Following on from my previous list of HTML/JS game engines, I was informed about Construct 2 – a new visual HTML5 game development program for Windows, developed by London start-up Scirra.

As shown in the video, Construct 2 makes it insanely easy to make interesting and addictive games such as a platformers or puzzles. It has a large array of ready-to-use assets such as sprites, sound effects and animations. The program generates HTML5 code so is fantastically portable. One thing to note is that, unlike most other “no-code coding” programs – Construct2 does not feel as though it is dumbed down; it really feels like developers made this for developers.

The free version of the program has limited functionality but will still allow you to play around and get a feel for the possibilities of the app, whilst the full versions are limitless, allowing you to go crazy.

Whew. It’s been quite an intense, amazing, interesting and eventful few months. After going on a life-changing road-trip around USA and making the jump from full-time to freelance developer, its nice to take a bit of time off over the Xmas holidays to look back.

I’ve had the good fortune to work with some of the most talented and friendliest creatives and techies in London, working with them on numerous interesting (and challenging) projects such as the Kingsmill redesign, an interactive timeline for D&AD and a Facebook app for Argos and their Xmas campaign. I’ve been bouncing around from HTML5 to PHP and even some email builds thrown in for good measure. The interesting work has been supplemented to by working with some of the great talent that London has to offer and sharing one or two drinks with them.

Outside the standard office-work, I’ve been able to go to inspiring conferences such as Power Of One and the Facebook Developer Garage days which have given me the chance to look at how I work, what I should and shouldn’t do and how I can learn from others in my situation.

So what have I learned from these events? Firstly, I’ve found that there are some brilliantly talented people in London generating fantastic ideas. Secondly, for the hard-working web developer, there is work out there and that there are some fantastic agencies that will find work for you if you’re struggling.

Finally, and most importantly, I’ve learnt that the work doesn’t have to feel like it. By going freelance I’ve been able to work in different areas of London, meeting great people and getting immersed in the local area. A 30min walk around the area at lunch went a long way to remind me why I should continue to be excited by the work that I am doing.

In the age of multiple platforms and smartphones there is one definite feature which is supported by all – a browser. Running with this idea is the latest innovation in browser gaming – the gaming engine.

Impact – HTML5 Canvas & JavaScript Game Engine

Impact is, it claims, the “most awesomest way to create even more HTML 5 games” and at first glance, you’d be hard pressed to argue against that. The slick website demonstrating the engine shows a game created using the engine running on browsers both on desktops and on mobile. It also comes with its own dedicated level editor so people who are more design orientated are looked after as well.

The engine’s greatest strength is its well written and nicely presented documentation – with examples of each class in action. All this for just $99 is a steal – however there are free alternatives out there…

LimeJS HTML5 Game Framework

Available via Github, LimeJS is entirely free and open source – allowing you to build fast and (more importantly) native-experience games for multiple platforms. It has a decent community around it, however it does seem to suffer from the “too many cooks” issue and the documentation is poorly presented – offering little more than is absolutely necessary. As a free alternative, however, you’d be hard-pressed to find anything better suited for HTML5 game development.

JawsJS

More of an individual’s attempt to work with HTML5 canvas, JawsJS definitely has some legs. It has since been extended beyond the canvas and the developer promises plenty of updates in the following few months. Definitely one to watch.

GameQuery

Perhaps the one that interests me the most, GameQuery attempts to create a gaming engine based around the already fantastic jQuery framework. The developers are specifically promising that it will be easy, quick and stick to the jQuery philosophy. As an avid jQuery fan myself, this one has me excited. Supporting solid gaming features such as collision detection and animation and promising that beginners can develop basic 2D games – this could do for game development what jQuery did for carousels.

Considering you’re reading a blog, I’ll just go right ahead and assume you’ve heard of Google+ and all of its “facebook killer” gubbins. It seems, initially at least, that the service has hit the ground running and Google are already planning on increasing its presence across all its services, such as Google Mail. But what has the search-giant offered the developers, in order to create third-party apps and services?

So far, so little. Google have announced that there will be an API to interact with but the extent of how much is offered is still unclear. Developers are able to sign up here to get in on the action ahead of the general public. Interestingly, there have already been a few services built for Google+ that are making some noise.

One of these ideas is GPlus.to This is essentially as tinyurl-a-like which provides you the ability to shorten your long, number-heavy Google+ name to something shorter, sweeter and all around more tweetable. Whilst pretty interesting, the service is still not able to access any of the Google+ API features and as such cannot really be classed as a Google+ app.

