For my final AP Computer Science project in June 2008, I worked with Brandon Liu and Yuzhi Zheng to develop FINALE, a falling block game based on the PSP game Lumines. The object of the game is to match colored blocks into squares, which are cleared away when the “time bar” passes them. Clearing more squares in each pass of the time bar gives an exponentially larger number of points.
Here are some screenshots. (I’m happy to say our graphical presentation was spectacular, with all graphics, backgrounds, and game pieces custom designed in Inkscape.)
- Main Menu
- Instructions
- Matching squares - zooming animation
- Multiple levels and particle-based explosions
- The Final Level - How long can you survive?
- High Scores
Continue reading ‘FINALE: a falling block game’
The Catalyst Framework is an elegant Model-View-Controller based web framework for Perl, with similarities to Ruby on Rails. It is a popular choice for Web 2.0 applications based on Perl, speeding up and simplifying development.
Catalyst is very nice to use, but has a reputation of being hard to use, particularly on Windows. Windows has historically been regarded as the “outcast” of Perl development environments—the lack of proper build tools had made installing most modules (including Catalyst) difficult, to say the least. ActiveState’s binary PPM packages are hard to find and often outdated. The effect has been that the complex dependencies of Catalyst were nearly impossible for the average mortal to manage on Windows.
I recently discovered Strawberry Perl, which has made building modules on Windows easier than ever. It includes a bundled MinGW toolchain for compiling and pure-Perl equivalents for other necessary tools. Now, it is no longer necessary to install Visual Studio or Dev-C++ just to build Perl modules. Using the CPAN installer from the command line Just Works.
If you have tried to install Catalyst on Windows before, you’ll know that hunting for PPMs and building the missing modules takes hours and leaves you with an installation that isn’t up-to-date. With Strawberry Perl, I was able to install the newest Catalyst fresh from CPAN in about 10 minutes.
Read on for easy instructions in 5 steps.
I recently set up a desktop computer to be my development and gaming machine. A few months ago my dad had purchased a barebones 2.8GHz Pentium 4 computer for a project he was working on. Eventually it was abandoned, and so we had a spare case, CPU, and motherboard. I realized it would be perfect for a desktop, so I added a few components and now it’s sitting under my desk happily. :-)
- Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz: $100 (Fry’s)
- Motherboard: Elitegroup 848P-A P4 motherboard with built-in 800Mhz front side bus, SATA support, hyperthreading support, USB2.0, AC’97 5.1ch audio, and gigabit LAN: $50 (Fry’s)
- Chassis: ATX with case fan, 2 front USB ports and front mic/speaker, and 300W (albeit a low quality) power supply: $9 (Fry’s)
- Power supply: replaced the one in the case with the Ultra X-Connect 500W PSU: $25 (Fry’s)
Continue reading ‘New desktop computer’
