Andrew Wooldridge Dot Com

NeoEdge and MostFun.com = free ad supported games

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:18:00 +0000

You dont have to put coins in your television to watch most shows (outside of paying for cable access) and up until now you've had to fork over $ to play many casual downloadable games. This site takes the idea of advertisement supported media from the TV world and applies it to gaming. Neoedge wants to be the advertiser for free downloadable games and it means to you that if you can sit through "commercials" you can download and play many popular casual games for free.

It had to happen eventually, and perhaps having a free ad sponsored alternative to buying games might help curtail some of the desire for game pirates, since you can get the games for "free" w/o any effort.

Now supposedly NeoEdge has a "widget" that can be embedded on a site to offer downloadable games, but I was unable to find it. Mashable mentions this. Can someone from NeoEdge or related areas point out where to grab this widget? Or is it only for big wig portals? Hrm.

Apture - freaking amazing new way to add metacontent to your site

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Sun, 11 May 2008 16:21:00 +0000

You've seen those popup windows that come up when you mouse over some links on various sites - annoying and usually in the way. That was my first thought when I saw Apture. Boy was I wrong. They have taken the idea of adding metadata to your site to a whole new level of polish and ease of use. Plus, the UI is actually really pleasant to use and not "in the way" . Just add a bit of js to your blog, then run a bookmarklet when you are on the site and you can just highlight text and add flickr photos, wikipedia entries, and other cool things like google maps. If then open the api for third parties to add "widgets" this could be a really BIG DEAL. I wonder who's going to buy them up when the big co's discover this site.

Make Games with Microsoft Popfly

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Sat, 03 May 2008 07:15:00 +0000

Microsoft Popfly is a Silverlight based game creation tool. You are supposed to be allowed to share your game creations. Let's see if it works :)

Itty Bitty RPG Coding Update

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:46:00 +0000

I finally got a few minutes to work in Itty Bitty RPG.... I got the dojo storage functionality working for my current version. This version is going to bring everything together -- graphics, storage, overlays, etc etc. Soon I'll have something actually looking like a real game!

How to Make Money from Virtual Worlds

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 06:07:00 +0000

Oreilly has released a report on virtual worlds and how to create a business model from them. I think the real business is selling reports -- the document costs over $200!

Experimenting with Wix

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:59:00 +0000

Wix is simply amazing - there are so many features and pretty pretty preset graphics its quite overwhelming! Imagine you took a huge clipart library, merged it with Photoshop and some psychedelic interfaces and you'd get something like this. I think this is going to be a phenomenal hit with social software kiddies. Plus it has a business side as well... if you can resist adding sparkles everywhere :)

Wix.com

Monster Bash - a free 3d game by Betapilot

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 07:47:00 +0000

Shockwave does not get much love nowadays, but this game show's there's still alot of coolness left in it - and it might be seeing a revival as a 3d engine for games. This one oozes polish and its pretty fun. You play a baseball wannnabe monster who clubs a skull into the air. Try to beat your longest hit...

I'm a Mid Core Gamer

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:23:00 +0000

I now know who I am. I'm a Mid Core Gamer. What is that? Well, check out the description on the article, as well as on Inverted Castle...

101 Adobe AIR Resources

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 07:58:00 +0000

If you are working with Adobe AIR you know that the amount of information can be both disappointing in quality as well as overwhelming in quantity. This list of resources might help steer you in the right direction.

ProtoRPG - a javascript rpg using prototype

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 07:38:00 +0000

Since I'm doing essentially something similar with YUI it's with a warm heart that I found this simple RPG demo using prototype... check it out!

A Baseball MMO?

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000

I'm not a big baseball fan, but I can see this as totally reaching an audience not attracted to the World of Warcraft style MMO's. Interesting.

Cool idea of the weekend: ibrpg on google apps

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 06:48:00 +0000

From the looks of the survey, folks are interested in hearing more about cool ideas. Tonight's idea is simply this - combine ibrpg, google gears, adobe air, and the new google apps for server stuff.

Textured 3D Objects using Canvas!

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:26:00 +0000

This person is both extremely talented and a madman. Check out this example of doing 3d texture mapped objects using 2D Canvas! Insane!

