Category: Irrelon GameHost

Hey folks,

Sorry for the long pause between the last update and this one! I have neglected to update the blog for a while but rest assured that development has moved on nicely! As many of you will know, version 0.2.5a of the engine has been released and it is the best yet featuring:

• Numerous minor bug fixes
• Support for iOS 5 mobile safari including touch events
• New entity highlighting system
• New entity mouse-to-entity detection system with both tile-based or pixel-perfect based detection
• The IsoCity demo included now has new options to select, move and delete existing entities placed in the world

Also, the GameHost service is nearing completion and we’ll make an announcement on that soon.

You can see an example of the new mouse-to-entity detection in the short video below:

Thanks!

Hey everyone,

A limited preview of GameHost is now live. If you are an existing Isogenic Engine license holder and would like to play with a preview account of GameHost, please drop a message below or email / tweet me and I’ll set you up with an account to access GameHost!

Cheers!

Hey folks,

Many apologies for not updating sooner, recent times have been very hectic for me. My recent attendance at the onGameStart conference (www.ongamestart.com) and then a holiday in Thailand have left me both exhausted and jet-lagged. Many of you are probably wondering what is going on with the Irrelon GameHost service and the latest engine updates so here’s the lowdown!

This week I will be opening GameHost to a select few users who can play with it and provide some feedback in preparation for a launch. These users will be selected from existing engine license holders who are eager to try the hosted solution and willing to share their thoughts and ideas about how to make the service better.

The latest engine version (0.2.3) will be available sometime mid-October following our usual once-a-month release schedule (we missed September’s release due to problems with 0.2.2 reported by some users).

Thanks!

So we’ve missed the 28th… sorry about that.

The Explanation Part

Although we stated that it was only ever an “expected” date, we were working to try and hit that target. We have had some unfortunate delays such as getting dedicated servers installed and configured to our specs, working on the GUI management system to allow you to control your game instances, modify settings and edit your game scripts etc.

I’m sure that with more staff, more time, tons of cash and lots of coffee and RedBull that we could have pulled this off much sooner but unfortunately we’re not yet in a position to hire hundreds of employees and certainly don’t have tons of cash! (We do have lots of coffee and RedBull though).

The Excuse Part

I know there is sometimes a bit of impatience around these sorts of services and projects but I’d ask you to really sit back and think about what is required. Conceptually it’s pretty easy right? How can it possibly take this long? I mean all you have to do is throw up some simple pages to do things like account management, payment processing, create and manage game instances etc. Install and configure Linux on some servers, load balance them, secure them, test them. What’s the hassle?

It’s like I always say, “The idea is the easy bit, anyone can dream up a good idea. It’s the execution that almost no-one wants to do! Anyone who thinks the idea is the difficult bit has never taken a project from idea to execution all by themselves.”

The Apology Part

We’re obviously very excited to get this service up and running ASAP and want you to be excited about it too. We’re sorry we didn’t get it ready for you in time for the 28th and it sucks

That said, we’d rather deliver a product that was high quality rather than sloppy and rushed and I’m sure you’d prefer that too! We’re working hard on it right now even though today is a bank holiday in the UK! We’re dedicated to getting this service launched for you so sit tight and watch this post for updates!

Thanks for your patience folks!

OK, there aren’t any flying unicorns but we’ve been hard at work getting the hosting service up and running. I’d like to say a big thanks to our beta users who have taken time to provide bug reports and suggestions, and in particular Gaston Borrazas for his excellent help, contributions and patience.

Along with the hosting service we’ve also been making a LOT of updates to the engine. Some of them are purely cosmetic and some of them are seriously useful. Here’s one that’s both:

Coloured Console Logging with Stack Traces

As you can see from the screenshot below, outputs such as warnings now come with a full stack trace on both Node.js console output AND on the client-side browser console! It means you can track down your code issues really easily:

On the server console

Client-side console

That’s all for now, just a quick update since I’m busy busy busy!!