71-Squared: iPhone Game Programming – Tutorial 1

I came across a wonderful series of iPhone Game Programming by 71² and it is outstanding. Source code is also available at the official post. For beginners, this is the series you should probably start with. Thanx 71² team.

iPhone Game Programming – Tutorial 1 from Michael Daley on Vimeo.

Happy iPhone Game Programming

Another Gold Medalist in family !!!

My little brother Rana Omer Hussain, received Gold Medal from Governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, at the convocation of Punjab University. It’s an honor for my family to have another Gold Medalist in family. I received Gold Medal but I was 3rd in my batch but my brother stood 1st in his batch, so this is the real Gold Medal in our family.

I wish my brother Best of Luck for his future plans. May Allah bless him and give him success in every aspect of life and hereafter. Ameen.

We both then had our photo together for memories…

iCensored 1.0 && 1.1

Sometimes we get take very nice pictures but get some part of unwanted object, therefore we came up with an idea to remove that object from the picture. But this serious idea turned to a very funny one called iCensored. In this application, we are not removing any object from the picture, instead we have ‘iCensored’ stickers (available in iCensored 1.0) and different objects like clown nose, geometric shapes, devil horns, prison cell, mosaic, skin colors etc in iCensored 1.1. We have also updated the application to scale and rotate the stickers. The final prepared image can be saved in one’s photo album, or can be send to friends via email from within application or can be posted to one’s facebook profile.

The funny part of this application is the usage of the application. While testing we took snapshots of our colleagues in different postures and added an ‘iCensored’ sticker and it created a hilarious scene for those colleagues. Sorry for not explaining further that what kind of image did it become after adding an ‘iCensored’ sticker. hahahahahaha

Besides the idea, the application version 1.0 was developed in 3 days, waited in Apple’s review queue for a week and was in AppStore in last week of August. It crossed 3K downloads with in a week …….. WOW. The application version 1.1 was finalized in a week and waited for almost 2 weeks in Apple’s review queue and was in AppStore in last week of September. So now anyone can get it for FREE.

The App Store link is http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=328169198

iCensored

Happy iCensoring

Google Translator

In one of my posts, I received a comment in some other language and wordpress marked it as spam; but I thought for a second and just being curious what is written in the comment, I selected a word from that comment and searched it in Google. I got an idea that it is a Russian word. Then the remaining task was easy, I opened translate.google.com and translated that comment into English from Russian, and it turned out great………………The person was praising my blog and if I had not translated it, I might have treated it as spam and deleted it………………

Lesson learned is if you see any text in different language, don’t neglect it; use translate.google.com and you might find that text useful.

Happy Translating

TellMyStory 1.0

Our application which has been in Apple’s review pool since 27th April 2009 has been approved and is now available at App Store on 9th August 2009. At last it’s accepted and is available for everyone out there.

TellMyStory is not an ordinary application. It is a serious application for sharing thoughts and images with friends on the run. This application can be used in almost all domains, e.g. this can be used by a reporter; to take snapshots of an important event, record sounds of those event or add verbal/textual comments and send the slideshow instantly to newspaper/magazine editor. This application can also be used for entertainment purposes; people can share their visits, their feelings, their emotions instantly with their friends. They can go to football match for example, capture snapshots , add crowds noise, add comments and share the football craze with their football fanatic friends…………….these are just basic examples, TellMyStory can be used in almost all aspects of daily life.

I have enjoyed a lot developing it. I have used it many times in couple of wedding functions by taking snapshots, applying Ken Burns, adding background music and by recording different sounds. I was quite successful in surprising other people with this quick compiling of real time images and playing them in a slideshow. I enjoyed it and I hope that everyone will enjoy it in their own ways. The learning curve of this application is hardly 15-30 minutes. When my 14 year brother saw this application, he was very interested, he started taking snapshots and adding music and came to me to ask only one thing which was how do I move/scale the images………..he was asking about how to apply the Ken Burns effect and I showed him the steps and there he was. He starting making shows with different effects and funny sound effects and the rest is history. Our chairperson’s daughter came up with a show which is now added as a default story in the application. This is just to inform everyone that making a story is very easy and interesting.

It took about 3 months for development, about a month for quality assurance and about 2 months for desiging in parallel. The main image also changed with the passage of developement. The one above is the released one, a couple of other Default images are:

The application TellMyStory can be downloaded from this link: TellMyStory.

Thank you Vahzay iPhone Team for making the dream come true.

