Posts

Retiring from App Maker Professional

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The sunken cost fallacy is when one refuses to change their mind because they invested so much into their initial choice. Today, I had to acknowledge that I fell for this fallacy. In November 2019, I came up with the idea of an "app to make apps" and began hacking together SwiftUI code to build an MVP. Like most tech projects, getting 90% there takes about 10% of the time. I uploaded my MVP in December to YouTube here.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTN4_X4D6I4 App Maker MVP Dec. 2019 But things were quickly about to get out of hand. I decided the app should support importing Swift code. This increased the complexity of the code considerably. I needed to program a way to convert SwiftUI code into my own editor's model. Code Exports in App Maker MVP I chose  SwiftSyntax  to get an AST of the Swift code. Then I made increasingly more complex AST tree walkers. Before you know it, I added so many features that my AST walker could qualify as an AST interpreter! App Maker now

Sass Responsive Interpolation

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Hello again! I have another unpublished post from the past today. This was a short and sweet explanation for a small SCSS script I made to help myself have better control over responsive websites. I didn't write a lot, but I don't think it would have made sense if I wrote more. November 2, 2019 I know I haven't posted on this blog in awhile, but I did a thing. I actually reinvented responsive CSS for no reason! No Javascript involved :) Basically the this project does linear interpolation of any CSS attribute between two breakpoints in SCSS (Sass). Here's how it looks in usage. @import ' responsive-interpolation ' ; $left-breakpoint 800px; $right-breakpoint : 2000 px ; $top-breakpoint 800px; $bottom-breakpoint : 2000 px ; #my-responsive-box { // This will interpolate the box's width and height to go from 150px to 350px from the left breakpoint // to the right breakpoint. @include responsive-interpolate-x ( ( " width "

Follow Up on Corona Labs (now Solar2d)

 Wow! Has Vlad done a great job with the Solar2d game engine after Corona Labs shutdown! As I said in a previous post, Corona SDK (now renamed to Solar2d for obvious reasons) is mobile focused game engine close to my heart. It was owned by a company called Corona Labs which recently shutdown. Now the engine is open source. And the community still very active! So over the Summer I was able to contribute to the budding Solar2d community by creating some plugins and open sourcing previous paid plugins. Here's a list of plugins I've created. SolarWebSockets  - Websocket support for iOS, tvOS, Android, HTML5 (and someone needs to help me with Windows because I don't have a PC). Supports server and client and WSS for clients. I'm very proud of having made most of this in span of one night. QuickJs  - A way to call Javascript code in Solar2d without all the extra boilerplate Material Colors - Easy way to choose colors from code eTransition  - Control the playback of Solar2d

RIP Corona Labs

Corona Labs will be shutdown on May 1, 2020.  https://coronalabs.com/blog/2020/02/12/corona-labs-annual-update/ This is not just significant because it will effect the velocity of my game development, but it symbolizes so much to me. It was the first game engine I used after Adobe's Flash, and I used it for about 7-8 years almost exclusively (I did some Unity as well). When I think about game programming, I think in Corona's APIs. I have their APIs memorized by heart and a great custom setup. I'm also in the middle of developing about 3 projects in Corona SDK and updating 2. I will have to make a decision about what to do with these. I'm not sure if I want to depend on the small community to support the Corona engine without a company having full time employees behind it. Anyways, I'll update later about my decision. I also have another blog post ready to go explaining my future in game development. Not sure when I'll post that. RIP Corona Labs. Your sup

Proving Impact-Studios is Allowed to Publish My Game

Hello World, I am publicly stating that Impact-Studio, an account on the Google Play Store, has full permission to publish "Super Brawl Smash - Platformer," an original creation of mine. If Google has questions as to appropriate use of the content within the game, they can contact either me or Impact-Studios for documentation proving that each artist, composer, and developer involved in the creation of the original content of the game have given consent for the full use of their respective creations in the final product. Sincerely, Joe Hinkle

Super Smash Clash Release for Google Play

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Released for Google Play Store Here's the download link:  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.impactgamesstudio.games.supersmashclashapp I apologize for not posting in forever, but I have been so busy with this project I never had time to update you guys. Here's what's coming this Sunday. Official Trailer Before you move on, watch this quick video highlighting the final release of Super Smash Clash. Anyone else feeling pumped yet? Five Characters That's right! There's not just two like before, but five! You start out with Flare (in the upper left corner), and work your way to unlock all five. Each of these characters are completely unique, so make sure you try all of them to find your favorite. Classic Mode The first game mode you have is classic. In this mode, you play through 9 levels trying to get the fastest time possible. There's easy, medium and hard mode (I wouldn't recommend hard mode without havin

Super Smash Clash 0.4 Beta

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It's finally here! I'm expanding the beta size to 400, so go get testing over at the downloads page . You won't be disappointed. iOS All my free time is now being dedicated to making a Smash Clash port to iOS. This shouldn't be a problem as Corona SDK allows for me to easily compile to iOS. I just need to sign up as an Apple developer and set up an account at TestFlight. Physics Changes From little things like the amount of delay between attacks, to more major things like allowing players to control the direction they fly in when they are hit, the physics in 0.4 has changed the way Smash Clash feels for the better. Here's a list of the major changes Directional influence (when you're hit, you can change the direction in which you "fly") Gravity has been slightly tweaked Freeze frames added in (when an attack is landed, it causes the animation to freeze for a split second) Multiplayer Due to latency, online multiplayer has been r