Friday, March 31, 2006

Flash memory leak

I was doing the chocopets site and left the new site opened on my firefox for about 2 hours. Shortly, my DVD player sputters to a slow, my photoshop slows down. Curious, I found the firefox (5+ tabs) has eaten up more than 200MB of ram (Usually it is about 50+ - 80+ for 5+ tabs). Poke around the web, found that Flash player 8 has some serious memory leak problems. Some of the links are what I have found.

Bitmap leak
Dragging large vector clip

Feel free to comment if there is any solutions you guys found

Thursday, March 30, 2006

できた. 60,472 characters.

60472 characters, 10393 words, 54 pages. Our LKY Biz Plan is submitted. できた!

In other unrelated news,
More TYLER Sims updates!

Her Highness has opened the TYLER cafe down the street...Her Highness doing PR as usual
...there's never a dull moment at this cafe.
Cervantes works as the chef but he didn't start this fire

As most people online have agreed, the most profitable business you could run in Sims2: Open for Business is a gambling den.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Nokia debuts new mobile gaming solutions and experiences at GDC Mobile

Nokia debuts new mobile gaming solutions and experiences at GDC Mobile


"..Nokia today unveiled a new software development kit (SDK) and consumer interface for its next generation mobile gaming platform. The new tools and consumer interface are designed to empower the mobile games industry to create high quality 3D mobile games for Nokia smartphones.."


"..Nokia also showcased its next generation mobile gaming consumer interface, showing how consumers can easily discover, purchase, play, manage and share the best mobile games.."

Monday, March 27, 2006

An old article on online games trading

"...The internet games section of Ebay saw more than $9m (£5m) in trades in 2003...."
BBC News

TYLER Press Statement #1

I'd better clarify a few things with regards to this report by Channel News Asia.

Firstly, the game (Mobile Weapon) is NOT developed by 8 SMU undergraduates.

It's developed by TYLER Projects PTE LTD which consists of 5 SMU undergraduates, 3 NUS graduates, 2 NUS undergraduates. The development team actually coding and designing the game consists of 3 NUS graduates, 2 NUS undergraduates and 1 SMU undergraduate (who was also an NUS undergraduate before he transfered).

Secondly, Mobile Weapon hasn't been on Beta Trial since February.

It's choco-pets (www.chocopets.com) that has been on Beta Trial since February. We've been doing internal testing for MW and have not launched a Beta Trial yet. Come on, it's not even announced on our site...
When we do lauch a trial in May, it will be the public Alpha Trial.

Email us if you have any questions to clarify. We'll be putting up a fact sheet and a press kit after the exams.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Welcome our new TYLER photographer!

Jez has just joined our blog / company to provide photography services. Welcome Jez!

Check out a sample of his portfolio below:
Jez's portfolio

I'll be setting up another photogallery using our own photo gallery software to showcase all our photographers and illustrator's artwork in May or June. Watch for that under the "photography showcase" section.

Mobile Weapon Developer Diary #12

We've finally begun to revamp the login screen for Mobile Weapon (after being labeled as Neoplanet since 2004). I've changed the colors on BDB's artwork slightly to make the robot slightly pink. Here's our first mobile weapon wallpaper! Get your's today!

Mobile Weapon Wallpaper #1 Click the image or link, when the wallpaper has loaded, right-click and select 'Set as Background'.

The logo isn't quite right yet, I'll have to work on that some more.


In other unrelated news,
here are some updates on the TYLER Sims:

TYLER Sims have been working hard, and this is how they relax.

BDB and Marvelgirl also moved in next door to our main TYLER office. That's right folks, she's a blonde!

SicShot and Matrix are also getting ahead with their careers...
..having meeting after work.

Publicity Rush!

TY, her Highness and I attended the HSBC launch of the Youth Enterprise Fund at SMU SIS's glass lounge on Monday. I had to do some mad rescheduling of my classes to make it for the session but I'd glad I attended.

We got some really invaluable advice on our business plan from Ms. Janet Young who is HSBC's Head of Commercial Banking. We've got alot of improvements to make before final submission next week, so no SIMS and DOTA till after the 29th!... or maybe just one or 2 games.

After that we got interviewed like 5 times by HSBC, TV12, Business Times and Channel News Asia. That was cool but I'd MUCH rather if I didn't have to handle any interviews and have more time to eat the buffet. The food was really good, especially the lamb and the chicken. I almost miss the days where I was so poor I had to attend these events just to get a decent meal... almost.

Channel News Asia apparently decided to only show Her Highness's interview so that the event wouldn't seem like a male dominated event. You can view the interview here!

Unfortunately, CNA reported that our product was completed and ready. Really, we're still in the Alpha testing and trial phase. I guess we can always clear things up with them and hopefully, get them to show more of our promotional artwork promote Mobile Weapon before our launch.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Online MMORPG Economies

Some article on MMORPG economies:
http://burningvoid.blogspot.com/2005/04/mmorpg-economy-wow.html

Google server?

Guess what? The first Google Storage server was built out of Lego bricks which features a male and female figurines to ward off evil spirit....

Click here for more photos

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Mobile Weapon Developer Diary #11




Equip: Tiger's Claw

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Macintosh machines can now run Windows!

News article

Mac OS and Win XP concurrently installed with no conflicts!
But dunno about longhorn.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

PS3 officially delayed

PS3 delayed

Rumors have been flying all over the place about whether Sony can meet their deadline. Well, it's official, Sony just announced that they will be pushing the PS3 launch to November, just in time to fight with Revolution. But at same time, they announced their specs just to whip up some appetite.