But what happens when Google+ opens itself up to developers? Google are one of the strongest evangelists for HTML5 and will certainly provide a fantastic collection of methods (as they have for pretty much all their big APIs – maps, translation & search) to take advantage of the new features that HTML5 and the latest browsers provide – I’d expect to see a lot of <canvas> from this point on. There is also the rumour that Google+ will be built around the OpenSocial API which means developers familiar with this should be able to just jump straight in.

Does this mean that the majority of developers will start moving away from Facebook and toward Google? Not quite. Facebook has always had a pretty bad rep for their development tools – not least the documentation. However, this has long since been recognised by Facebook and there has been some, frankly, fantastic work done under the umbrella term “Operation Developer Love“. Facebook is still not without its faults but in comparison to it a few years back, it is a pretty nice platform to build for. As a developer of several Facebook apps myself, I’m hoping that the two different platforms will see eye-to-eye in terms of integration, so its not a case of build 2 apps for 2 platforms.

Where I feel that Google+ could blow Facebook out of the water is in its (already successful) mobile apps. The problem with the Facebook apps for the iPhone/iPad is that it is a very stripped down version of the web service. Any custom tabs or applications are just not accessible. Google+ could turn this on its head and provide developers with the opportunity to make apps for the mobile version of Google+. How Apple would react to apps within apps, I’m not so sure but I would imagine that anyone with an Android device would be just peachy.

I guess at this point, until Google announces more about its developer tools, it’s a “watch this space” kind of deal. But its a very interesting space to watch, one that could literally be worth billions.

Less of a tech post this time but relevant none-the-less. Today is the first day of my last week at my current job, Spook Media – this Friday, after 2 and 1/2 years, will see moving onwards and upwards into the world of contracting.

Not one to doing things in a simple fashion – I thought I’d also bundle my career change in with a life-changing holiday, namely the 6 week road-trip across America that I’ll be doing in a few days. After about a year in the planning, myself, my girlfriend and two friends will be going coast to coast on a 6000 mile adventure – from LA to NYC.

Being the developer that I am, I immediately thought “but what form of website can I create for this trip” and quickly created epicroadtrip.co.uk. It’s going to be used mainly to document our trip and to keep in touch with my family’s less computer-able’d members – without having to call them every few days (avoiding some epic costs). It’s very much a “just double click this icon every few days” kind of job.

So, as you can probably tell, the next few months are going to be hectic, amazing, stressful and exciting. I’ll be updating this blog with some content from the road… but for anyone interested in what I get up to, in full, around America, you can check out the epicroadtrip.co.uk blog here or check out these posts here:

• A little about us
• 2 weeks away
• Family meet blog… blog meet family.
• Avis and the case of the missing grand

See you on the flip side!

The latest addition to my ever growing list of projects on Github is Blankit – a jQuery plugin for adding target=”_blank” to any matching elements. This was done to avoid the issue of creating a long, content heavy, page and having to go through and manually add target=”_blank” to each a element. This plugin was also contributed to by Seb Pollard, the technical ninja that he is.

Check it out: on github or try out the demo.

The plugin takes 3 options allowing you to customize it to suit your needs; same domain links can be included as can list elements, and previously set target attributes can be overridden.

How to use

Options

Check it out & tell me your thoughts. Don’t forget you can also fork it and use it however you want. There is also more information on the plugin at plugins.jquery.com

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Over the past few years I’ve had the good fortune to work with a wide range of projects, from small single person business blogs to multinational systems. Interestingly, a common factor through all these projects has been “Can it be done quicker in WordPress?”.

WordPress has relatively recently begun angling itself towards the CMS market with varied success. The recent addition of custom post types in WordPress 3.0 allows developers to leave behind the idea of posts, pages & media. Additionally, WordPress has one of the most active developer communities; creating nearly 11,000 plugins for the platform. How far can these features be shoehorned into a site specification?

As of late 2010, WordPress powered nearly 8.5% of all websites showing that there is possibility to extend WP past its intended use. However, when you start using WordPress as more of a CMS, you run the risk of releasing your content to the multitude of drive-by hacks, security vulnerabilities and viruses. Definitely avoid using any of the free WordPress themes as they’re almost certainly riddled.

So, what’s the answer?

I have found that the “Duck Test” applies perfectly to the WordPress scenario. If it looks like a blogging platform, it probably is best used as a blogging platform. It feels that the legacy code may be holding it back from being a full CMS platform. Perhaps they just want to straddle the line to take advantage of both scenarios.

In the end, WordPress still works very successfully as a CMS. It is perfectly suited for small to medium scale websites and the plugin directory is an invaluable tool for rolling out a website in minimal time. I would, however, suggest that if you’re finding yourself Googling for plugins, hacks and cracks to get WordPress to match a feature in your spec, you should probably take a look at the other, more CMS focused, platforms out there – Expression Engine is a personal favourite and a natural evolution of the WordPress idea of simple-to-roll-out websites.

