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When I was 13, Jenny introduced me to Queen, A Night at the Opera. Of course, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Year of '39, and so on...but there was one song I didn't really seem to have time for.
I loved all the songs on that album...but recently it has occurred to me what that song is all about. I really do love my Outlander. If only the battery life could be improved (I usually get 21-23 miles to the charge, and then I'm on petrol). My commute from Rugby to Leicester just fits into this range, as I park at the Park-n-Ride, and charge it for free there. If I need to run my heater, that will knock 3-4 miles off the range. Air conditioning, strangely, only takes 1-2. There is a trick that really impresses me. In the winter (roughly 8 months of the year here), I can , while safely and warmly in my house, connect my iPad or mobile phone via wifi, and tell the car to warm itself up using mains energy. By the time I'm ready to go 15 minutes later, the car cabin is warm, the windscreen defrosted, and it's ready to go. In fact, the only area where I'd say the car lets me down is the software side of things. There doesn't seem to be a coaching program worth bothering with. I'd love the ability to set the maximum effort the engines can put out to increase efficiency. Selecting the addresses is very much a pain. The navigation system needs to be made much friendlier (just look at Tomtom, Google maps, or Apple maps, fer cryin' out loud). Since my commute to Leicester fits within the battery, the car actually saves me more than the monthly car payment! A car that pays for itself: a no-brainer.
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After posting my original email, Chris Carson (of Clickteam USA) reached out to me with this: Ken, Can't really say much fairer than that. I am going to give it another shot. Thanks, Chris. ====================== Earlier blog post: So, I was playing around with development environments the other day. I'd bought a bundle on HumbleBundle that contained ClickTeam. An app that aims to let you build games (both desktop and mobile) without programming. Sounded good...but you may want to think twice. I was walking through their Breakout tutorial, when I noticed something odd...the paddle didn't bounce the ball way I was used to from other versions. Instead of reflecting the ball directly up, you want it to bounce as if you had an upside down bowl on the paddle. It's a little more complex. The documentation didn't give me any clues. Not surprising really, kind of a niche thing, and documentation is hard. So, as is usual these days, I went to the forums. I posted a question, providing all the detail I could think of that was pertinent, and trying to explain my question clearly. The next day, I tried to go back and see the answer...and that's when the troubles began. I couldn't log in, and had various troubles over the next hour or so. If you don't type in your password correctly for 5 times, it blocks you for 15 minutes. Since I use the 'lastpass' password manager my password was clearly being entered correctly, I was surprised when their forum software didn't recognise my password. So, fine. I reset my password, and waited 15 minutes. When I went back to their web site, I tried to log in with the new password they sent me, but that didn't work either. I reset my password again. This time it worked. I could login, see the answer, and from there I was able to fix the problem. I posted a detailed answer to my original question with all the nitty gritty about how to fix it. Rather frustrated by this time, I sent the first email to technical support: Technical support: Clickteam Fusion 2.5 I got this email back: Mr Corey, I was a bit taken aback. They provide the forums "as a courtesy"? Anyone in their right mind knows that for a dev environment to succeed it needs a community. A dev tool without a community is a footnote in history...not a viable product. Understanding that Mr. Pittock is fairly precious about his software, I answered: Uh…let me get this straight… A few minutes later, I got this email: Your account has now been suspended. In case you're considering building a mobile game, I can suggest an environment best to avoid.
(If you're here, do scroll to the top and read the update...) Seems that the development on this web site is going a little slowly...2013...2015...
Brace yourself for my next post in 2017. I'm trying out blogging from my nexus tablet for the first time. it's not a fast as typing it myself, buy it's not a bad as I'd feared.
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