Here are our updates from PAX this post will be updated throughout the show. And it stay at the top of our site until after PAX, but don’t be fooled! We have more updates. Check below this post for other cool stuff from PAX. First off, our photostream. Keep checking it, as more photos will be going in all the time!
Here is our Twitter feed. We will be updating it like crazy while at PAX. You can reload this page to see new updates! (protip: Just press f5 on your keyboard!)
With PAX coming up this weekend, us Sci-Guys are getting prepped, just like you! One thing that is really going to help us during the convention is PAX Assistant, a great free app for Android devices. We got in touch with its creator, Nicholas Swartzendruber, to get the real dirt on this new app.
Sci-Guys: First off thanks for talking with us.
Nicholas Swartzendruber: No problem.
SG: Can you describe your app, its functions, and what benefit a user gets from it?
NS: As many veteran PAX-goers know, the wifi and cellular networks aren’t always reliable. That is why I made PAX Assistant. It brings many of the on-line resources related to PAX into an off-line version for Android phones. The main benefit of using the app is the convenience of having a full schedule and convention maps in one’s pocket. Users can select events they want to attend, and a custom personal schedule is created for them. For those who are lucky enough to establish an Internet connection, there is also simple a built-in twitter client that automatically follows PAX-related feeds. The real purpose of the app though is to assist attendees with getting the most out of their weekend.
SG: In the App’s credits it says that you just started programming for Android. I know you are a student, what is your programming background?
NS:Yeah, I’m a 20 year old student at the UW Tacoma campus, so I don’t have an incredibly extensive programming background. During my last two years of high school I opted into program here in Washington state called Running Start. Basically, you skip your last two years of high school and go straight to a Community College. That’s where I enrolled in a couple basic C++/JAVA courses and instantly fell in love with programming. From there on most of my programming has been either for academic purposes or for fun. At the start of this summer I started to tinker with the Android SDK out of the blue. I got hooked on it and started pumping out apps. Besides the
Android programming, the only other “professional” programming I have done is a simple database for Elliot Bay Marina in Seattle. I have an older brother who used to work there, and he told me they were running sailboat races using only pencil and paper. He asked me if I could bring them up-to-date, and so I did. I made a program to catalog all of the boats in the races, run the races and keep records.
SG: Are you going to PAX and if so is this your first PAX?
NS: Of course I am! Unfortunately only for one day though. This will be my second year.
SG: Did something in your previous PAX experience contribute to your desire to produce the app?
NS: Last year I used an app on my iPod touch to keep track of everything and it really came in handy. It just so happened that I finished an Android app and had no idea what to make next. I knew I was going to go to PAX, and I remembered the iPod app I used before, so I decided to see what I could do.
SG: What were you hoping to “get” out of creating the app? On the Offical PAX forums you appeared surprised that people wanted to donate money to you…
NS: I wasn’t really expecting anything when I started making the app. When people said they wanted to donate, I was surprised because I was doing all of this for fun. I never expected to make anything off of it. I continue to work on the app not only because it’s fun, but also because of the extremely positive reaction it’s getting. It motivates me.
SG: Speaking of the reaction, in the Official PAX Forums the response has been pretty great. There have also been a lot of suggestions, were some of those incorporated into your design?
NS: The app is made up by the forums as much as it is by me. During the initial release I only had two features, one large page with all the events and a very basic twitter feed that only followed @pax_lines. I asked everyone what they wanted and the suggestions came pouring in. Placement of the main logo, separation of events by days, the ability to enable multiple twitter feeds and the list goes on. I would say 90% of the app is based off suggestions. To keep track of it all I wrote everything down on a white-board and went through the ideas one at a time. The great thing about Android is that as soon as I push an update, users can download it and I get instant feedback.
SG: The app is pretty impressive, how many hours did it take you to complete?
NS: Ha ha, that depends. Procrastination hours, or real hours? I get distracted easily, so sometimes that makes programming hard. I’ve spent maybe 60 hours sitting in front of my computer pretending to work. Realistically it’s only taken about half that.
SG: When I was in college the only things I devoted that sort of time to were TV, playing games, and drinking. You haven’t been slacking off on video games, have you? What have you been playing lately?
NS: I do admit, I’ve been playing a little bit of Dragon Age. I only got about 10 hours in when the game first came out and then I stopped, but this time I think I’ll get all the way through. I’ve also recently started playing Magic: The Gathering. I’m not very good yet and I always lose, but I still think it’s fun! I don’t know whether I should be thanking my younger brother for getting me into it, it has kind of turned into an addiction.
SG: Was it hard to find the time to buckle down and work on the app?
NS: Luckily it’s still summer summer for me, so I’ve had a lot of free time. As I mentioned before, this is fun for me.
SG: What are you looking forward to seeing at PAX?
