Blog

Summer holidays, Twitter, lot of work and a small problem with Tumblr, I did not update this blog during the last 2 months.

There is a lot to talk about but most have been said on Twitter already :)

To end intermediates (Tumblr and the tumblr-rb script I was using to update the blog) I decided to integrate the blog on http://labe.me and not use Tumblr anymore.

I have yet to import very old posts, improve the appearance, add a very few features and redirect disqus threads and other stuff but it's not important right now :)

Help! It's horrible! With its new acidulated colors, its simple fall blocking animations and its little shiny particles I cannot work anymore! I spend all my time playing my own game!

http://bloblocks.labe.me (try both game modes, the Never-ending mode is dangerous).

A few days without any administrative task! I worked on my little block game.

What a better test than releasing the game in its current state and get comments in the face?

Play to BLOBLOCKS version 0.2 (Work in progress).

• Dowload Starling

• unzip the archive

• unzip ./starling/bin/starling.swc

• copy the obtained library.swf file somewhere in your project (renaming it starling.swf might be a good idea).

• create a path file named 'starling.patch' (http://haxe.org/manual/swc):

  -starling.core.Starling.context
  -starling.core.Starling.juggler
  -starling.core.Starling.contentScaleFactor
  

• Now the little test:

  // Test.hx
  import starling.core.Starling;
  import starling.display.Sprite;
  import starling.text.TextField;
  
  class Test extends Sprite {
      public function new(){
          super();
          var textField = new TextField(400, 300, "Welcome to Starling!");
          addChild(textField);
      }
  
      public static function main(){
          var s = new Starling(Test, flash.Lib.current.stage);
          s.start();
      }
  }
  

• And the compilation instructions:

  haxe \
    -main Test \
    -swf-header 400:300:80:aeaeae \
    -swf Test.swf \
    -swf-version 11.3 \
    -swf-lib starling.swf \
    --macro "patchTypes('starling.patch')"
  

• Don't forget to download the latest standalone flash player and debugger, I experienced problems with the version I previously installed.

Test project: haxe-starling.tgz

And now, can a haxelib package add compilation parameters to haxe so the following would automatically add -swf-lib and --macro?

haxelib install starling
haxe -lib starling ...

The night gives good advises and I prefer this interface:

Once skinned it will be more intuitive even if it requires a little bit more effort from the player.

Put your finger on an anchor (gray discs) and make the thing spin. The board follow your finger and the movement is validated when your release your finger.

The system accept fast movements and incomplete rotations to reduce finger strain :)