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After writing my previous Tools for building an iPhone app on a budget, it really occured to me just how helpful LevelHelper is to iPhone game development. You can check out my already-set-up project on Github to be able to roll out a working Cocos2d powered game, taking advantage of the Box2d physics engine and the LevelHelper scenes.

Check out the repo: here.

Remember, the github project will require you to generate the LevelHelper files, the process of which is explained here.

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Podcasts are a fantastic way of consuming the latest tech news/tips without having to sit down and read articles. Here are some of the best I’ve found which help me focus and learn more.

Boagworld

Now in its second season, Boagworld is hosted by Paul Boag and covers more of the theory of web development than the actual methods and functions. Great banter between the two hosts means its not a bore-fest and there are often some pretty big name guests on.

Build & Analyze

A podcast still in its infancy, Build & Analyze is a fantastic background podcast for those late night development stints. Deals with the more in depth topics such as coding languages, security and patents.

The WordPress Podcast

As the name suggests, the WordPress Podcast is focused heavily on the CMS platform, offering invaluable tips for running a blog. Definately worth a listen if you’ve ever dabbled in a bit of WordPress.

The Big Web Show

The Big Web Show is a great podcast for hearing big names in development discuss general issues in the industry. The show quality is variable with quality of the guest speakers.

Founders Talk

Another podcast from the 5by5 network of broadcasts, Founders Talk invites startup founders to discuss their latest offerings and their learnings. Great for anyone who is interested in starting up a web dev company.

CodeIgniter Podcast

Specifically talking about the CodeIgniter framework for PHP, the CodeIgniter Podcast is a little niche but for me has been fantastic background noise as I’ve been building my CodeIgniter based web apps.

Diggnation

Not specifically tech only, but Diggnaton is one I’d definitely recommend. The hosts have fantastic banter and the show has been going long enough to perfect its formula. Tech issues are never deeply discussed but there are some interesting theories, thoughts and ideas thrown around. Always better when the hosts, Kevin Rose & Alex Albrecht, have had a few beers beforehand.

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After going through the process of developing, releasing and maintaining Wicked Little Devil, I realised that I had collected a large amount of apps, websites and tutorials*. Here are some of the best I used:

*these are massively game-focused.

Software

Cocos2d for iPhone (free)

The Cococs2d for iPhone framework is well documented and has fantastic community support if you get stuck. It is free to use and is fantastically flexible, demonstrated best by looking at the plethora of different types of games that have been built using it. It is also extremely optimized, for smooth app speeds.

As mentioned before, the community is the strongest aspect of this software – the forums are extremely polite and even allow you to advertise your completed games and get feedback and reviews.

SpriteHelper ($11.99 / £8.99)

SpriteHelper is a Mac OS (sorry, Windows users!) app which allows you to edit sprite-sheets, textures and physics shapes. It does all the complicated, time intensive, work for you allowing you to focus on the more fun aspects of game development. It is compatible with Cocos2d-X, Cocos2d and Corona SDK. Sprite Helper also allows you to import your created sprite files into…

LevelHelper ($16.99 / £9.99)

The combination of LevelHelper and SpriteHelper means you can roll out a physics based game in a few lines of code. You can use sprite helper to import your sprites into a physics driven world simply by dragging and dropping. Once you’ve finished creating your level you can export it to a file that can be implemented into Cocos2d. There are some fantastic tutorial videos of SpriteHelper & LevelHelper available here.

Websites

Musicloops.com (variable)

A fantastic site for royalty-free music with full length previews. Most tracks are of a decent price and some are available in variants for a cheaper price.

GraphicRiver.net (variable)

Similarly to the musicloops site, GraphicRiver (part of the larger Envato suite of services) provides very cheap but well produced graphical assets. There are some fantastic sprite-sheets available, which would be a treat if you threw them at SpriteHelper.

Github (Free / Premium around £7-10 per month)

Theres no point doing all the development work, only to drop your laptop, crash your hard drive or save over all the files. To make sure this doesn’t happen, use Github ensure that your code is version controlled. The benefit of this, aside from backup, is that you can collaborate with other developers to bring your app close to completion. Free accounts mean you have to have public repositories, whereas premium allows you to make them private.

Tutorials

Here are a bunch of tutorials I found really helpful through my development of Wicked Little Devil

• Public repository for TweeJump
• Tiny Wings hills with Cocos2d
• How to make a tile based game with Cocos2d
• Playlist on YouTube for beginners guide to iPhone development
• Cocos2d best practices

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