Amazeing X
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Amazeing X v1.3.0 is copyright and © 1998, 2003, 2004 James A Thomason III ((email me)). All rights reserved. First things first. You like my program? Good. It likes you too. That'll be $5, please. C'mon, it's a fun little program and it is only five dollars(!). Help an independent OS X developer out. Amazeing X requires any Macintosh running OS X 10.3.x or higher. Okay, Sherman, set the way back machine for 5 1/2 years ago. When I was in college, I managed to talk a professor into letting me do an independent study on game design, and I wrote an RPG. Originally it was going to be C++, but I ended up switching it to javascript, since I knew it much better at the time. Somehow, despite the delays, screw-ups, etc., I managed to write a fairly functional game and got an A for the thing. Not bad. Especially since at the time I was (obviously) a very junior programmer that really didn't have a clue how to design something of that size, and it showed. So the game itself was acceptable, but not great. Lots of stuff was hardwired, you couldn't save your progress, and it used the Netscape 4.x DOM. *shudder* But, it got me interested in writing video games in JavaScript, so I whipped up a few of them. Considering what they were, they weren't too shabby. Hell, I even ported Arkanoid to JavaScript (complete with mouse control). A year later, I got fed up with JavaScript when my efforts to port Pacman proved difficult. And it was a language limitation, not a programmer one. One of the little games I wrote used code out of my RPG project. The thing in that game that was rather acceptable and robust was the movement code to zip your guy around the map. So I swiped it and tucked it into the original Amazeing and made up the story about Robby the Robot trying to find his battery. That original maze is still available, it's now "Original 3" in the widget download. So I played Amazeing for a while, showed it off to people, and so on. And as Netscape 4 faded away, I archived it on CD and left it alone. BONUS - I just dusted off the code and seem to have it up and running under IE or Safari on OS X (couldn't get it working on Mozilla, oddly enough). Check it out here Fast forward a few years and Konfabulator comes out for OS X. Let's you design widgets with XML and JavaScript and is basically a neat little diversionary development thing. So I poke around at it a bit and finally decide that I should go ahead and write something for it, so I decide to port Amazeing. The port was pretty easy, I think I had it up and running in less than a day. And that was with improved graphics, better control, more options, high scores, sound, and more mazes. Not bad. So the Amazeing Konfabulator Widget was release. Still. There had to be better ways to do it.... So, with some spare time and a desire to learn how to program for the Macintosh a bit more, I started learning Objective-C. The argument can be made that this is when I really should've gone all out and learned Java, but that's not where I felt like going at the moment. Getting up to speed in the language and development environment were easy (Thanks Apple! (well, Thanks NeXT!)), so I was writing stuff in no time. But a functional game? That was a taller order. A functional construction kit to go with it? Another tall order. Hence, it took me a few months longer than I would've liked. But that's because I'm a perfectionist. Technically, I could have released the game and the construction kit last August. They just would've sucked. So there's 5 months of refinement bundled into this thing here before it ever even got out the door. Hopefully this has resulted in a more enjoyable game. You have a maze you'd like to distribute? Tell me about it and I'll put a link to it here. Problems? Comments? Questions? Suggestions? (email me), let me know what you think. No warranty is provided with this software, use at your own risk. History: v1.3.0 11/21/2004 Brand new Robby design Better art and animation on character files New music Enhanced character editor v1.2.3 07/17/2004 Better map overview window (live updates!) Fixed a bug where opening a maze in Amazeing X wouldn't update the preferences window. v1.2.2 07/10/2004 Added the animation speed throttle, with score weight Added the clear scores button Added the map overview window v1.2.1 07/02/2004 Begrudgingly beefed up security to try and thwark some crackers. Please let me know if any serial numbers break and I'll replace them. v1.2.0 05/22/2004 Added the Character Editor Upgraded the Extended Maze file format to support character embedding Tighter integration between Amazeing X, Map Maker, and Maze Solver Better documentation Re-defined the Enhanced Maze file format. If you have mazes in that format that you can no longer open, please forward them to me and I'll convert them for you. Enhanced and Extended mazes can now include notes Fixed a few minor bugs Still more mazes included v1.1.0 05/15/2004 Added the Terrain Editor Added the "open maze" menu item in Amazeing X Unregistered users may now play any maze for up to 5 minutes Added the Extended Maze file format Even more mazes included v1.0.2 04/03/2004 Better performance in Map Maker when using the brush tool Greatly improved undo support and performance in Map Maker Maze Solver can now export solutions in PNG format Drag 'n Drop support into Maze Solver Drag 'n Drop support into Amazeing X includes more mazes Various minor bug fixes v1.0.1 03/29/2004 Fixed a compilation error that could cause a crash upon launch v1.0.0 03/29/2004 Initial release Amazeing X is copyright and © 1998, 2003, 2004 James A Thomason III ((email me)). All rights reserved.
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