Reviews of their specs

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

TYLER Sims: Day #3: 70% casualties

Her Highness (very ironically) is now the resident Geisha french maid...


..who drives a sports car.


Sicshot finally moved in with the rest of us. But it wasn't long before he set fire to the microwave and freaked out. We forgot he hadn't got the cooking training yet.


Eventually he was found at the bottom of the pool. TYLER casualties 10%.



Matrix went for a night out on the town looking for an interview with the vampire. He subsequently went about making almost everyone in the house a vampire.


More TYLER vampire photos here:
Vampire Geisha maid give Shirley a peck
Cervantes gets a new bed

However there was only 1 coffin available (and it was out in the courtyard) so all the vampires got a serious sun tan. TYLER casualties 60%.



Tired of mourning. Malc fell asleep in the wrong place at the wrong time...


..becoming a "Man on Fire" literally. TYLER casualties 70%.


We didn't save the game...I hope.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

TYLER Sims: Day #2

The "office" is really shaping up. We still can't squeeze everyone into one lot so we're gonna have leave the current office as a branch office while Her highness has offered to do up the "main office". In other news, DZ's sim seems to have automatically (I didn't control the sims at all) taken up the mantle of resident DJ.


Cervantes takes over when DZ's sim has to go to the toilet.


Despite forcing everyone to take cooking lessons TY's Sim somehow managed to set fire to the kitchen. I suspect it's because he was talking to someone else instead of watching the stove / microwave.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

TYLER SIMs!!!

Tyler's SIMs have just moved into their new office! Their office is kinda bare right now. Anyone care to help them decorate?

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Mobile Weapon Developer diary #10

Finally got sometime to work on more special effects. Here's the cannon special effect, I've been told it looks more like missiles but oh heck. It looks good and that's all that matters. Soon it'll be time for me to work on the simpler special effects.

I've already uploaded the cannon effect to our project management site so you guys start using it.

Cannon Shot Effect!

Check out the latest SFX here!

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Update on Laura bot!


This should be the final version for now...
Feeling tempted to redraw this..

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Setting up WOFE in China

I had an informal meeting with Dr. Hong Hai (Dean of NTU Business School). Got some very interesting ideas and advice. He strongly adviced us to go in as a WOFE (wholly owned Foreign Enterprise) taking avantage of the relaxing of the rules on foreign ownership. Protection on IP was a major issue as well.

Anyway I went to look up the proceedures for starting a WOFE in China, details are here. The captial requirements are 100,000.00 CNY (China Yuan Renminbi) = 20,158.14 SGD (Singapore Dollars) and it varies depending on the nature of the business (lower for IT vs. manufacturing) and the city you want to start in (Shenzhen lower than Shanghai).

Another issue he asked us to consider are the size of the Singaporean community over there, hence Suzhou would be a good place with more Singaporeans.

He also had some other advice but I'll brief the board in our next board meeting.

Smack Talk in MMORPGs

One key problem we're going to have to deal with before we launch our game is "Smacktalk".

Gamers playing online can be very foul, perhaps because they think they can cuss with impunity. I'm sure you guys who played Gunbound may have noticed 60% of the talk during each game is spent trading insults. Taunting opponents can be a very effective means to lower their prowess. However it also reduces the fun factor of the game and diminishes the overall experience.

It's been cited as a major reason for the low uptake of Xbox:Live and the lack of voice chat support in many online multiplayer games.

Marvelgirl and I attended the Ebay contest briefing. Ebay deals with fraud and users who abuse the system by having this "reputation" system. Every seller has a reputation/feedback list. If a seller has alot of bad rep you probably don't want to buy from this person.

Likewise for our game, we can also have a reputation system. Everyone gets to give everyone else a reputation rating. If you see someone with a really bad reputation rating, chances are you won't want to play with the guy.

Also another takeback from my IS401 project discussion: The development of Wi-Max in Singapore could lead to more accessibility for our game (and importantly, lower costs for users) who want to play on the move.

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Mobile Weapon site design draft

Here is a draft of the website sample. Comments are welcomed. I will let this sit for a couple of days to see if this design can "last" for a few days for myself. Also title to be replaced with leo logo. Characters will be worked in as well later.

Click for bigger version

Windows' Japanese edition uses haiku error messages. NOT.

"Rather than offering the cryptic error messages Windows displays for English readers, Japanese editions use calming haiku poems, such as this one (our favorite):

Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.


Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.


and

Everything is gone;
Your life's work has been destroyed.
Squeeze trigger (yes/no)?


"

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,116572,pg,2,00.asp

FYI : Japanese Haiku poems are written in 5-7-5 syllable constructions.

Friday, March 03, 2006

Draft Logos ver. 1

Yoz,

here's the draft of our Mobile Weapon MkI logo based on Daizhong's artwork.


...and here's the draft of our Choco-pets logo.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

WIP




jus a update on my progress, here's the laura's robot, still wip but about 90 % done liao

side note lah

here's another pic i did before, also wip but less hard lines n no line art. problem is this takes a hell lot of time

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Great Design: A TYLER Core Competancy

Jocelyn and I presented the TYLER LDMS (Learning and Development Management System) to Estee Lauder on Monday and SMU on Tuesday. Rave reviews about the design from all around.

Speaking of great design, we've got to make sure our game GUI and other components live up to the TYLER culture of having excellent design for our products.

Here's a game trailer that's got awesome design! Check out the "Eve never fades" trailer here.

EVE-Online