Author: Joe

Categories
Video Games

World of Goo

If you own a Wii then download World of Goo.  It’s a simple, yet addictive physics based puzzle game.  You move little gobs of goo from point A to point B.  Sound pretty basic, but makes for a very fun game.  I also found the humor to be very funny, especially the information superhighway stages.

The most amazing thing to me about this game is that it was made by two guys!  Recently it seems that you have to have at least an 8 figure budget to create a video game.  So to have a team of basically two able to churn out such a high quality game is really exciting to me.  It proves that with new avenues of content distribution it is possible to create and distribute a great game without having  a huge budget behind you.

Categories
Video Games

Mega Man 9

Mega Man 9

My brothers and I grew up on the Mega Man games back on the NES. Unwrapping the latest installment on Christmas Day always brought a good deal of cheer. So when I heard that Capcom was releasing an all new Mega Man true to the original sprite days of the NES, we just had to purchase it via WiiWare.

The game is true to the NES days. It has the same graphics we remembered so well, the 8-bit great soundtrack, and many of the enemies we enjoying shooting so much.  The new bosses are impressive, including Splash Woman, the first female boss robot. A truly great game that stays true to it’s 8-bit roots.

However, let me warn you. This is one of the most challenging games I’ve played in a long time. It’s just down right hard. I’m not sure if I don’t have the same reflexes I possessed in sixth grade or they just upped the difficulty, but it sure is a challenge. Despite the challenge, I do highly recommend you give this game a try. Especially if you played the earlier installments in the late 80’s early 90’s.

Categories
Development

Adding chat powered by Google Talk

Bioderma Medical Laser & Aesthetics wanted real time chat added to their website. I really wanted to find a solution that would be extremely easy for the site visitors (no leaving the site, nor having to download any plugins, or having to register or login) and easy and convenient for the client as well.  After researching many different options, I found that having the client set up a free Google Talk account and incorporating a chatback badge into the site was most effective.

The Google Talk account presents numerous advantages for the client:

  • it’s free
  • is a full featured IM client
  • can be accessed via an application or even through the browser
  • Google Talk is compatible with other IM clients
  • has a robust API
  • features are continually being rolled out for Google Talk
  • can be used on multiple devices (iPhone, etc.)

From the web visitors end, they just see a text bubble stating the status of the client.  Whether they’re available or not for chat, busy, etc.  If someone is available to chat all they have to do is click on the link and a chat session begins.  No logging in, downloading software, etc.  It’s very cool, and a great solution for incorporating real time chat into a website.

Categories
Development

Bioderma Medical Laser & Aesthetics Redesign

Bioderma Laser & Aesthetics

Just went live with the redesign I had been working on for Bioderma Medical Laser & Aesthetics.  Been working with them on a site redesign and incorporating many new features to their website.  Working with them has been a pleasure and the site has turned really nice.  There’s a lot of heavy tech running in the background that gives users a great and informative experience while giving the client the tools necessary to manage their website with little training.

Some notable features include:

CMS powered by Joomla

Building on top of Joomla for the CMS gave the client an amazingly powerful and easy to use CMS solution.  They now have the ability to make basic content edits to their own site at their own convenience.  Allowing them to keep the site content current and up to without having to pay a web developer for basic edits.  

interactive mapping and driving directions powered by Google Maps API

To help their customers find them, mapping powered by the Google Maps API was incorporated into their site.  Current map, satellite, and hybrid information is delivered via Google for users.  Custom driving directions are delivered with no page refresh/reload via AJAX scripting to save users time and unnecessary load times.

newsletter management

A full newsletter management system built upon the ccNewsletter Joomla component has been incorporated into the upgraded site.  Users can easily sign up to receive a newsletter via the newsletter sign up box or through the contact form on the website.  A full admin panel is built into the CMS for the client to easily manage, create, and send out newsletters to users who’ve signed up to receive their newsletter.  A very cool feature.

custom contact form

A custom contact form allows users to easily contact the client.  Submissions are delivered to the client as well as recorded to a database for easy retrieval of information for the client.  DOM scripting found in the contact form hides/reveals content if relevant for the user.  Leading the a cleaner, simpler experience.

lightbox powered before & after photos

Before and after photos associated with their respective services are powered by the slimbox lightbox extension.  This enables full sized detailed photos to appear via a modal window ontop of the page via clicking on a thumbnail photo.  This reduces unnecessary page load for the user while looking really nice.

Categories
Video Games

Guitar Hero World Tour

 

Guitar Hero World Tour

Just picked up Guitar Hero World Tour for the Wii the other day.  Went with the Band Kit version.  That comes with the game, guitar, drums and a mic.  Figured it’d be cool to get 4 of us going at once, and be very entertaining to hear someone sing off key for a bit.

The quality of the instruments is very impressive thus far.  The guitars seems more natural to hold than previous versions and now includes a new fret bar.  Though I haven’t tried messing around with that yet.  The drums are very nice quality.  They’ve taken a pretty serious beating thus far, and have held up well.  They’ve been very responsive and durable.  

The game itself is very impressive as well.  The 80+ song list is great.  There were only a few songs I wasn’t familiar with, and none that I’ve really hated to play thus far.  Some pleasant surprises have been Eye of the Tiger and On the Road Again just to name a few.

The online and downloadable content are the best I’ve seen on the Wii to date.  I’m very impressed with how they pulled this off considering the Wii hardware and lack of a hard drive.  I wouldn’t think that a third party would be able to make such a slick online experience.

This game is at it’s best when played with four fools.

Categories
Development

Dashcode

 Dashcode

Finally got around to messing around with creating a dashboard widget using Dashcode. Wow, the whole interface had a polish on it that you don’t find in most software, especially IDE’s. Very smooth, clean, and can pretty much just drag and drop anything that you like.

It makes creating certain types of widgets extremely simple. I made a quick RSS feed based widget in just a few minutes, with no tutorial. Eventually I had to tweak some .js and .css files a bit by hand, but that was very easy to get too as well.

I’m very much impressed with Dashcode, and won’t give a tutorial as there are already many great one’s online.  It’s a great tool, now I just have to come up with some cool ideas for gadgets.

If you run OS X 10.4.3 or higher feel free to download: