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So, it's been a while since I wrote anything, so I thought I'd let you lot know how the project is getting along.

There has been a vast leap in my project in the last few weeks. I've created a new prototype that's turning more and more in to a finished product, and may just well be the final deliverable.

So in essence; my project has gone from this:

Prototype 1

To this:

Prototype 2

As you can see, the UI has significantly changed. There...

A screenshot of TrigoHappy

So the last few weeks I've been getting my game, TrigoHappy, market ready, making a few tweaks and adjustments here and there, and I think it's now finally all set to put on the Windows Phone Marketplace.

For those (somehow) unaware of my game; it consists of a ship that you move and shot with using on screen joysticks. There are various enemies of different types, and you have to survive as long as possible to accumulate the highest possible score. More information can be found on its project page.

Thanks to this game I've been neglecting my 3YP. But it'll be worth it. I'll...

Games, games, games...

My life just seems to revolve around games and databases at the moment.

I've put my 3rd Year Project on the backburner this last week and a bit in favour of my current game project TrigoHappy. This is another game for Windows Phone written in XNA. The project is mostly there and has been in production for about 6 months now (though only about 2 or 3 of those have actually gone in to making the thing). The biggest hurdle in getting this off the ground has been performance optimisation, mostly within my game library that I use (which I may put on here some time), and getting every little bit of lag producing code that I can removed from the game.

Screenshot of the title...

Three Thing Game

The Infamous Two Sirs as made by Christophe

Christophe and I, The Infamous Two Sirs, got our words; Tomb, Ninja, Travelodge. We set out to make a game for Windows Phone 7, using XNA, that featured 8-bit graphics, with a simple (but effective) zombie slash game mechanic. Our basic game story was; you're a ninja projecting travelers from zombies as they walk to a travelodge. Our prize: LEGO!

The game play comprises of zombies spawning off-screen and coming out of graves and coffins, and you, the ninja, slashing them to kill them before they touched the travelers. There are 3 travelers, which basically act as your lives, and ...

In this post I'll talk about two things; firstly my 3YP (3rd year project) and, secondly the up coming Three Thing Game competition.

The Project

Currently the project is at the "Initial Report" stage. This is where we (my fellow students and I) are required to outline what our projects are about and how we plan to go about them. It's a rather tedious process, but a relatively short one. In this report we also talk about some specifications. Now, since I've been given this project, instead of making one up for myself, I'm in the mindset that I'm working for a client and, as such, should be given a formal specification. But I don't have one, and I won't get one, and therefore I'm required to think up of the specification myself, which is quite difficult when all I've basically been told is that I need to calculate how quickly a fire engine can get from A to B based on historical data.

&...

I just had to post about this, because it's probably the best phone call I'll have in a long time.

Last night, what I was eating dinner, the phone rang from an out of area phone number. I answered it and an Indian sounding man was on the other end. He claimed to be from Microsoft and was asking for my father. Here's a basic transcript:

Me: "Hello?"

Caller: "Hello, is this Mr Marshall?"

Me: "Which Mr Marshall?" (There are a potential of 3)

Caller: "Mr Marshall"

Me: "I may or may not be, depending on what this is regarding" (It's a bit of a givaway that a scam is going down when an Indian sounding man from an out of area number is on the phone)

Caller: "Are you Mr Marshall?"

Me: "I may or may not be, depending on what this is regarding"

Caller: "Well I'm from ...

Well after the most bullshit exam in the world I decided that it would be a good idea to go and see my project supervisor. As some of you already know, my supervisor is one Dr Robinson. My project is called "Road speed data mining".

First off, I'll describe to you what the outline of my project as set out in its specification:

"Fire brigades equipped with SEED Software’s mobile data terminals have the ability to track the position and speed of their vehicles as they travel to and from fires. This information is stored in a database. Over several years, this builds up to a large volume of data. The aim of this project is to write software to analyse this data to determine the typical speed that a fire engine can travel over each part of the road network. This will assist the fire brigades in making sure that when a fire occurs, the fire engines which can get there soonest are sent."

 
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