RTWard.com

I've been working on an idea for an iPhone game recently, a cool ( if I do say so myself ) variation on an old puzzle. Before I started in on the iPhone coding though, I wanted to make sure that the algorithms and function outlines I had in mind for the puzzle actually worked.

It too me the better part of an afternoon to whip up the display and function of the game so that it was playable, and then another ninety minutes or so to code the puzzle generation algorithm. The whole process was very painless, and in the end I had a fully functioning prototype of the game.

I think if I make a habit out of creating games for the iPhone or any platform, this will be a pretty standard first step for me.

For anyone else who has gotten tired of mucking around with Fallout 3's stupid hacking challanges, here's your salvation:

words = {
    "persevered": 1,
    "domination": -1,
    "resembling": -1,
    "generation": 3,
    "resounding": 2,
    "definition": -1,
    "adrenaline": -1,
    "definitely": -1,
    "reputation": -1,
    "revolution": -1,
    "meditation": -1,
    "separating": -1,
    "recuperate": -1}

def compare( one, two ):
    equal = 0

    for i in range(0,len(one)):
        if( one[i] == two[i] ):
            equal = equal + 1

    return equal


known_words = filter( lambda x: words[x] >= 0, words.keys() )
unknown_words = filter( lambda x: words[x] == -1, words.keys() )

possible_words = []

for word in unknown_words:
    valid = 1
    for check in known_words:
        if( compare( word, check ) != words[check] ):
            valid = 0
    
    if( valid == 1 ):
        possible_words.append(word)

print possible_words

I'll clean this up and make it a nice gui app at some point.

I was sitting at home during my lunch break today, chomping on some downright decent curry, frantically clicking refresh on my browser window which just happened to contain the Engadged liveblog of the latest apple event.  Something struck me about how the nature of how we interact with computers has changed over the years.  Over the past decade or so, the big problem in computing has made a fundamental shift from proucing information, to organizing it.

Let me elaborate a bit...

Click to read more ...

After neglecting the old RTWard.com for far too long, I decided to relaunch the site using a nice hosted solution where I wouldn't have to bother with a content management system and all that other stuff.

I chose squarespace as the host, predominately because I'd heard such good things about their site creator on a bunch of podcasts.  I haven't had too much time to play around with the designer, but I really like the CMS.  It makes adding different pieces and widgets to the site very easy.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to update this a few times a week.  I'll also try to update the project pages frequently, as that should keep me working on them.