I’ve been a bit obsessed with Pong lately. In fact, this is the most attention I’ve given to this game since I was 5 when I owned an Atari 2600.

As I continue to work on my open source mobile Pong game, I find myself reading very detailed accounts of how the original game worked so that I can build an accurate (yet updated) replica.

The author, Steven Kent, did some serious homework for this book (which was printed in 2001). His chapters are well organized and fascinating to read – and I’m not even a hardcore gamer. Continue reading →

I was nine years old when I got my first game console for Christmas: the Sega Genesis.

It was the start of many years of my life that revolved around video games. And while I never became you’re typical gamer (and my game-playing has dropped to virtually zero these days), I have a high appreciation for the game development process.

As someone who works almost exclusively in the HTML5 web application world I saw Learning HTML5 Game Programming and thought “This is going to be a really cool book!”
Continue reading →

Over the past year, I have had the pleasure of flying all over the United States for business. Unfortunately I never get to fly First Class… which means I am rarely comfortable enough to sleep. The result is that I get lots of work and reading done during my flights.

Like most travelers, I usually glance at the SkyMall magazine and wonder who (if anyone) actually buys that stuff. But on a recent flight one product did catch my eye: the Eye Strain Reducing Computer Glasses.

You may be asking yourself, “Why, of all things in SkyMall, did these glasses speak to me?”. The answer is that I have been wearing similar products for a few years now. Continue reading →