Paul Kaiser's Blog

I’ve always insisted on getting all my music on my iPod. The fogy in me doesn’t like being tethered to the internet for everything these days.

In search of good coding music

I asked some folks what they listen to while coding, to get and stay in the flow, in the zone. Almost all of them pointed me to Pandora.

Checking Pandora out again

I sighed, and logged in to pandora.com. I already had an account, but had abandoned it due to the aforementioned fogy feelings.

In the flow and feeling great

It’s a good thing I’m not opposed to change. If I were, I’d miss out on this excellent source of music! At this moment, I’m listening to my version of the “Paul Oakenfold Radio” channel. I first heard of Paul Oakenfold when you could download sample tracks from music.download.com. Glad to be reaquainted!

Status of my coding music selection

I have some stations based on Nirvana / Foo Fighters / The Vines, and on Sia. By far, the best for getting in the flow and coding is the Oakenfold channel, though.

Here’s how you can get yours, once you log in and sign up at pandora.com.

NOTE: You could just listen to my modified Paul Oakenfold channel directly.

1. Search for “Paul Oakenfold” in the “New Station” box, and add it.
2. Under the resulting station, click “add variety.”
3. Add the following, which end up being called “Artist Seeds:”
• Tiesto
• Paul Van Dyk
• Sandra Collins
• Armin Van Buuren
• Hallucinogen
• Infected Mushroom
• Atmos
• Vibrasphere
• DJ X-Dream
4. Now, listen and enjoy! Be sure to use “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” to help Pandora tailor the station to your preferences.

Let me know if you find any more great artists I should add.

Have you ever been plugging away at your favorite video game and wished you could create such a world on your own? I’ve always been that way. When I was a kid, playing:

• Gauntlet
• Galaga
• Robotron

…and the like, I’d work away hours on my computers trying to build similar games. Whether it was the:

• Tandy CoCo
• Commodore 64
• or the library’s Apple II

…I loved the power to dream up a world and then build it in an interactive space others could play around with.

You’ve come a long way, baby

I’ve recently been finishing a multi-player Gauntlet-inspired game titled “Repossessed.” I was amazed at how many more options aspiring game developers have these days. I developed variants of Repossessed in:

• TNTBasic for the Mac
• RealStudio / RealBasic for the Mac and Windows
• GameMaker for Windows

Those are just the ones I spent time on. Many more open source game development tools exist, and many are open source and free of charge.

GameMaker is a great place to start

Ultimately, I settled on GameMaker. I know, it’s not open source, but it is the best free and low-cost option for rapid game development. If the only thing you download is GameMaker, the tutorials, and sample sounds and icons, you can still make a good game. You don’t need to divide your learning efforts amongst separate graphics, animations, music, and sound applications before you get started.

GameMaker’s author has been generous to the community for years, publishing the highly-capable free version of GameMaker alongside the ridiculously-low priced $25 Pro version. And, he hasn’t stopped there. Version 7 of GameMaker has a build for Mac, and in the works as I type this is the ability to compile games for HTML5 web delivery!

Come learn with me

GameMaker has decent tutorials, a good book called “Game Maker’s Apprentice,” and a large online community. However, I haven’t yet seen a comprehensive, straightforward, step-by-step, friendly, consistent learning resource outside of the author’s own classes. Typically, some online tutorials spring up and are soon abandoned, after offering only intermediate and advanced-level materials. For the beginner wanting a guide, there’s not an obvious route to take.

Homeschooling course

As soon as flag football coaching is over in mid October, I plan to teach game development from the ground up to our local homeschooling group. Materials will probably be suitable for ages 12 and up, but anyone willing to pay attention can give it a whirl. All you’ll need is a Mac or Windows computer and access to the internet.

Online learning for everyone

Each topic covered in the game development course will start with a screencast everyone can view before we get together in person for discussion. In addition, I’m going to use the excellent “p2 theme” for WordPress to make a team chat area where we can all learn from one another. As rapid as this course may move along, I think this style of online communication will work better than the common bulletin board system.

I said “everyone”

Oh, one more thing. There’s no reason these materials need to be exclusive to our homeschooling group. I’ll make these lessons suitable for anyone to tackle, even if you can’t meet in person. The screencasts and team chat area will be available on my open source learning site goodlearning.com by November. Screencasts will be closed-captioned, as well.

I’m excited. I hope some of you are, too. That’s all I have to say about that.