En defensa de la institucion publica

Siempre he sido defensor de las instituciones publicas, debo haber tenido como 6 años cuando ya habia entendido que todo lo que tengo es gracias a que el estado costarricense es una fuente de trabajo para muchisimas personas. En muchos paises trabajar para el estado es para la gente de mas baja "estirpe" en nuestra pais podemos jactarnos de que trabajar para el estado es una puerta a la comodidad y para el exito.

Sin embargo, es importante que nos demos cuenta de que para que esto se mantenga es critico que podamos continuar con un cierto estandar de calidad. Cierto estandar de calidad que ALGUNAS instituciones si logran mantener.

Hace un par de dias, fui al registro civil, en la entrada fui recibido por un guarda que me saludo con un "hola amigo en que podemos ayudarle". Me guio hasta donde necesitaba ir, y en menos de 5 minutos ya tenia la constancia de nacimiento de mi hijo. ESTO, es calidad, es buen servicio.

15 minutos despues, luego de caminar bajo la lluvia, llego a el edificio de la caja, en donde luego de explicar 25 minutos a un funcionario que YO SOY PATRONO, me avisa que las cajas de pago estan en otro edificio y que normalmente las facturas adicionales no salen en el sistema (osea, estan ahi ganando intereses hasta que alguien se da cuenta). Al llegar a pagar, me doy cuenta que NO aceptan tarjetas de debito (solo cheques o efectivo, por que el sistema se quedo atrapado en los años 60). ESTO es mal servicio, esto es lo que hace que la gente se queja.

Todo esto termino, conmigo, solicitando un servicio de taxi a un taxi rojo (normalmente uso UBER pero no tenia bateria en el telefono), cuando me acerco al PRIMER taxi de la fila, antes de subirme me dice para donde va? Yo le respondo, eso no importa, usted es transporte publico tiene que darme el servicio. El chofer me empuja y me dice vea playazo yo no lo tengo que llevar si no me da la gana, (a lo que yo saco una libreta para apuntar la placa) y los insultos continuan hasta el punto de decirme que me va a agarrar a pichazos por "playo". Esto es un servicio que todos estamos pagando, que esta abogando por un monopolio legal y que estan defendiendo muchos a capa y espada.

Lo peor de todo esto? Poner una queja en el CTP es exponer su informacion privada por que los mismos funcionarios del CTP entregan su informacion personal a los choferes (hay casos documentados de choferes llamando a amenazar a quienes denuncian). Entonces que hacemos?? Como hacemos... como defiendo en eso en lo que creia tanto, cuando me escupe en la cara? Quizas es hora de dejar de hacerlo?

Entering: Cocos2d-x

So last time, I was complaining a lot about the state of the market, now am actually going to do some development.

I have been trying to learn a tool that allows me to flex my C++ muscles and do some 2D games, I thought about going to Unreal Engine 4,  but UE4 is still on my backlog (perhaps I will get to it once we are done with Pause Play Stop) or even before at this year's GGJ (Costa Rica has a site!!).

Right now, I started looking into Cocos2dx (had looked at it before, but never really got around to actually starting something). I am going to be documenting my progress here so at least I have something to come back to once I FORGET EVERYTHING I DID.

So let's get to it! Getting the thing, right now I am working on Mac OS X Yosemite, so it's already bundled with the latest version of Xcode, if you are reading this and you are working with windows, you can also follow some of the instructions, but you will have to windowsdify them.

Downloading Cocos2Dx and it's prerequisites

This part am not 100% sure,  but it always works to take it into account.

First download and install Python

Then download and unzip Cocos2d-x

I am currently using version 3.3 (latest at this moment) and it seems like it's running properly.

Setting up the new project

Now, we want to setup a multi platform project, so first, navigate this:

Root Cocos2dxFolder --> Tools --> Cocos2d-Console --> bin 

When you are there, you can use the following command  (remember the ./ at the beginning so the system knows it's a command!):

./cocos new --package com.something.darkness --language cpp --directory ~/wherever nameOfTheGame

Where

-com.something.darkness : name of the package for your game

-cpp : we will be using C++ as the language for the game, you can select other languages too!

- ~/wherever: the directory where you want to setup your game

-nameOfTheGame: well... the name of the game

And there you have it! you should have a new folder that contains the code for all your projects (iOS,wp,windows,OsX,android). You can actually open each project and open the Xcode project file to start working!

Next time I will start sinking into the C++ of this new game I am going to work on :)

(BE sure to check this out! http://wizardfu.com/book/cocos2d-x/project-setup/, am trying to use it as a base for my project)

About the mobile development market

There's a lot of talk about how the mobile market is gaining a huge market share, a lot of jorunalists talk about this because of pure sale's numbers (http://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsky/2014/10/05/iphone-6-launch-continues-hot-streak/ )

True, mobile market is growing, and it will keep growing because mobiles... are nice, you carry a lot of processing power anywhere you go.

But from a development point of view, this is not the future we are looking for. There's a catch with mobiles.The culture around applications doesn't improve, it's either free-to-play or ad-based revenue. This means that you either have a lot of marketing power (that's how you get to beat the top apps ) or a game that has an established fan base somewhere else.

