bmalicoat
Joined 17 years ago
Karma
698
Submissions
267
Member since
Aug 13
Recent submissions
Comment · 4 months ago
Building a gameboy speaker from scratch. Kind of like a record player or mini disc player, but using gameboy and gameboy color games. Trying my best to document the process https://www.youtube.com/shorts/MQ16pvz3xeQ
Lots of fun and novel problems to solve across hardware, software, firmware, enclosure, legality, manufacturability! It also got me collecting random carts just to hear the incredible music locked away (some samples at the end of this video https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7naKAga8hAE )
Comment · 5 months ago
Learning how to make custom PCBs and 3d printing. I really like Radio Taiso (daily calisthenics synced with music), so I made a dedicated speaker (https://www.taisospkr.com). It was fun to add new tools to my tool belt (ESP32, remote firmware updates, embedded website, streamlined wifi setup). Already have a new project based on a very similar architecture that I'm super excited about! Making PCBs and hardware has never been easier as a solo developer.
Comment · 9 months ago
That's cool to see. I made a mobile game, Downwordly, that has the same mechanic in its puzzle mode. It came out almost five years ago and still has a decent set of versus players.
I'm more proud of a later word game that you can play free at https://wellwordgame.com/en If you give it a try, let me know what you think!
Comment · 2 years ago
As a mobile game dev, this is a bummer. I have been fortunate to get review and preview coverage on a few of my games from TA. There aren't many sites doing what that do. I get that the market has moved and now discovery happens in the App Store and via advertisement dollars, but growing up reading EGM or IGN.com and seeing people excited about a game just from a few screenshots colored me for life. I'm sad mobile game players don't have that opportunity.
Comment · 2 years ago
You can see a bit of the Walled City in the old Van Damme movie, Blood Sport [1].
There used to be an incredible multi-story arcade outside Tokyo, あなたのウェアハウス [2], with two of the floors being themed as KWC. The weathering on all the elements (including the escalator and crane games!) was fantastic.
Comment · 2 years ago
I first heard of this project here on HN when I shared a project I finished with a friend to accomplish a similar goal for iOS widgets[1]. I still use a server-delivered JSON file for a live widget on my iPhone. I think there's a lot of value to this type of delivery even if you can't fully customize the UI.
[1] https://wd.gt/
Comment · 2 years ago
Awesome article! None of the videos played for me on mobile Safari, but the text descriptions were enough. I do a lot of Unity development and typically just lerp things with different easing curves. It's great to add PID to the toolbox for elements that are more procedural. Thanks for the sharing.
Comment · 2 years ago
While I was in college, I made a half dozen games and apps for the danger hiptop (branded by T-Mobile as the Sidekick). We had a Microsoft recruiter on campus at Michigan State and it was right after Microsoft acquired danger and lost a bunch of customer data. I think the recruiter liked that I was asking about this issue and not begging for a job. They brought me back the next day to interview and then flew me out to Redmond for an on-site. Not only was the hiptop dev scene a formative experience for me skill-wise, it indirectly led me to Seattle and gave me the chance to work on Xbox, HoloLens, and more.
Comment · 3 years ago
I was in a similar boat. It helped me to find a collaborator who could inspire me and advance the projects without everything being on my shoulders. It's easy to be paralyzed when you know every single detail of all the work that you alone have to do.
Comment · 3 years ago
Xbox doesn't provide a game engine, just lower level APIs. Unity is a popular way to get games on Xbox for folks who can't build their own engine. Further, things like HoloLens run Unity as a first class dev environment.
I used to work on both Xbox and HoloLens at Microsoft, but this is all public info.
Comment · 3 years ago
I agree that there are lots of poorly made games that predictably flop. However, it's also worth noting all the bits of a game that matter outside of the executable. Knowing where your audience hangs out and how to reach them, having the ability to make compelling trailers and screenshots, having press contacts to help promote your game, crafting a viable monetization strategy, etc. All these things matter more than most observers would think when differentiating between known and unknown games.
It also really depends how you define "successful". I've put out 3 mobile games in the last few years as a solo or mostly-solo game dev[1]. Each one has been game of the day on iOS and received other prominent featuring. From a critical and editorial standpoint my games were successful. From a "is this a sustainable career that supports me financially" standpoint, not so much.
[1] You can find my games at https://birdcartel.com Let me know if you think they fall into the unfun/janky bucket.
Comment · 3 years ago
>> "There is nothing bad with any of this."
My experience has been that once a small business is snatched up by a firm, customer service goes out the window and the focus on efficiency leads to a marked decline in overall quality. I'm sure it's all gravy for the people making money though.
https://www.birdcartel.com
Past projects at
https://www.bjmalicoat.com