Ant Simulator Update (video)

Recently I started a project, Ant Simulator, using Unity. I'm excited to share the game's progress so far, including (very) basic controls for moving ants around and 3d camera controls, including panning, zooming, and rotating the world. 

I'll keep posting updates here and more info about the game as it becomes more fleshed out. Enjoy the video and see you back here soon!

Also, Ant Simulator is a working title and I will gladly take suggestions if you want to share your thoughts, about the title or the game itself.

What Am I Doing, Almost a Year Later

It's been almost a year since I last blogged here, due in part to starting a new job and moving across the country, amongst other things. 

Anyways, since last July I have been busy with personal projects and new game ideas. Here is a quick summary of what I've been up to:

• Helping code course material for Paul Solt's iOS game and app learning courses: 
  http://learn.iphonedev.tv/courses/make-iphone-games-with-sprite-kit-for-ios8

• Learning Swift for iOS and using SpriteKit to create a military tactics game for mobile:

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• Brushing up on Unity to create a 3D ant-simulation game:

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• Adding new powerups, enemy waves, and other features to Bomb Dodge for an update! (Currently impeded by a bug with Cocos2D)

Things currently on hold:

• iOS boids: This is still on my to-do list, but currently taking a break while I learn Swift and the new OpenGL features introduced with iOS8. I would also like to experiment on creating some shared code to use flocking in Unity as well.

Over the next few months I hope to be working on the new games and addressing a lot of the issues mentioned above, so stay tuned. :)

Note: Since Squarespace updated I really dislike how they changed the blog feature. It makes it extremely cumbersome to add and resize photos. I might be looking for an alternative to Squarespace's blog in the future.

Impressions of Squarespace

My Personal Site: A Long Time Coming

Not all computer scientists benefit from having a personal website but I want to be bold and different. For a couple of years I've been wanting to upgrade my old personal website from a bare-bones, handmade HTML / CSS site hosted by RIT Computer Science, to something professional and nice to look at. And so here we are.

Shopping Around

Creating a website can vary in difficulty from a 5 minute task to a gargantuan project, depending on your experience and how you choose to implement it. For me, I wanted a fresh looking site that is easy to manage and quick to design, which meant that I would be using a "template" website such as Wordpress, Wix, Weebly, or Squarespace. I chose Squarespace because it's the only one that doesn't begin with a "W". Ok, that's not true, but there are a lot of website builders that have W names. 

I chose Squarespace because of the ease of use and customization control that it provides for design. I got a small taste of Squarespace via my friend Paul Solt who originally used Wordpress and now has transitioned to Squarespace.

So far I've been extremely happy with Squarespace and highly recommend it. It's very easy to add new content, and tweaking the design of individual elements or the entire site is a breeze.  If you're looking for a site builder that is quick to setup and easy to customize, give Squarespace a try ( they have a free trial offer currently so give it a shot )