JonD23

I read the 1st edition while I was in high school. I knew I wanted to get into tech after reading that book. Many years later, I worked with Charles at Xamarin. For weeks after I joined, I thought of ways to get him to sign my book. One day I heard he was doing a book signing at an event, and I volunteered to go. He signed my book, "from bits to mobile", and now it lives on the top of my bookshelf.

And in the spirit of giving, here is an open source These Crazy Walls clone written in Xamarin.Forms and CocosSharp:

https://github.com/jonedavis/Xamarin.Forms-With-Cocosharp

Today, a pure coincidence to the announcement that Microsoft acquired Xamarin, my brother and I launched a preview into a project that we've been working on for some time now. This is a Xamarin.Forms UI Inspector called XenForms:

http://www.xenforms.com/

Also, in the spirit of giving. I have released an open source version of a game in Xamarin.Forms and CocosSharp. It's a These Crazy Walls Clone.

https://github.com/jonedavis/Xamarin.Forms-With-Cocosharp

Hope someone finds it useful!

From the Coshx Labs webpage, “Coshx Labs is working with David Cohen, co-founder of Techstars, to launch the next big idea. We will be giving away $50,000 of development work, no strings attached, to make your idea a reality.”

We entered our postcard creation app into the contest. There are already a handful of postcard apps on the mobile app stores and web, but we’re confident there is room for another. As far as the physical printing and mailing of postcards, we are looking to use Lob. Lob is a YCombinator backed startup for printing and mailing for developers.

We put together a 1-minute promo video for the competition as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGH-5rNS-OA

The 2-week voting process has begun, and we would love to get your vote and feedback!

Thanks!

Jamie King has great videos on OpenGL, among other things, on his YouTube channel. It looks like it was last updated 8 months ago with 99 videos spanning 14 hours. His commentary is awesome, so you will stay entertained.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRwVmtr-pp06qT6ckboaO...

It's definitely something I could port over in the future. Maybe I can learn a little about Android development in the process. I'll most likely wait until I have a polished game. I submitted an update to the game a hour ago that included a lot of suggestions from HN. It should be a good improvement.

I can see that now. Sometimes it takes another set of eyes. I think I had the mechanics stuck in my head, so I always looked over it. I'm going to fix that now.

Yeah the ad is a part of the problem. It wasn't an issue until last night, when the ads kicked in. Before it was harder on the 4s, but now it seems nearly impossible. That being said, I'm going to fix it and make it playability for both screen sizes. Thanks for the suggestions.

I completely overlooked that. I'll fix it. It almost looks shaddy now that you mention it.

It's objective-c and spritekit. I started making games back in 2009 using objective-c and uikit. Honestly, once you get those sprites moving on the screen I find that it really doesn't matter what you're using, but Spritekit is awesome.

I'm pretty good with Xamarin in c# development. I use that mainly for business apps, but nothing beats objective-c and the opensource projects out there to make iOS apps.

Thanks man

I just picked it up on the 4s, and Im with you on that. I'm going to fix that now. I tried it out in the simulator, but nothing beats the real device. Thanks for the feedback.

Video games were my gateway into computers. I contribute my path as a developer to when I started playing the Quake 1 demo in 96. I remember getting the demo from a pc mag cd, and spending all day playing. One day I wanted to start learning to make my own mods. So that started me on my development path.

But I totally agree, I hope I don't let me kids play as much games as I did. I got lucky, but everyone is different.

Dude thats awesome. Ya both are totally flappy bird inspired. Theres something addictive about playing a game that is quick and hard.

Yeah, Chris' blog is great and where I got most of the assets. If anything he teaches you it doesn't take much to get something good for a little work.

The sounds were purchased from http://audiojungle.net/ The whole Envato network has great resources for developers.

Awesome man, thanks for the compliments. It's seriously rewarding to have someone like what you create. I'm worried that there is way too much green though. I know the right colors can bring up some emotion. I've tinkered with the idea of adding dirt to the road, but I'm afraid it'll be too distracting. Any ideas?

Thanks for the feedback. I totally agree that it needs to get moved. I recently started hitting the leaderboard on accident myself, but I wasn't sure if that was just me or other people too.

I know it's common to start projects and never finish. I’ve started tons of them: mobile apps, games, web apps, etc. Every once in awhile, for some unexplained reason I’ll finish what I started. The success is small but incremental. I don’t exactly know what it is that makes someone finish what he or she started, but I guess if we did then things would be different.

I’ve been working on a mobile app for months now. It’s one of those apps that I know I’ll finish, but I wanted to take a break and try something different. So last weekend, I set a goal. I’ll give myself the weekend, from Friday to Sunday night, to make a micro game. A small game is something I can complete, and I did complete it. I also had a lot of fun in the process. I knew I was rushed, but I had a goal, and I could see the end.

The game is out, it’s up, and it’s free on the App Store. It’s not doing great as far as downloads go, but that’s ok. I’m totally feeling rewarded for my efforts. I’ve gotten some feedback from friends, and I really enjoy seeing their reactions when they play the game.

Now, I’m more charged and ready to finish my big app. I remember what it feels like again to put something out there, and I like it.

Just wanted to share,

Jon

Did your team create the pixel artwork or did you contract it out? I've been looking into reliable artist for my next mobile app.