So what does the mobile market need to become a real place where developers thrive? We need help from the platform holders. People who buy a $400  console, expect to pay from $5 to $50 per a piece of software (in this case a game). People who buy a $600 mobile phone, expect to pay nothing or $1 dollar for every piece of software they have available.

Getting the platform holder to actually push games that cost more than a dollar will be very important in the following years, because it creates culture, if people believe that it's normal to pay $10 for a game that will get them a lot of hours of fun and joy, then they will pay it. BUT, this means that the platform needs some curation to make sure that whatever goes in it, is actually worth those $10, and curation costs money (or you can do what Steam does :D).

Another way to deal with this, is less conventional, is coming up with a mobile alternative to the play store, a sort of "mobile" Steam where you could actually put your games, and have control over the economy of the platform, that way, if a lot of high quality products have normal, accessible prices and can be found in that platform, players will come to it, they always do.

Now, I have big hopes for the mobile market, don't get me wrong. But right now, it's a toxic, copyright infringement over populated new world. And we are staying away for a while.  Sure, there are success stories, but the amount of failures and problem just don't justify taking such a leap of fate. Here's to mobile gaming, so that it one become the promised land.

Daily... really??

When I was getting my Scrum Master certification, one of the coaches, Juan Banda, told us a reality about the daily standings...

They are not to talk about work unless its necessary.

Now, I know a lot of you Scrum puritans are screaming at me right now, stay with me for a couple of minutes.

The daily standings are supposed to be used to say, what you did, what are you doing, what are you going to do, and problems if you have any.

Problem with this approach is that it mechanizes the way the team interacts, people start just repeating themselves, especially when working in a game, some days there will be only one task repeated all week (I modelled a lamp, I added some screenshots, I changed the same line of code again).

Instead, this 15 minutes that we have the whole team sharing, should be all about the team sharing, let people talk about whatever they want, if it is about their personal life, let them, let them know this team is the place to be. Usually what happens, is that people are very eager to share what they are working on with their friends, especially if their friends are working with them on this.

So next time you are holding a daily and someone starts complaining about the weather, you should let everyone do so. Exciting things have started with the weather!

*Ben Franklin's Kite may have not been hit by lighting :)

Estimating, estimating team!

Estimations, estimations. When dealing with business folks, one of the most important things they often ask is, how long do you think it's gonna take you. But anything you say (excepting for things you have done over and over again and thus are not new!) will be a complete guess.

But its something you need to learn how to do, and the best way to do so, is not using formulas, is not creating a spreadsheet, is talking with your team.

For us independent developers, this is a must, we can't expect that a producer will have our schedules set up for us so we just fill the blanks, we must be able to self manage, we must be able to know our own abilities and limitations so we can, AS A TEAM, have realistic ideas of when we can get things done.

Important Stuff

As a gamedev there are many things you can forget... but there are some you cant!

• Physics: They´re present everywhere in games... so at least knowing the basics always helps!
• Finish him!!! : As my programmer mate says: Every time you start something... it doesn´t really matter how long it takes.. finish it! (Here's something he did! check it out its pretty cool! KICK ASS APP! )
• Practice makes perfect:  Am taking this one from cliffyB, he said that you need practice making games, of course at the beggining you´ll get mostly shit, but after a lot of practice, we can start getting pretty good stuff.
• Network: Never forget, this industry started as a community of people that wanted to do something different, "hackers" that wanted to take computers to their "full potential". We are still that community, and as a starting gamedev you should never lose the chance to make new friends!
• Lonely wolf? : You are not alone! Building a team will teach you a lot, from leadership to how to handle a game as many parts that come together.
• Have fun! Because you are actually doing what you dream of doing, I know I am!

That´s is it for now! Back to programming hehe

JP

Getting Started with Unity 3d

I have been playing with Unity 3d for the last few days, and well am just loving it. Currently am following a couple of examples provided by http://www.packtpub.com/unity-3d-game-development-by-example-beginners-guide/book, and well it seems i am making quite a progress, both using the 3d environment and the GUI  environment (i call them both environment but they´re more like tools or something like it) to create sample games.

This next week i should be trying to set up a quick tutorial to getting started into game dev with unity 3d, something really basic! Heck lets start right away!

The first thing you´ll want to do, is download unity 3d if you havent already, you can find it here!

Once you´ve downloaded and installed unity 3d (just follow their website´s instructions, they´re really simple), lets start the sucker!! Most likely you will start with an empty project, but just so you can get used to  the process, we´ll just create a new.

Creating a project
1. Click on File --> New Project ...

2 . Input the name and location for your new project

3. If you want to mess around with some of the included assets, select them from this screen, unity comes PACKED with a lot of cool stuff, i haven't even gotten around half of all of it

4. Click on create or just hit Enter

XD see it was that easy creating the project, now play... errr... yeah... we havent created anything yet. But hey at least its something! I'll try to get the second part as soon as possible!

If youre reading this, i'd love some feedback!! i mean how can i improve???
Thanks in advance!