Developer Snapshot - Marble Blast Everywhere
Check out the nifty screens of Marble Blast Gold running on Xbox Live Arcade and the new iMac G5. First GarageBand on the Mac, and now Garage Games!
Archive for August, 2004
BBEdit, a long-time favorite text-editor of mine, just turned 8 yesterday. I used to use BBEdit quite regularly for years (way back in the OS 8 and 9 years), but I had switched over to SubEthaEdit a little over a month ago for it’s more customizable and easily-created syntax coloring modes. While SubEthaEdit functioned quite well as my primary scripting and text editing tool, I still returned to BBEdit regularly for its more robust text handling features and for its speed.
Well, as of yesterday, it looks like I’m heading back to BBEdit. The latest version now supports Codeless Language Modules. Translation: XML-based property lists can be used for syntax definitions (gotta love Apple Property Lists). Translation of translation: I can write syntax highlighting schemes in a text editor or using Apple’s Property List Editor. That’s far easier than trying to code a plugin in C++ using CodeWarrior or Xcode.
Immediately after reading the press release, I downloaded the demo and proceeded to write a language module for MEL. It took me all of 15 minutes to read through the documentation, put together the property list, and test out the language module. It’s not nearly as flexible or colorful as my SubEthaEdit syntax mode, but it is about 10 times faster and cleaner. I don’t really need all the fancy colors. Simple highlighting of keywords, strings, and comments are plenty. I also hammered out language modules for Torque Script and DTS Config files to make my set of syntax files complete (you can find all of the BBEdit language modules in the Tools section on my site).
Some other niceties of BBEdit 8 are single-window work modes (just like UltraEdit for Windows), integration with OS X’s font panel and spell checker, handy guides in the document view for tab stops and page edges, and, of course, fast fast fast text processing. There’s even a new feature called Text Factory that is basically a custom series of batch operations that you can run on multiple files. I’m definitely going to save some time processing text in my MEL library and in all of the HTML files on my site.
The previous versions of BBEdit were nice, but they didn’t really offer me anything that I couldn’t in free OS X text editors. With version 8, there is definitely a lot of stuff to cheer about. There goes more money out of my bank account.
Marble Blast Gold Bundled on the Amazing iMac G5
Kudos to the boys down at Garage Games for getting this sweet OEM deal with Apple. A copy of Marble Blast Gold will be bundled on every new iMac G5 (which was just announced today at Apple Expo in Paris). This combined with the Xbox deal is incredibly great news for the future of Garage Games and indie game development.
Yesterday, Mei and I took a day trip out to Mt. Rainier National Park. We had been planning on heading out to the park for quite some time now, but, because of various reasons (work, weather, laziness, etc.), we never got around to it until this weekend. We finally decided that no matter what the weather was like, we were going finally get out there and see some sights. So, we loaded up the car with food and BBQ-ing gear and drove for a couple of hours to the Nisqually Entrance of the park.
When we started driving, the weather was a bit questionable. There seemed to be no end to the clouds, and it wasn’t exactly the warmest day of the year. But, as we got closer to the park, the clouds started to clear up, and sunshine was beginning to peek though. By the time we paid our entrance fee and stopped at the first turnout, the skies were clear, and it was a comfy 70 degrees.
It was absolutely beautiful at the park. Clear skies. Fresh air. Nothing but the sounds of the rivers and creeks and woodland creatures. Just being in the park was therapeutic. I couldn’t believe that it had taken us so long to finally go there.
Since we had no real plans for what to do in the park, we just started driving and stopping at each turnout that looked like it had something interesting to see. We were not disappointed once. Between Longmire and Paradise, there was more than enough sightseeing to keep one busy for quite some time.
Because we weren’t prepared to do any major hiking or climbing, we pretty much stuck with anything accessible from the main road. We stopped at most of the major viewpoints along the way including Christine Falls, Ricksecker Point Road, and Narada Falls. All of those locations had great views of the local sights and landmarks and were pretty easy on the legs.
We arrived at Paradise early in the afternoon and were blown away by the incredibly beautiful meadows in the area. It really looked like a paradise. There were wide open meadows everywhere, small creeks with mountain-fresh water flowing in them, and an amazing view of Mt. Rainier’s peak. We decided that this would be a great place to do a bit of hiking around, so we parked the car and started walking up the hills.
Our path for the day was the Skyline Trail, a nice paved walkway leading up the side of the mountain. Initially, it looked like a pretty easy walk with a few small hills here and there. It actually turned out to be an incredibly steep and long hike through the meadows towards a summit on Mt. Rainier.
The trail itself is about a 5-mile loop, but, with the hills and uneven pavement, it’s quite the hike. We only went up the first mile and half of the trail, and it was a mostly steep hills the entire way. Luckily, for us, there were several resting areas with wooden benches along the way that we used at every opportunity. There was also a nice cool breeze to counteract the hot sun blasting down on us.
As tough as the hike was, the views were definitely worth it. We were right up on the mountain and could see all the details of its rock and ice formations. We also had an incredible view of the entire Nisqually Valley in all directions. Simply put, it was breaktaking.
We stopped at one of the major viewpoints on the hike and decided to rest there for a bit. There was a great view of Mt. Rainier’s peak, but part of was covered by a few clouds, so we decided to try to wait for the clouds to float by so we could some good photos of it. While we were waiting, we had a bit of fun trying to get some good photos of a little squirrel that was foraging for food near our bench. The little guy was pretty fast, so taking pictures of it proved challenging at best.
After waiting for a while, the clouds were still there, so we decided to hike back down the trail and get to doing our BBQ. We drove back down to the Paradise picnic area and found a great spot in the shade that had a good view. We unpacked our supplies from the car, started setting up things up, and discovered that somehow we forgot to bring the propane gas attachment for our portable grill.
Both us of sat there in shock that our BBQ plans suddenly came to a halt. We were silent for the longest time. Then, out of nowhere, we just started laughing. We knew that something had to go wrong at some point, and this was it. Somehow, though, we weren’t upset that we couldn’t BBQ. We just kept laughing and joking about it.
Since we couldn’t BBQ at the park, we decided that we would BBQ when we got home. It was still relatively early, so we would have plenty of time to drive home, prepare stuff and cook. So, we packed things up and started heading home.
All in all, it was a great day. We were able to finally get out to the park and do some sightseeing. We got a bit of exercise on our little hike, we got some fresh air, and we got a much-needed break from working and living in the city. We also documented our fun day with close to 100 photographs of our goofiness (thanks to my spiffy digital camera). It was definitely a day to remember.
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