I’ve officially announced Skyline Blade by releasing a video of the alpha demo currently in development. I’ve developed a flight model here that feels real but plays easy. An early weapons system is in place and will be expanded on greatly. The gameplay will begin with training and move on into urban combat. I’ve always wanted to develop a chopper game and I’m very excited about this. I love developing fun flight models 
I just uploaded a new video of Cosmosis for the iPhone and iPod touch. This game is really promising and I have high hopes for it. Everyone who played it pre-launch got a kick out of it and told me it was addictive. I literally would hand my iPod to random people and they’d instantly just start grooving with it which was just an awesome feeling. Hopefully the greater audience at large feels the same way
After reading about the success enjoyed by Ethan Nicholas with iShoot I decided to try a “lite” version of Cosmosis. I did this in a slightly non-traditional way though. The QE stands for “Qualifying Edition”. The gist is to tell players they are “qualified” to enter the Official Cosmosis Challenge if they can pass the 2,000 point mark in Cosmosis QE. Obviously, the complete game gives users a host of new gameplay options to make it worth the entry fee.
Everyone and their brother is doing a “lite” version of their app now, especially after hearing the story behind iShoot. I couldn’t bring myself to create just another “lite” game though. Hopefully, the concept of “qualifying” to play the complete version of Cosmosis will be considered different and entertaining by players. Wish me luck!
Cosmosis was released for the iPhone and iPod Touch this past weekend. This is a very simple game and everyone who gave it a try thought it was addictive so I added some online leaderboards and called it a day. So far sales are modest but every little bit helps
Say hello to Cosmosis for the iPhone!
I finally, got a little video recorded using our prototype iPhone capture device (The Midnight Mount?). The lighting quality is poor which is a mistake I plan to fix for future recordings. Doing a video and posting it on a site like Touch Arcade can enhance sales quite a bit.
I wrote this feature which has been published by Gamasutra. It’s a good read for anyone thinking of taking the iPhone development plunge.
Check it out!
So I finally caught up with this New York Times Best Seller by Futurist Ray Kurzweil and I have mixed feelings. On one hand I was astounded to read through so many thoughts which I myself have had. Reading through some of the opening pages was like reading my own thoughts. In fact, the first post in this blog (The Future of Magic Lies in Computers) is almost mirrored in the book. At the end of the day I see almost eye to eye with Mr. Kurzweil.
The mixed feelings come from a sense of what I can only describe as uselessness. When you read about this exponential curve we are causing you begin to feel outdated very quickly. I made the mistake of reading this book while on a family vacation. As my wife and I strolled around Mallory Square in Key West everything began to look like an exterior packaging which would soon be removed revealing the real reason we are here.
Please, don’t misunderstand. I enjoyed the vacation tremendously and was very thankful to spend time with a great family. It was merely the essence of the book lingering in my mind. I’ve always believed that there’s an algorithm behind evolution and that intelligence was in fact just a more efficient version of this algorithm. As some will understand, algorithms aren’t formulas. What this means is that simply because there’s an algorithm at work does not mean that we can predict it’s outcome. It’s not the same as a formula where you plug in some variables and poof the answer appears. Both follow rules but only one is explicitly deterministic.
The feeling of uselessness comes from the realization that although this algorithm may not be deterministic it is possible that we are all dominos. We live life waiting to fall and trigger the next reaction. At the end of the day everything will fall just one way whether we can tell how it will fall or not.
We human beings have come so far but someday we will be replaced like a Model T or those big huge gray cell phones from the 80’s. The saddest part of all of this is that it appears that we are creating our replacement. The only way I can feel remotely comfortable with this concept is to think of myself not as a human being but as something far less abstract. If we all view ourselves as cellular automata, patterns, energy, time, or raw matter then perhaps we can see ourselves simply moving along with the flow and becoming part of the future rather than being destroyed by it.
I should note that I have not finished the book yet so perhaps it gets better. However, over the past year or so I also read Super Crunchers and The Assault on Reason. The one thing they all have in common is that they present people as insignificant. It’s not intentional by the authors it just becomes apparent by reading them. People can be controlled by information like tools. Kurzweil describes a future in which the Universe wakes up with intelligent processes running throughout all matter and order of information becoming the cornerstone of existence.
My question is this. Will the next step in the order of information keep us around like wildlife in a zoo or will it toss us aside to make room for further order and efficiency? I can see a future in which we actually do live in a heaven of sorts. Once we create the next form of higher intelligence it seems possible that they may fulfill our dreams to live forever with no illness surrounded by all of our long lost loved ones. I could also see the alternative. After all, most people don’t hesitate to squash an ant.
Kurzweil believes that further intelligence begets more compassion. In his future the intelligence of these machines will allow them to see things from our perspective and somehow sympathize with us. Of course, this is the perspective that I prefer but even so it’s readily apparent that there are many extraordinarily intelligent people who have little patience for other’s who might be swimming about the kiddy end of the gene pool.
My point is that intelligence does not equal compassion and in fact many times it represents the opposite. Perhaps we will create machines with computing power greater than the entire human race combined before the turn of the next century but unless we are able to create a compassionate synthetic intelligence we will certainly be tossed aside like CRT Monitors for more efficient LCD’s.