» Chris

Website Maintenance

Chris — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 13:45:02 +0000

As you may have notice both the disjointedimages.com and disjointedcode.com sites are down for maintenance currently. We apologize for the inconvenience. We are in the process of migrating from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 and also integrating all of our pages into Drupal. This is taking a bit longer than first anticipated due to minor differences between the two versions of Drupal. We will have the site back up and running in a basic capacity in the next few days and plan to be fully functional shortly there after. Thank you for your patience.

MahJong House 1.6

Chris — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:04:50 +0000

Version 1.6 was launched at Youmacon this past weekend. It unfortunately did not include the new scripting engine, characters or extra rewards. As I had posted earlier these additions were going to require a substantial amount of time to code/model and would have pushed 1.6 well past the convention date. So I had to make a tough choice and move them to 1.7 in order to show many of the other improvements that I have made so far. I want to thank the individuals who purchased MahJong House 1.6 at the con. As promised to early adopters I have created a patch to update all previous versions to 1.6, I will be posting it to the website this weekend.

Work on 1.7 will commence as soon as 1.6 is finished for Linux and launched. This will mark the first official Linux release. I hope to have it live by the end of next week.

MahJong Updates

Chris — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:09:45 +0000

It’s been a while since the last progress post on MahJong House. This was mostly due to the change in our store software, making the switch meant having to pause development on the game. Things are now back in full swing however, and there are many new features and ideas coming to the table. Some of the changes may seem small in the scheme of things, but I think they add to the overall feel of the interface and impressions of quality. Such as the improved text entry field for creating new players. In the next update it will now allow for text selection with either mouse or keyboard, not to mention it actually has a blinking cursor now. Other changes include a vast improvement in text rendering, allowing for proper letter spacing and kerning now. A recode of the video playback system that fully supports Vista/Windows7 and other minor improvements to the menu.

The big changes will be coming in the form of a remodeled room, several new reward items and most importantly a character interaction element. This is the biggest change to the game since it’s inception and will bring both meaning and purpose to the reward system. It will also help to flesh out the house and it’s occupants with story and artwork, which brings us to the current stage of development. I am currently working on the character design. This is a slower process than pounding out code and will delay the release of the 1.6 update by several weeks. I do plan to publish the new version before the deadline for the IGF contest as I will be competing this year with MahJong House. I’ll make sure to post more updates as artwork and story begin to develop more.

Web Development (Or “The Hell of Coding”)

Chris — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:55:45 +0000

I’ve completely lost track of how many hours Melanie and I have spent on coding the new site and shopping cart system.

The good news is that all of our pages should be updated soon, including the launch of a new store front powered by Ubercart (review coming soon). The bad news is that by working on the code I have renewed a burning hatred for Internet Explorer 6. It’s complete inability to render even the simplest of CSS properly is enough to make me and the vast throngs of web developers spit fire! That being said I believe we have fixed all of the things that are broken in IE6 (as long as you have javascript enabled) and can now claim full cross-browser compatibility.

I can’t wait to go live with the new shopping cart system. It is a vast improvement over our current osCommerce based site, and allows for easy customizability. Best of all it will now carry the same look and feel as our main site, a feat that would have taken untold volumes of effort and possibly a ritualistic sacrifice in osCommerce.

Now that we are close to finishing up this overhaul of our sites I will be able to get back to improving MahJong House! We have lots of updates planed for the game, but I’ll leave the specifics on that for another post.

Game updates

Chris — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:52:36 +0000

The new demo is now available! I’ve updated it to allow you to try the Japanese hiragana tileset. I’ve also added multiplayer support, and the ability to save and come back to a game.

The new cd jacket cover art is done. Can’t wait to see it printed.

I understand there has been some trouble with the checkout, and paypal not properly showing everything secure. This is NOT affecting your info! It was just the picture displayed in the top header, and has been fixed. Thank you for your understanding, and if you hesitated before, please try your purchase again.

JAFAX XIV

Chris — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:46:21 +0000

I return, tired but pleased, from another year at GVSU in Allendale. Jafax is a great convention, with lots of friendly faces, and being smaller means we get to talk more to people.

I want to thank everyone who came by and played, and gave feedback. I love seeing the reaction to the camera system in the game (our 3D “tilt” is not what people expect in a casual game!) and the announcement that upgrades like tiles and bonuses will be at no charge.

I plan to have the next update up soon for the demo and the full game. Those of you on the mailing list, keep an eye out for the upgrade files!

Updates

Chris — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:24:03 +0000

Just a few updates:

The page was overhauled thanks to Melanie, and it looks very nice.

Currently I am implementing a save game system, so if you are needing to stop and come back to your current game you can.

Also, I am working on a player list, which will track up to 10 individual people. Maintain your own high scores, and saved games under a unique username!

Lastly, we’ve started adding in the unlockable animated items for the room. When you achieve a certain criteria, you’ll see a new object, and be able to interact with it.

Demo now on CNET

Chris — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:04:10 +0000

The demo for MahJong House is now available on CNET. I guarantee all of my software to be adware/spyware free and CNET confirms that. So if you hesitated before on downloading software from an “unknown”, please head on over and … Continue reading →

Windows 7 is now supported

Chris — Thu, 28 May 2009 02:46:09 +0000

I have been able to confirm that MahJong House now runs on Windows 7 RC1. For all of you out there testing this great new OS, there is now an exciting alternative to Microsoft’s Mahjong Titans.

MahJong House Development Timeline

Chris — Fri, 15 May 2009 20:53:50 +0000

I’ve been working night and day since we returned from ACEN, thank you to all of the people who tried out the demo at our table. I am currently working on implementing the reward system, which once completed will add interactive items to the room when certain challenges have been met.

My art department (Melanie) is working on finishing the artwork for the Japanese tileset so we can have a complete Hiragana and Katakana set. She will be following up with the first of several Kanji sets next, we hope to have all of the sets up within the next few weeks if possible.

If all goes well with the reward system it will be added to coincide with the Kanji set. For all our customers who have already purchased MahJong house, the reward system and both Hiragana and Katakana will be free upgrades once release. We are still looking at the pricing for the Kanji set depending on size and time to create.