New iPhone Application

Nowadays I am thinking about a new iPhone application, which might use some iPhone SDK 3.0 features and cocos2d architecture. Thinking, thinking, thinking……………………………………… I would appreciate if anyone might give some input or share their idea, and I might make an application around it. thanx in advance

Gobbledygook

I am a member of Counter strike clan named AZOSH…………..named after me and my brothers. Every one has a nick and mine is Gobbledygook………..Why? What is the reason behind this nick? So to know the reason behind my nick, here we go

At the time of my graduation I received the title of “Min Min Jee” ( in Urdu) which means that I talk in so less volume that every other person thinks that I am just moving my lips and making small sounds……….or I am just doing gibberish

So I started looking for something similar to the title I received and found Gobbledygook. To some it is a nonsensical language and for some it can be a secret language for sharing thoughts; but to my clan it’s a player with non sensical strategies and this clearly describes why my blog is gobbledygook……….because there are no links in all posts in my blog and it makes no sense whatsoever I am posting, just like this very post………which itself has become gobbledygook

Tintash Pvt Ltd

After completing iTouchBall, I was outsourced to TinTash for approximately a month to develop some modules for their game. Tintash is one of those Game Development Houses which has achieved a milestone of reaching in Top 10 Apps frame of Apple’s App Store. Their game Fishing Frenzy made a great impact and made it’s place in top 10 free applications.

I learned many basic things of game development there. First of all, I got introduced to Cocos2d architecture. I never knew that game programming can be so simplified for iPhone. I still have to explore it, but at least I have got a start and insight of something new and worthy.

I came to know what is an Asset? it’s not only an accounting term but it’s also a game development term.

Game assets are the “things” that go into a game. Some examples of assets are artwork (including textures and 3D models), sound effects and music, text, dialogue and anything else that is presented to the user. Sometimes the terms content or objects are used interchangeably with the term assets. – Wikipedia

I found the environment very healthy and entertaining. They have department for each domain; developers, QA team, Art designers, game designers, sound designers…. and they all co-operate with each other fully and whole heartedly. It was great fun being with them. I wish Tintash good luck for bringing fresh and beautiful games in the hands of people of all ages.

iTouchBall 1.0

Here we go!

We developed a simplest game for iPhone and iPod Touch devices. The game is very easy to learn and master. The game is available at App Store. Please download and give a good rating. This might help my company to get some service oriented work

It can be downloaded from here.

The life cycle of the development of iTouchBall is as follow:
Our iPhone Application Development team worked on an application for about 4 months and at last it was sent to Apple for review and unfortunately it is still in review process. Our management lost hope for further development in iPhone, but then I came up with a simple game which had a ball bouncing off the walls or your finger. Then we were given another chance by our management to modify the game and get it ready in 2 weeks.

The first idea was to modify the game into a game in which there is a moving ball with higher radius which bounces off the walls and if player touches the ball it divides into 2 and so on, until all balls are eliminated from the screen. In first week, this game was completed. Levels were introduced and in each level the number of divisions increased. Simple graphics were used.

Now when we played the game, it was very monotonous. We  scheduled a meeting with our management and informed them that we need to rethink the game design, level designs and come up with some addictive game but we were not given any extra day. We were pushed to reach the already set deadline. So we modified the game. We restricted the number of divisions, increased the speed in every level. We named the developed game Eliminator and added a functionality of merging together. We developers, ourselves, introduced another game Protector where player will have to protect the ball from hitting the screen walls. After completing the games, we added the score comparison thing, so that every player around the world can see what is the highest score ever made in particular game. In 2 weeks, we were done with the game. Due to lack of interest from our management, we did not even push our graphic designer to come up with any fascinating graphics. He tried his best to come up with the current ones and we appreciated his effort because he is not game graphics designer, he has his expertise in designing graphics for websites which is totally a different domain. Our QA department spent about 3-4 days on the game and then we submitted it to Apple. We got a couple of genuine issues from Apple and we fixed them and resubmitted it. With in a weeks time after last submission, we received an email from Apple that it has been launched.

No hard feelings but we need to be patient in doing everything. It is good to have an application at App Store but we know that we have the capabilities to make 150% times better game than this. There are hell lot of things you can do with a ball moving around the screen. But still, lets see what reviews does this simple game receives. I will be working my brains out to come up with a game which will be more presentable, logical, exciting and addictive than iTouchBall. For the time being, I feel proud that we have atleast something on App Store. Cheers!

Pakistan wins ICC 20-20 2nd World Cup

After 17 years, Pakistan has won another mega multinational cricket tournment. A very important success at a very right time for Pakistani nation. We, as a nation, have suffered and are still suffering through a lot of setbacks; and this accomplishment of our cricket team has given the nation to smile for something; they have provoked patriotism in our hearts and almost every Pakistani feels like that he/she has gained independance again.

Due to terrorist acts in our homeland, we are neither neglected in sporting world but also in business world. A lot of investors have pulled back their hands. Even RentACoder also displays a ticker that Software Buyers should rethink before signing a contract with a Pakistani programmer because they have electricity issues. But everyone should not forget that, even the current most successful nations today were far worse than us in their dark ages about 5-6 centuries back. If we compare us with them, we are still new and by the grace of Almighty Allah, we will bounce up as the most successful nation; and our touch will turn dust into gold….

Good luck Pakistan.

ICC 20-20 World Cup 2009 – 1st SEMI – FINAL

The copyrights of this video belongs to ESPN Star.

ICC 20-20 World Cup 2009 – FINAL

The copyrights of this video belongs to ESPN Star.