NS: Don’t even need to think about it – the Star Wars panel. I’ve been following Star Wars: The Old Republic ever since it was announced, and I can’t wait for it to be released. I went to their panel last year and I hope to make it in again!
SG: Do you play MMOs now? Or are you just a Star Wars fan, Bioware Fan, or all three?
NS: Currently I’m not playing any MMOs. I don’t like to talk about it, but my first MMO was Star Wars Galaxies. That was always my favorite game until it was completely changed twice. I gave up MMOs for a long time after SOE stabbed all of their players through the heart with a rusty daggers. PRE-CU players know how I feel. It’s kind of funny though, SWG got me into Star Wars. Not at the crazy fanboy level, but I think it’s cool. As for Bioware, who doesn’t like them?
SG: Good point! Do you intend to keep updating your app for future PAX events?
NS: I don’t like to make promises, but unless something catastrophic happens, there will be updates. I built the app ground up knowing that it would come useful later, so all I need to do is swap a couple files holding all of the data and then it’s good to go for next year (or possibly PAX East).
SG: We expect your app will be a big help during PAX. Thanks for creating it, releasing it at no cost, and talking with us about it. And, have a great PAX!
Do yourself a favor, and head over to the Android market to download the PAX Assistant, and be sure to use its donate function to send a couple of bucks to Nicholas. Hope to see you all at PAX
In Sci-Guys Podcast number 034 we start off by calling it number 035. WAY TO GO JIM. Even more impressive? NOBODY even notices, or (I’m guessing) cares.
I’m thinking we were just too excited about our PAX preview! Plus a double shot ‘o VERSES.
We have looked at several Inception mash-ups over the last few weeks but this one is a little different. Anime director Satoshi Kon found popularity both in Japan and in the West since his 1998 debut, the mature thriller Perfect Blue. Subsequent hits like Millennium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers are great lead-ups to what will surely be Kon’s swan song, Paprika. Sadly, Kon died of pancreatic cancer last week at the disturbingly young age of 46.
Anime fans have been comparing Paprika with Inception and they share not only some similar visual styles (though are two different media) but similar plot points. In Paprika a researcher uses a device to enter people’s dreams in unsanctioned ways that are “not strictly legal”. Sadly, Satoshi’s Kon’s life and career were cut way too short, but if you haven’t seen any of his animated movies you have a handful of treats to look forward to.
Remember the Big Trak? This was the programmable 6-wheeler that officially debuted in 1979, but owned the early-80s as a toy every boy wanted.
Now 30 years later, the Big Trak is back. The unfortunately titled Big Trak Jr. may be Mr. Trak’s son, but it has more features than the original, including a camera and rocket launcher.
Were you one of those jerks that had a Big Trak as a kid? Will you be picking up the Big Trak Jr. when it comes out next month?
wwTouch is a new app from FrozenPepper that brings the strategy and depth of classic board games like Axis and Allies to the iPad. We recently hooked up with developer Ottavio Radicati to get the dirt on this exciting new game.
Sci-Guys: Thanks for talking with us! Can you give us a little background on you, your software development, and how you came to write software for iOS?
Ottavio Radicati: Hi, I’m Italian, and I founded FrozenPepper two years ago, soon after the appStore Launched. I had always studied / sort of worked in 3D graphics, but with the AppStore introduction and finally a great marketplace where to sell games digitally I concentrated totally on learning how to code and make games for the new apple devices. I have started with very simple games while learning, and last year, I started working together with 2 other great appStore developers, iDev2 and Ethervision, on some quite successful RC (remote controlled) plane and heli simulators, thanks to the RC series (which we are constantly expanding) we could concentrate on a long term project for the first time, so wwTouch development begun, being surely the most complex project we worked on up till now.
The unity game engine helped me a lot to transition from the 3D graphics experience I had to game design and programming, and the AppStore finally was something accessible even for me, letting me reach an audience which would have been simply not possible with my fundings, plus the iPhone platform was fantastic for games, so it all came together in FrozenPepper.
Sci-Guys: Have you considered other platforms to develop your software on? Ottavio Radicati: Surely we have been thinking a lot of other platforms, especially the mobile ones (as they are more accessible), but at the moment they are much worse in many ways, compared to the iTunes / iOS ecosystem; Tons of different screen resolutions, hardware producers and components, device performance, touch input quality, sensors available, all of that paired with not very inviting marketplaces and not all devices having access to those marketplaces.
All of that makes the transition to other mobile platforms not something that is “impending” for us. We simply have to wait some more for others to catch up with Apple, at that point we will surely be working for that to.
Sci-Guys: Obviously we are very excited about your new game wwTouch. Can you give us some more detail on it? Ottavio Radicati: wwTouch gets a lot of inspiration from Axis and Allies and Risk, it was born after some nights spent with friends playing Axis And Allies board game. After 2 games, each one lasted 13 hours, my frustration was immense. It was a cool game, but who the hell wants to spend 13 hours in front of a board game, most of which you are waiting for other players to do something? So I started thinking about a computer version, but, with the iPad, we discovered the perfect platform!
