به بهانه فروغ

I tend to keep this blog technical so it would hopefully bear some fruit to someone but there are rare times that I find poems that describe me perfectly and I can’t resist on not putting them here, usually to store them. You, if are not me from the future, may find it useful/amusing/etc. .

It’s by Forough Farrokhzad, was an Iranian poet and film director. She is arguably one of Iran’s most influential female poets of the twentieth century. She was a controversial modernist poet and an iconoclast. Even though today is her birthday, I did not put this to celebrate it:

نمي دانم چه مي خواهم خدا يا
به دنبال چه مي گردم شب و روز
چه مي جويد نگاه خسته من
چرا افسرده است اين قلب پر سوز
ز جمع آشنايان ميگريزم
به كنجي مي خزم آرام و خاموش
نگاهم غوطه ور در تيرگيها
به بيمار دل خود مي دهم گوش
گريزانم از اين مردم كه با من
به ظاهر همدم ويكرنگ هستند
ولي در باطن از فرط حقارت
بدامانم دو صد پيرايه بستند
از اين مردم كه تا شعرم شنيدند
برويم چون گلي خوشبو شكفتند
ولي آن دم كه در خلوت نشستند
مرا ديوانه اي بد نام گفتند
دل من اي دل ديوانه من
كه مي سوزي از اين بيگانگي ها
مكن ديگر ز دست غير فرياد
خدا را بس كن اين ديوانگي ها

-فروغ.

Report on making 2D mobile games with Unity.

After several months spent on learning Unity on making 2D mobile games, here are my thoughts on the matter:

1) Don’t get me wrong, Unity is a great game engine, probably the best I’ve worked so far, but I think for 2D and especially the type of games that I’m intend to make, it’s bloated. I’ve accessed best 2D tools for it and even with those, you feel like that it’s not intended to do 2D with and it’s like you are always trying to make it work 2D for you while it was made for making 3D in mind. This makes you not only do not use some of it’s great tools, but you have to carefully make sure those tools do not get in you way of making 2D. I’ve seen several good 2D games made with Unity and if I may consider it again but I feel it’s not for the type of games I want to make.

2) Artist-wise: You have to teach your pipeline to your artist(s) in order for them to be able to import their art and each iteration is lengthier because it has to go through all that 3D pipeline that Unity has. I prefer a simple file replacement method for small games that I tend to make. I don’t feel good, and safe, to have all my game some texture on a plane.

3) License-wise: I have basic mobile license for Unity and even with paid license, I don’t get support for some basic stuff that I feel is not available to me to force me to go for “pro”. For example when I paid for a license, why can’t I remove Unity’s splash screen?! I have to pay $3000+ for such feature. Striping unused stuff is another thing. If you pay for a “pro” license, you get to decrease file size by removing components that you do not use! Why it’s a “pro” feature?!
It’s just plain annoying and bad PR, IMHO. And you have lots of things that you are paying for that you will not use.

4) Because it was made with 3D in mind, most of the common problems/solutions in other 2D engines are available to you in 3D. It “may” sound good to you if you are not experienced enough but an experienced developer knows it’s just more problems to you.

5) A lot of hidden costs for making 2D. As I mentioned before, if you want to go 2D with it, you have to either develop or buy several packages to shed some light on your nightmares and they either mean more money or more man-power.

Even though learning Unity was a joyful journey, and I’m truly happy that I’ve learned it, I’m thinking about 2D specific options here.

Rot Gut’s review and interview at Donyaye Bazi (Dbazi) magazine.

Our friends at Dbazi were kind to us to review our latest indie game, Rot Gut (also known as “Black Elixir”) in their latest issue. I’m proud to say that they really liked our game. They interviewed me briefly and is printed on the same page as the review. For our fine readers that do not access to the magazine, I’ve taken an screenshot of that page that you can see down here:

RotGut_Review_dbazi

I’m very proud to be part of this and hope we continue to deliver quality games. That’s the only reason I breath.

IranGDI ad.

I’m not a traditional Flash developer, and to be honest with you, I’ve had my share of Flash with both several 2D engine prototypes and Rot Gut. But when the good people at IranGDI asked me to do a game banner with Flash, I knew I had to do it.

Since their mascot is Invaders, I suggested making a simple Flash version of Space Invaders and as with Rot Gut, I went with Flixel for implementing it. So here it is:

[swf src=”http://www.aidinzolghadr.com/stuff/IranGDIBanner/IranGDIinvaders.swf” width=290 height=200]