Adventures of an Entrepreneur
  • Creating a Mobile Apps/Games Company

Indispensable tools for remote management

12/26/2012

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When I started my company, I knew that I would have to deal with remote management and I found a few tools that makes such job a lot easier. Below you find my indispensable tools for remote management:

Bitbucket
Bitbucket is a cloud platform where you can save your code and share it with your co-workers. It has a GIT version control, so each one of the coders edit the code in his/her machine and later submit it to the BB server that updates the server version. Bitbucket is similar to GitHub, but it does not require that you make your code open-source as the free-version of GitHub. Bitbucket is free up to 5 users.

Dropbox
You probably know this great tool, but for those who don't know I will explain what it does. Dropbox is a program that you install in your computer and it will make a copy of a folder (that you specify) and its contents in the internet and keep it updated with any modification that you make (e.g., delete a file, rename a file, add a file,...). With a copy of that folder in the internet, you can access it from any place and you can also share it with other people that also have a Dropbox account. In our case, we use Dropbox to share files among all of employees. Dropbox has a free account of 2 gb (up to 18gb, if you referred it to other people).

Google Drive
It provides that same service as Dropbox but we found it to have some bugs regarding updating the files in the cloud, so we use Dropbox to share files among us all. However, Google Drive provides an incredible feature (that is basically the feature of the former Google Docs) that allows different users to edit the same file together, in which you can see what others are doing. This is an incredible tool specially for brainstorming with people in different locations. Google drive free account has a 5 gb limit.

Google Hangout:
Google Hangout allows you to make video chat with other people, but the main feature that makes it in my list is that it allows you to easily share your screen with others. It is not rare for us to debug a code together using that screen-share functionality. Google Hangout is free, but it only allows you to use screen-share between Google+ users.

Podio:
Podio is an on-line management tool that not only gives you all basic tools for management (projects, activities, milestones, deadlines, budget control,...) but also has a "social platform" built in it, allowing you to share specific milestones, projects,.. with specific people. You can also include notes and comments in the activities in a twitter-style, so you can easily share with your co-workers useful information about that activity. Podio has a free version to companies up to 5 users.
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Where should I start to learn Game Development

12/4/2012

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A question that people usually ask me is: "Where should I start to learn game development?". Based on that, I made a list of basic skills that I think every coder needs to know, together with a link where you can find that information. They are focused on the Corona SDK, cross-development platform that we are using at our company.

1) Basic Corona concepts
This section contains the basic concepts of Corona programming, as variable, functions, logic operators etc. If you are a coder, you will be able to read that section really fast. If you aren't, I recommend you to read carefully to really understand the concept, since it will be the base for all your programming.

Link: http://developer.coronalabs.com/content/introduction

2) Display Objects and Groups in Corona:
This section explains how objects are displayed in the screen and their properties (position, color,...).

Link: http://developer.coronalabs.com/content/display-objects

3) Events and Listeners:
Events are what the name says: Events. When you touch your device screen, you make an Event of touching. When you rotate your device, you made an Event of rotation. So, you can think of Event as predetermined actions that occurs with the device. 

Listeners are functions that will take care of your event. As example, if you want the device to erase all data in the screen when the user shake the device, you need to have a listener that will be "listening" all events that are happening in the device and when it listens the event Shake, it will start running some codes that will erase the screen.

Link: http://developer.coronalabs.com/content/application-programming-guide-event-handling

4) Physics module:
In the item #2 you will have learned how to display objects in the screen, but in gaming, you usually needs not only to display the object but enable it to interact with other objects. That interaction is made thru the Physics module.

http://developer.coronalabs.com/content/game-edition-box2d-physics-engine

5) Animations / Sprite Sheets:
Depending on which type of game you are developing, you will need to display images that have motion, like a player running or a bird flying. To make animations you will use Sprite sheets.

A Sprite sheet is a image file that contains several static images of your object, that if played sequentially it would make your object move. It is the basic technique of animation that we learned when we were children that we made several drawings with minor differences and then we passed thru the drawings very quickly and it would appear to be moving. 

http://www.coronalabs.com/blog/2012/10/02/animated-sprites-and-methods/

6) StoryBoard
StoryBoard is a API that helps you to manage your application screens. It will allow you to have more control and facilitates the process of screen transitions. Although you can make the screen transitions without it, I highly recommend you to use it due to the facilitates of screen management that it will bring to you as your code gets bigger.

Link: http://www.coronalabs.com/blog/2011/11/14/introducing-the-storyboard-api/

If you have any questions or doubts that these items, feel free to ask me thru the comments section.

See you.
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