The game tries to have deep strategy options together with a decently fast game play. The game was developed with multiplayer on the same ipad in mind, sort of a modern board game, but we gave much attention to AI (and we will continue expanding it) to have a fun game also when playing by yourself. Special thanks goes to Pietro Paolini that took care of Ai and map pathfinding, as well as being fundamental for combat solving and general help. Also longtime partners iDev2 and Ethervision followed the development providing support since the beginning of the project.
Here the “official game description :
WWTouch is a comprehensive 3-D map-based, strategy game that was built specifically with the amazing functionality of the iPad in mind. If you are into immersive strategy games like Axis & Allies, WWTouch is exactly what you have been waiting for. WWTouch supports up to 5 players at a time playing on the same iPad as you try and build your armies and defeat your friends in the quest for global resource domination. Think of WWTouch as the most advanced strategy board game you can play. Choose from 9 types of armies and weapons to build and to ultimately control land, air and sea. The more territories and resources you have, the more armies, ships and planes you can build and thus the more you can expand your empire. From huge maps (the entire world) to small maps (North and South America) to a medium sized battle in Europe and Africa, you can play the app as in-depth or as quickly as you have time for. WWTouch is played in landscape mode but flip the iPad to portrait to see the latest results of the game via a newspaper layout. Also in portrait mode is an in-depth manual explaining all the rules of the game. Choose from 3 different levels of Artificial Intelligence as you go head to head (to head) against computer opponents. If West Point isn’t using WWTouch for Advanced Officer Training, they soon will be!
Sci-Guys: What was the most challenging part of creating wwTouch? Ottavio Radicati: One of the hardest / nicest parts of the development has been the user interface and interaction. We wanted to keep the game simple to use and learn, use the most from the ipad touch tech and screen size, but also have some deep strategy possible. I think that things such as the info you can browse in portrait view, dragable panels, multi-touch, really help in displaying and letting the player interact with all the info and actions in wwTouch.
But the hardest and most annoying thing about all the development of wwTouch, were the first 2 months of working on the game without having a real device to test the game on. We are also discovering the importance (especially in this kind of game) of professional beta testing, the first version of wwTouch revealed some bugs we were totally unaware of, and had us working for 3 days like mad men to fix them and post an immediate update to apple. Surely next time we will increase attention spent for Beta phase…
Sci-Guys: Can you describe some of the bug fixes/ improvements you are working on? Ottavio Radicati: We have submitted an update to apple for review which includes an impressive amount of fixes / changes, all thanks to our users. Plus we plan on extending the game.
On wwTouch.com there is forum, which can be used to discuss wanted features / improvements / ideas etc. While we want to keep the game simple, we are also willing to increase the strategic challenge, so things such as espionage, diplomacy, fortifications, etc. might hit the game quite soon.
We also are committed to introduce gameCenter, multiplayer online games, and other Major features soon after iOs 4 becomes available for ipad.
Here is what is included in wwTouch 1.1 update, which we have submitted to apple a few days ago :
- much improved camera movement
- solved crashes at startup
- fixed bug that prevented from building in factories placed in ”Italy” territory.
- much improved double tap detection on territories
- fixed South American territory colliders which had bugs.
- fixed bug that would occur when 1 of the AI players was totally defeated
- Added 4 tutorial “windows” explaining how transport planes, transport ships, submarines, and neutral territories work
- fixed crashes when in portrait mode
- added sounds when in battle
- fixed “factory panel” update – now it will shift to factory you’re building on and update when adding units
- added “Prod left” indicator in the “factory panel” which will inform about remaining production for that industry
- increased 3 star AI difficulty
- fixed some newspaper display bugs
- Fixed bugs when going back to main menu
- Improved memory handling
Sci-Guys: Have the sales/reception/reviews of wwtouch been what you hoped for?
Ottavio Radicati: We had been working so much on wwTouch in the last months that we where taking too much for granted, so we omitted some fundamental explanations to the user, plus we beta tested the game on “clean devices” which were basically never used, with all the memory available, while most users iPad are full of apps and constantly used, so we had some problems with un-expected crashes or slow downs due to this memory use. But apart from a few problems, we knew some elements of the game could be improved, and are very happy to do it with feedback from users.
We are happy with how it’s going, a lot of people wrote about how they loved the idea and game and helped with the first update, version 1.0 of wwTouch has some issues, and thanks to the users, we have already improved it a lot, so that it will progress towards the best it can.
Sci-Guys: We love the concept, and there certainly doesn’t appear to be anything close to this style of game in the app store. Thanks for producing this ambitious game, and talking with us about it!
It’s hard to believe it has been only 31 years since this gem fell off the map. Can we expect scenes this sublime, unmuddled by dialog or editing in the new Captain America movie? One can only hope.
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