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Between tapas and family excursions, I had the time to test accelerometer control, pan control, swipe control and of course rotate control.

It was a really interesting exercise which opened my eyes on many interface possibilities which cannot exists on our old keyboards/mouses.

Tactile tablets and phones are new extensions to the human body. Learning how to intelligently use them will takes some time…

According to my tests, for the little game, the optimal comfort position seems to be:

• the tablet on the laps (or on the filled with tapas belly),
• the player secure the tablet use his left hand (or right) and use the thumb of this hand to turn the game board touching lateral zones.
• the player use the index of his other hand to touch color groups to explode.

The beer position also works:

• the tablet on the laps or a table
• the player use any free index to activate touch lateral zones
• the player use the same finger to make colored things blow away

Please node the little curve with the disc. They let the player do a little curved movement with the finder. The player put its finger on the round and follow the curve up or down. It helps the brain associate the movement with the desired board rotation.

It is fun to play with and this prototype really give me the will to finish the little game both on the tablet and the web :)

haxe to generate an SWF, adobe flex sdk and air sdk to generate an IPA file, iTunes to put this file on the iPad -which was previously configured in develop mode.

I met a few simpler development processes. If only the iTunes step could be automated (to check).

Well… it works and it allows me to play with the accelerometer and thus create a new prototype -in haxe this time- to know if it is fun or not to turn the iPad in every directions to make blocks fall before exploding them with a finger.

After spending many weeks without coding any game, always be careful of potential strains. Take the time to warm up before starting serious things.

To exercise, I am going to code a little block game you will have to explode. It's stupid but always fun. I'll try to give a little bit of GamePlay freshness giving gravity control to the player. And may be one or two options will later spice things up.

A little bit of prototyping using Processing to check that the game's core is fun enough before spending more time on the game itself.

The little prototype without score, nor options, nor bling-bling is playable there.

• Click on the game to give it focus
• ENTER to add blocks
• Q/A/LEFT to rotate gravity left
• D/RIGHT to rotate gravity right
• Click on a group of blocks of the same color to make them explode
• Your goal is to clear the board

If it's not too rotten after a few more prototypes, I may create a full game from it.

I'd like to adapt it to tablets so you will have to rotate your tablet to rotate the board but I'm afraid it wouldn't really be practical for the player :)

To test.

Moving from Bordeaux to Barcelona wasn't that easy with a never sleeping baby and a learning how to pee 2.5 years old child. But we done it!

I am really glad to be there. This is a marvelous place to live in with so many things to see and learn that I don't know if two years will be enough.

Now we have to find a new rythm of life and I have to get back to work quickly!

As expected I do not have a lot of time to code.

Still, I have something to show: DIE-MIDS is on github.

If you ever wanted to get rid of a middlemen and sell your downloadable game straight to your players DIE-MIDS is here to help.

• DIE-MIDS helps you configure AWS S3+CloudFront to create a secure, cheap, fast and reliable download service.
• DIE-MIDS contains a solution you can use to auth your customers and deliver your files.
• DIE-MIDS contains an example of PayPal digital goods integration you can use to create your own shop.

It is still the beginning and DIE-MIDS has to improve a lot to be really easy to use and complete.

However I think that showing the code in its current form is already a good thing which can help programmers build their own solution.

Tell me if it helped you and if you earn a lot of money thanks to DIE-MIDS do not hesitate to donate a few bucks to pay the beer!