Tuesday 28 February 2012

Open Letter to Spilt Milk Studios

Hi Spilt Milk Studios!

It seems a lot of people want to see the Hard Lines situation resolved amicably and fairly. I'm one of those people. I think an agreeable set of next steps would be:

* Remove Hard Lines from the App Store, albiet temporarily
* Pay the money owed to me
* From there we can negotiate a deal for the future of the game

I trust this is an acceptable course of events, and can lead to a good natured conclusion. I would appreciate a response within 7 days.

Best regards,

Nicoll Hunt

Monday 27 February 2012

Sharing the love

You'll probably remember that I made a game for my girlfriend on Valentines Day. By my own admission it wasn't the finest game ever made, but it was written in 4 hours and after all, it's the thought that counts.



Since I love you as well I'm giving the game to you, source and all. It's built using XCode and runs on every iOS device I've managed to get my hands on.

You'll need to get hold of a couple of 3rd party libraries to compile it though:
  • cocos2d-x
    • The really quite lovely open source C++ game library coordinated by the superbly named Walzer Wang
  • Signals
    • A splendid little library to help decoupling of classes by the conventionally named Patrick Hogan.
This source is provided under the MIT License, and I don't really mind what you do with it.

I've packaged it all up for you HERE

Drop the unzipped "cocos2x" and "Signals" folders in the "nickylovescat/libs/" folder.



It doesn't do much, but it does a few things well. Since it's based on an evolving version of my game framework it handles the resolution differences between iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPad quite well. Or well enough for me at least. Take a look at the UI_POINT and GAME_POINT macros in PlatformDefines.h for a peek behind the scenes.

I render everything based on a virtual 320x480 screen, and add a extra few pixels border on iPad to handle the different aspect ratio. Scaled up source assets take advantage of the extra pixels on iPhone 4 and iPads. This game isn't the best example of high res assets though.

I hope you like my little present, it was built with a lot of love.

N x

Wednesday 22 February 2012

It's not all bad

I've received a huge amount of support over the past few days, and it means an incredible amount to me. Having complete strangers stand up and argue against the abuse of your rights is one of those things you can't fully appreciate until you've experienced it.

Time will tell if making my cause public was the right thing to do, but right now I feel grateful to know that I am not alone in thinking exploitation of my skills and work is completely unacceptable.

I make games, it's one of the very few things I'm quite good at. Nothing will stop me making more, and this whole experience has only encouraged me to reach higher with my work. Hard Lines was, and still is, one of the finest games I've ever been involved with. I can do much better though.

To everyone who has sent me a message of support, posted a comment on an article, or even just followed me on Twitter : thank you. You are the reason I love being a part of this industry, and I'm making my next game just for you. You lovely lovely people.

N x

Wednesday 15 February 2012

Valentines Day Fighting

I made my girlfriend a computer game for Valentines Day.


It's about fighting for the one you love.


"Hey! Why are all these awesomely drawn bears inbetween me and my girl?"


"Take that Jerk!"


"I AM WINNER!"

It's like a more awesome version of Kung Fu Master, or a much worse version of Double Dragon.

It's waiting for review on the App Store now, so you too will soon be able to experience all 10 seconds of amazing gameplay.

N x