He also has a faithfully rendered version of super mario using just js and canvas -- doubly insane!

Random Dungeon Generator

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 22:26:00 +0000

I just discovered this random dungeon generator. It looks really interesting. I wonder if I can do something similar for my little rpg project.

RPG Maker VX English Version is out!

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 09:19:00 +0000

If you enjoy creating old skool RPG's like Zelda or Final Fantasy, and you have a PC - then jump over to this site and sign up in the forums. (Or dig around on download.com for another download mirror). I'm only just trying it out myself, but it looks to be very polished and easy to use. This could be the perfect tool to prototype your own games...

Open Source Game Neverending Clone: django-mmo

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 08:09:00 +0000

GNE or GameNeverEnding is one of the first web mmo's and I believe it helped take the genre into the next level. This game eventually spawned Flickr and helped its developers become successful programmers. I only just discovered this link myself, but I believe if you are interested in MMO's you'll dig this.

More Hidden YUI Treasures: Cheat Sheets

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 14:50:00 +0000

I believe by far the biggest challenge to using YUI is not it's feature set, or it's syntax. Instead it is navigating the documentation to tease out just what you want it to do, as well as get a plain example - not one that rolls up 10 different concepts into one. Well, if mastery of YUI is your goal, or "hidden treasure" then the YUI cheat sheets are your treasure map. The are easy to overlook if you are not careful in exploring the YUI website. However they contain many useful hints and best practices. I recommend printing them with a color printer, since they try to use a color coding system to help you find things.

Also, the cheat sheets try to help you with configuration settings as well - for instance in tabview:


All TabView events are Custom Events (see Event Utility docs); subscribe to these events using addListener (e.g. myTabs.addListener(‘activeChange”, fn); ).

A Big List of Ajax Frameworks

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 14:44:00 +0000

It is amazing to see that there are so many different kinds of Ajax frameworks out there. While I think you are best served by YUI, jQuery, or Dojo, you might find something out there that suits some specific need.

why doesnt google docs talk to google code?

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 06:49:00 +0000

I wish that google docs had a code editing mode and that it could talk directly to google code -- meaning it could open , edit, and save files via svn.... Or barring that is there an online editor anywhere that can talk SVN?

Greenhouse: New Indie Games Portal from Penny Arcade

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:23:00 +0000

It's always great to see a new indie games portal coming online. Check out the comments from Tales of the Rampant Coyote for more details.

2D MMO - Remnants of Skystone

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:47:00 +0000

From the site:

Remnants of Skystone is an upcoming online game that is part side-scrolling adventure, part community-based MMO. Players can explore expansive platforming environments in the single-player Adventure to exterminate the hostile alien Mimics, as well as teaming up with another player online in Co-op Missions to earn spoils. When not adventuring, players can relax in their own houses or visit with other players online, furnishing their dwellings with items bought in town with their spoils or other payment.

Cool Free Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 06:51:00 +0000

I ran into this blog via looking at comments about the Tor site. It's a pretty scattershot of random free crap, but there are most likely quite a few things you'll find worthy of checking on.

Tor.com -->next generation of sci-fi sites...

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 06:29:00 +0000

Tor.com looks very promising! I signed up for the mailing list and already have gotten some great e-books (html,pdf, and mobi format). I'm a big fan of science fiction, and often find myself reading at lunch time articles and things with my laptop. Now I can include some sci-fi (and fantasy) e-books in that time as well. It's already been well worth it just to sign up for the mailing list for the free books. And Tor.com is supposed to become the best thing since sliced bread for sci-fi fans. We'll see how that plays out, but so far even just the selection of books has been fabulous. Can you read a book in a week? Well then your thirst can be sated here.

New Itty Bitty RPG Forum at Lefora

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 06:51:00 +0000

Now that I'm spending all of my free time working on Itty Bitty RPG, I thought it'd be nice to set up a forum for anyone interested in learning more about it or possibly giving feedback. Sign up and I'll be posting regular developer diary posts there (moreso than here).

Indie Game: Cry Havoc

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 23:08:00 +0000

Imagine Advance Wars meets Final Fantasy Tactics. You might then get an idea of the kind of gameplay you'll see in this game. Created by the famed Fenix Blade, this game promises to be something truly special...