Month / December 2017

Top Games 2017 Header Image
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My Top Games of 2017

During 2017 I managed to get a fair few hours playing games compared to some other years, I even had the added benefit of having an extra platform to play them on with my purchase of a PS4. I won’t bother doing an arbitrary number of games for each platform but instead, I’ll do my favourite game of each and a runner-up. The platforms I’ll be commenting on are; PS4, Xbox One, PC and Mobile (Android). These games might not have been released in 2017 but they are ones I played in 2017 so they fit the criteria.

PS4 – Doom (2016)

Doom 2016 Header Image

The game I played and enjoyed the most on PS4 this year was actually a smash hit title from 2016, that I never got around to playing. Doom was the reboot that the first person genre needed. It was an absolute spectacle from start to finish with its flashy push forward combat feeling like the original games and yet still seeming surprisingly fresh. The graphics were outstanding and the framerate was solid on PS4 leaving nothing to be desired. The customization elements it had were great accents to an already excellent set of weapons that really catered to a few different playstyles. Doom is a game I’d confidently recommend to anybody who is a fan of games, even if they usually aren’t big on FPS games.

My runner-up this year on PS4 would have to be The Last Guardian, I never played Ico or Shadow of the Colossus but after playing this they are definitely on my list to play for 2018.

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Header image for my top shows of 2017
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My Top 5 TV Shows Of 2017

2017 was an absolutely fantastic year for television, between the quality shows being aired on traditional TV to the new offerings by streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, we as viewers have been spoilt for choice. In this post, I’ll look at the 5 shows that grabbed me the most and I’d highly recommend giving any of them a try if you haven’t already.

Stranger Things (Season 2)

Stranger Things Season 2 Header

Stranger Things Season 1 was an absolutely fantastic show which grabbed me immediately. It has so many aspects which appealed to my inner geek that I ended up watching the whole series in a single weekend which is very rare for me. So when Season 2 arrived I had a lot of hype going into it. It lived up and even surpassed the hype. Everything was bigger, the stakes had been upped and the cast had clearly developed their skills since the first outing. Netflix knocked it out of the park with this series and the influence it has had on TV and movies is obvious. I’m planning on doing exactly the same when Season 3 hits screens and marathoning it.

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Header image for the Microcosm Framework
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The Microcosm Framework

Over the course of my past few game development projects, I’ve had to write a lot of code multiple times and every time I’ve been slightly more inconvenienced by it. This ends up wasting valuable time that could be spent doing fun stuff. So I decided enough was enough and I’d create a reusable framework for use with all of my future projects. The premise was simple, I’d outline a set of basic requirements that every project I work on will have and then create a unity package I can import at the start of development to avoid having to try bodge implementations from other projects into a new one.

The initial requirements were simple; a menu system, basic AdMob integration, generic object pooling and simple game management systems to track state/play sounds/etc. These were picked as the requirements because they were the things that I had found the most tedious to set up fresh in every project. However, as I began implementing these features it dawned on me that this limited scope would definitely need to be expanded, what if I wanted Analytics in my games? I would need to first update the framework and then update the package in all subsequent projects it was used in. With the thought of a tedious upgrade process in mind, I went back to the drawing board for my requirements. The final scope was far bigger but added far more value to my future projects, these components and why I chose them are explained in detail below.

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Virtual Reality Featured Image
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Annual Hackathon 2017

Every year I participate in a 48-hour hackathon at work. It’s an opportunity to write software you otherwise wouldn’t get to write, this could be a neat automation tool to save you time on daily tasks or something totally unique like a virtual reality Blackjack game that will never see the light of day. As long as you think you can write it in 2 days nothing is off limits. There are several prize categories; Most Creative Hack, Most Business Value, and Non-Technical Project. This year I decided that I’d give virtual reality a crack and aim to at least get an honourable mention in the Most Creative Hack category.

The hackathon typically starts on a Thursday and finishes on Friday afternoon before our annual Christmas party. Given its participated in during work time, most teams don’t go hardcore and spend the full 48-hours on their projects like some hackathons you hear about. It is a lot more laid back than that and most hacks usually never have more time spent on it than the 16 working hours, I think this reduced timeframe adds to the pressure of creating something that is worth entering in the contest.

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Visual Studio Code Header
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5 Must Have Visual Studio Code Extensions

This article looks at improving the effectiveness which developers can write code in Visual Studio Code through the use of extensions. Having an effective development environment makes writing great software both faster and easier. Visual Studio Code is a relatively new open-source IDE primarily developed by Microsoft. VS Code is targeted mainly at developing languages that traditionally haven’t been easy to develop in Visual Studio with such as JavaScript, Python, etc. It has full debugger and breakpoint support for languages that otherwise usually don’t have an easy to use debugger such as JavaScript.

1. Instant Markdown

Instant markdown example

As developers working effectively with markdown files typically used within version control systems such as Git for things such as changelogs or readmes, is very important. This extension makes working with markdown from within VS Code a lot simpler. It also allows viewing as the file is being edited which proves to be an invaluable feature for documentation writing and more. Download and installation instructions found on the visual studio marketplace.

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