opinion on the whole “killer game” discussion which is evolving again due to the recent killing spree tragedy in Germany.
Glücklicherweise haben Politiker bis jetzt darauf verzichtet, ‘Killerspiele’ zu verbieten. Nicht Spiele machen Jugendliche zu Tätern. Es sind Defizite in der Familie und in ihrem Umfeld, die sie in die Welt der Spiele und [...]

It’s amazing to see that there are still so many fans active, even after 25 years after the original show was aired.

(Found in the German Tripods fan forum.)
I’m still looking for a keyframe- or bone-animated lowpoly version of a Tripod. If you ever come across one, let me know.

One of my favorite game projects which started as an indie effort (afaik) is currently available for 75% off at Steam. Should I? Should I not?

I was searching for a nice 2D graphics library today, again, because I wanted to piece something together very quickly. My requirements were:

Should be available for the Mac so that I could code with my MacBook Pro (a.k.a. CodeWorm.local) on my lap. Currently I really prefer this way of coding. Screw dual monitors!
Crossplatform would be [...]

Now that ELFrun is finished and I’m on holidays, I’ve finally some more time to surf all the (indie) gamedev pages in my bookmarks again. One particular posting catched my attention and I nearly had to shed a tear when I heard Alec Holowka, one of the two people behind the highly respected Aquaria, playing [...]

mattin posted at mac-tv.de and one particular comment gives a quite comprehensive feedback. Also, there’s a pictured review on a Swiss site, apfelkraft.ch.
Oh, and btw., version 1.5 is in the store and we’re working on version 1.6.
Did I mention the ELFrun review on iphonegamenetwork.com?

mattin found ELFrun featured on “Englishtwist’s” Christmas Countdown for December 3rd. If you want to see the whole ELFrun intro video (because you don’t have an iPod/iPhone, of course, otherwise you would indeed buy the game to watch it), have a look at his footage starting at about minute 4 :-)
There’s another video from “ipodtouchlab” [...]

mattin created a new video which shows ELFrun from starting it up on the iPhone to finishing a level (and most of a bonus level). It’s one of the easier levels at the beginning (level 5), so there are not many obstacles and the speed is still pretty low. I guess playing a higher level [...]

ELFrun is available in the AppStore. Just follow this link.

And now, dear colleagues, please spread the word! Feel free to use one of the shots mattin posted and do some advertising. Greatly appreciated!

I nearly shed a tear when mattin finally made it after 12 hours of struggling with code signing and stuff. Imagine that: a 3D artist builds, signs and deploys a whole C++ application using XCode and command line tools by himself. I couldn’t do something like that the other way round. I’m really proud to [...]

The ELFRUN developers are fighting for the highscore during their last tests with the game. mattin, here’s my reply.
Now I’m stuck in level 20.

Since mattin has let the cat out of the bag, here’s what we’ve worked on in the past weeks.

Head over to dermattin for more.

I didn’t talk to my girlfriend very much lately. I didn’t read many blogs. I didn’t watch any movies. I didn’t breathe much fresh air. I didn’t use my PC for anything more than listening to music or fetching mails. I didn’t sleep much more than four hours the last two weeks or so. I [...]

As an update on my article on 3D engines for the iPhone / iPod, Unity Technologies has announced the shipping of their 3D game development tool for iPhone starting on October 22nd, 2008. According to a heise news, prices will range from 400 to 1500 USD.

Apple has dropped the iPhone NDA for released software. I guess now I need to release something really quick in order to be able to discuss iPhone development in detail and publically, right? So, you get what that actually means? It seems now that they cannot protect their stuff as much as they wanted, they [...]

Yesterday, I digged deeper into the SIO2 3D engine which I mentioned in my last post. This is what I’ve thrown together in some hours of work. (Featuring a free model by Sven Daennart, one of my favorite 3D artists.)

The SIO2 API is very OpenGL-ish and features a bunch of C methods like “sio2ResourceGet”. It [...]

I recently evaluated the 3D engines available on iPhone. This is the list that I compiled, plus some commentary.

iTorque (commercial) is the well-known Torque game engine available for iPhone. It comes in three flavours (2D, 3D, Studio) and professional and indie license, although indie is not yet available (scheduled for October 15th). Since Torque is [...]

Plus MacBook Pro owner since Saturday. Plus soon to become an iPhone owner. Plus a bit confused by Objective-C syntax already.

Click here for more…