Richard Stallman at Epitech Paris

Richard M. Stallman was in my school today for a conference about (as usual) free software, GNU/Linux, the danger of software patents and emacs.

Great moment !

Ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence

Thanks to my company for giving me this so awesome leaving present !

Now I’m on vacations for a week, then I will start a brand new job (technology intelligence)  in a really big software engineering company, so I will leave behind me (but still close to me) video game industry for a while.

By the way, the product for Nintendo DS I was working on will may be released (as far as I… hope) on June in France, Germany and England,
I’ve never expected people one day will buy a real video game product I was involved in. It’s a small thing but which makes me quite happy.

ScummC, a SCUMM compiler

I’ve always wanted to develop an user-friendly set of tools to create adventure games, like Sierra’s (Space quest/King’s quest…) or Lucas arts‘ point’n click (Monkey island/Day of the tentacle…), but in that case I had to create not only the compiler (to create a package of scripts/graphics/data) but also the interpreter (which decodes the package and launches the real game), and it takes a huge time…

I’ve never thought of using an already existing interpreter, though there is a really good one, free and above all cross-platform which can be really good for this: ScummVM.

Fortunately, someone (Alban Bedel) had, in 2004, this idea and also time to do his project: ScummC

ScummC is, therefore, a set of tools (editors, and compilers to combine images, costumes, background boxes, fonts, sounds and game code) for developers to help them creating 100% free adventure games that run on ScummVM engine.

The language used (javascript) consists mostly of setting up objects (in any kind: a chair and even a person are considered as objects), in various rooms and laying out what sorts of ways you can manipulate those objects.

This project is still young but I hope it will be enhanced and will become more and more popular, it’s really a great idea.

More informations: ScummC website

So sad it’s already finished

I don’t want an iPhone or everything else, I all wanted was a Nokia 3600 slide, or a supernova 7610, just because it was Jade’s phone.
For those who missed it, somebody else’s phone was Nokia’s campaign, launched on October 15 and developed at Wieden + Kennedy, London.

“Imagine finding a phone that belongs to somebody else; filled with personal text messages, contacts, diary entries, photos, voicemails and private video clips. It’s like having a window into somebody’s entire life. Would you be tempted to look through it ? “

A wonderful publicity campaign showing us how our cellphones can know almost everything about us (last things are, obviously, on Facebook and Myspace)

Christmas present from my company

There are a lot of good things, working in a video-game company, especially on Christmas time. They already gave me lots of things for Christmas (while I expected nothing since I’m an intern) but THIS is the nicest one, one of the best games ever.
No segfault for Christmas, I promise.

Bob’s game developer protesting against Nintendo

Remember Bob Pelloni ? The sole developer of Bob’s game, a game made by one person during 15000 hours. Well this man is still doing crazy things, this time starting a 100 day protest to Nintendo.

Since 13 days now, he has barricated himself in his room and will not be coming out until he gets a Nintendo DS Software Development Kit from the company.

Indeed, in order to port his homebrew into an official game, he needs to create it using official tools,
and these tools (mainly the Nitro SDK) are given by Nintendo if you fit certain standards, such as, in Nintendo’s case having about 50k in capital, a business address and a registered corporation/business license.
Then you can buy one kit for less than $2000 (low end version).

For some strange reason, Nintendo refuse to send him the SDK though Pelloni claims that he has fulfilled all the requirements for registeration, even having his own company (Robert Pelloni LC). He was supposed to receive a decision from Nintendo 8 weeks ago but still nothing.

During these 100 days, he will have no Internet access (except on his G1, waiting for Nintendo’s reply), no television and a friend will deliver him food once a week. Therefore he will have nothing more to do than making a port of his game to the Android mobile platform (such a shame).

Waiting for Nintendo’s reaction now…

Happy Monkey Island Music Day

Ask me about… … … Bob ?

No I won’t talk today about Loom or Grim Fandango, even if I really should.
Today I was impressed by another game which is called “Bob’s game“

15,000 hours of development, 5 years of dedication…
And a single man who created a full adventure game for the Nintendo DS.

Yes, he designed everything: Story, code, sprites, tiles, music, samples, fonts… in order to create THE game he always wanted to have when he was kid.

This man is just crazy but in the good way. I love that way of thinking, and I would love to do the same.

Nintendo announces Nintendo DSi

Well, here is the concept:
You take a previous nintendo handheld console, in which you add some memory and a camera.
And finally you have your brand new Nintendo handheld console.

Finally, it’s not so recent…
Hopefully the new one will be slimmer, nicer, but probably less blue.

I don’t think new commercial games will use the camera feature a lot (mainly because games should be backward compatible with the other NDS) but DSiware games should be very nice.
Another matter is that we are not ready to see third party games, we can imagine Nintendo will give developpers the new Nintendo Dsi SDK within two months, and it will take maybe 6 months to create a simple game…
Therefore we still have to wait, but it’s a nice news and a likable new handheld console even if it’s not a big change…

Pandora pre-order page is now live

• ARM® Cortex™-A8 600Mhz+ CPU running Linux
• 430-MHz TMS320C64x+™ DSP Core
• PowerVR SGX OpenGL 2.0 ES compliant 3D hardware
• 800×480 4.3″ 16.7 million colours touchscreen LCD
• Wifi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth & High Speed USB 2.0 Host
• Dual SDHC card slots & SVideo TV output
• Dual Analogue and Digital gaming controls
• 43 button QWERTY and numeric keypad
• Around 10+ Hours battery life

Finally we can pre-order this new handheld on that website. I really want it, I think I will buy it but not now, I’m still having fun with my GP2X and I don’t have time currentlyfor the pandora, but I’m thinking of it seriously.

There will only be 3000 Pandoras made in this batch. No more until 2009.
First come first served.