Comments for Antipode

Comment on Array.sort browser differences by Alain Saint-Etienne

Alain Saint-Etienne — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:53:02 +0000

David Flanagan’s “JavaScript, The Definitive Guide” (O’Reilly, 3rd Edition, 1998(!)) states that the custom sort function should return 0 (zero) if a and b are equivalent, “a number less than zero” if a should appear before b, or “a number greater than zero” if a should appear after b.

It seems to me the issue is not different implementations across browser, as they all seem to behave as expected if a number is returned.

I’m afraid we developpers just got accustomed to coding by the browser implementations (and their specific shortcuts, like accepting that function returning a boolean), rather than coding by the book.

It’s a nice outcome that renewed browser competition pushes us back to reading the specs, and coding in a little more… standard-compliant way.
We can’t expect browser vendors to provide standard-compliant code, if they have to deal with non-standard web developer code, can we ?

Comment on Altering Time retired by dazmax

dazmax — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:39:52 +0000

I had a lot of fun on Altering Time. Thank you, and good luck going forward.

Comment on Altering Time retired by zeek

zeek — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:15:48 +0000

RIP AT, there were many a good times to be had. The game beta parties were a blast.

Comment on Altering Time by Antipode - Article – Altering Time retired

Antipode - Article – Altering Time retired — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:39:02 +0000

[...] some great people, and it’s sad it couldn’t last forever. In its memory I recorded the story of Altering Time, along with the stories of the games it was home to, Asylum and Faith. I also preserved the Halls [...]

Comment on More JSLint, less JSWTF by Allen

Allen — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:35:25 +0000

Nigel: Indeed. The trailing-zero-means-octal is a lot more dangerous when you’re using strings though, since they can be user input like a credit card expiry year. I guess the confusing part is:

“09″ == 9; // true
parseInt(“09″) == 9; // false

Andy: The nice thing about it running on save is that it can pop up if there’s a problem, and be silent if not. Pretty nice.

Comment on More JSLint, less JSWTF by Andy Lumb

Andy Lumb — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:44:18 +0000

JSLint / Javascript Lint have saved my ass a bunch of times. I also use them for syntax checking. IE will give you “expected }” on the last line of the file… JSLint will give you a reference to where the problem actually is. I wrote a how-to on getting them running in Notepad++ here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1046810/using-jslint-in-notepad/1046826#1046826 . I hooked those scripts up to “F9″ and run that before I even switch to the browser.

Comment on More JSLint, less JSWTF by Nigel

Nigel — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 07:51:19 +0000

Even as a total non-Javascript-programmer I’ve been enjoying it, though the gigantic “I see what you did there” image at the top of every single freakin’ page is starting to get on my nerves a little.

I’m not sure exactly what octal’s deal is, but Javascript is not the only language that has succumbed to its charms. C/C++ do a little better, GCC (at least, probably others, I’m not rebooting into windows to check MSVC) will validate individual digits for you so you can use that EXACT example, but…

printf(“%d\n”, 012); // prints ‘10′

Comment on An ode to split screen by Nigel Brooke

Nigel Brooke — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:48:25 +0000

OTOH, I’d rather play an 8 or 12 player deathmatch than an only 4 player one, even if it means putting up with a few 14 year olds. I agree 256 is probably overkill though. Halo, GoldenEye et al. were fine in their day, and definitely introduced a lot of people to multiplayer shooters, but they WERE released on platforms that didn’t have online multiplayer support. I don’t have any hard numbers, but I have it on reasonably good authority that these days a LOT more people play competitive multiplayer online than same console (though co-op is a bit more of a toss up).

Shooters might just be a bit of an outlier here, most other genres do have a heavy emphasis on same console multiplayer, and have been very successful because of that. But the culture of shooters seems a lot more centred around online, most likely due partially to historical reasons (quick, name a PC shooter with split screen multiplayer), and partially to the sweet spot for a fun match (particularly a fun team match) just being >4 players.

Comment on An ode to split screen by Chris

Chris — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:59:38 +0000

This is actually a great discussion. I agree with Dan about the intent of the manufacturers and I’m sure there are metrics published about graphics/immersion vs gameplay. But, I tend to side with Allen more on the split-screen and playability.

Nearing the top of the gamer target demographic for age, I find myself getting games that my friends and I can play in the same room. Mario Kart Wii is one as well as Smash Bros. It’s also nice that I can play against them and them only if I choose online. Because like Allen said, it’s no fun being destroyed by hordes of 14 year olds. And the joking/eating/drinking is what makes up part of the fun.

Also, I would gladly play Perfect Dark or Golden Eye on N64 over MAG any day of the week.

Comment on An ode to split screen by Allen

Allen — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 07:19:49 +0000

Fascinating. I’m curious what kinds of metrics publishers have on these kinds of things. I imagine they at least think they have formulas to predict the success of a game based on genre, features, etc. I also imagine that focusing on gameplay and innovation is riskier than graphics: it’s a lot easier to measure prettiness than it is to measure fun.