Bitmantra

Spelunky – The New Indie Spotlight

admin — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 16:17:51 +0000

A small update on the progress of the awesome turtle project we are working on. We just got the first 4-5 levels up and running and working on the 6th one. The main turtle along with two enemies have been animated and they are looking insanely beautiful. All the main mechanics are working and it seems the initial prototype of the game is near its completion. The aim is to finish first 6 levels nicely polished with some clean animations and challenging level designs and of course get some fun out of the game.

Anyway there is a new game, which just got released, it’s really exciting, it has got my heart pumping and my fingers tingling, check out what I am talking about..

It’s been 4 years since the dawn of Indie Games and a lot of games have come and gone. Some of them are widely celebrated, while some go unnoticed. Let me tell you about an upcoming game called “Spelunky” which was released on XBLA just yesterday. The aim of this game is simple, go from the start point of the dungeon to the end point and while doing so kill various monsters, collect items and rescue damsels in distress. At the first look this game doesn’t look all that fun, but there is one thing which changes all that- ‘Randomly Generated Levels’.

With ‘Randomly Generated Levels’- A new level is generated by the computer as soon as the player starts playing. Hence, with every new game, there are new items, new enemies, new level design, new entry and of course a new exit. Thus, every time you start the game, there is a new game environment waiting for you.

Derek Yu is one of the most respected Indie game developer in the current indie scene. He has been developing games for quite some time, drawing his major influences from early NES Games. His influence for Spelunky comes from NES games like Spelunker and La-Mulana.

I highly recommend download and play this game right now. It takes only 9.5 Mb and its free! For developers there is an added perk, since it is open source you can download it, strip, study and use the code as for your own game as you like.

Link – Spelunky World.

Also check out the Gameplay video below for better understanding.
Download and enjoy!

Sayonara.

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Turtle – Struggle From The Very Beginning

admin — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 18:32:55 +0000

Hey, It’s been a couple of months since the project’s inception and the team is getting along quite well. Everyone is working with utmost motivation and every day, we get closer to achieving our goal. In the first post you must have figured out that this is a Turtle game rather about saving the baby turtles. In this post I would like to describe the dangers a baby turtle faces right after it comes out of its little egg. As soon as a baby turtle comes out of its shell, it starts trotting towards danger. The seas show no signs of forgiveness as the little turtle makes a desperate break for the waves. I happened to google the phrase “predators of turtles”, and one of the posts said “anything and everything that’s hungry”. When a baby turtle is attacked it is practically defenseless and because of its wide shell, the turtle movement restricted and it is oblivious to what is happening outside its shell. This inability to fight back makes them easy prey for predators. Predators range from land predators like ants, giant bugs, crabs, raccoons and dogs to water predators like alligators, sharks and piranhas. Human beings are also well known to hunt and devour turtles. Every other predator hunts the turtle for food, which helps maintain the food chain, but human also hunt for sheer pleasure or business. Humans have affected the turtles in many different ways such as beach land encroachment, which reduces the land for laying eggs. Global warming has also affected the turtle population’s male to female ratio which is ever decreasing. Everyday turtles are found caught in fishing nets or slaughtered for their shells and there’s hardly anyone trying to protect them. With each day the situation is only getting worse and if measures are not taken immediately, sea turtles are soon going to face extinction and the planet is going to lose one of its oldest species. If that is not enough motivation, turtles have helped keep the balance in nature for a long time and their absence is going to create a big void, which will have repercussions on the environment. So in order to create a necessary awareness among everyone and give our tribute to one of the most beautiful creations of nature we decided to come up with something in our way, a Turtle Game. Wait & Watch this space for further updates.

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The Beginning

admin — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 11:26:32 +0000

Yo Again, It’s time for an update, we are posting some sketches to give you an idea of how we reached to our final Turtle. Some of them are just hilarious, but u know.. One does not easily get an awesome Turtle. Hope to show u some more soon. Enjoy!

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Inspiration

admin — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 09:14:03 +0000

We are starting a blog a game. Well, A blog about a turtle game or better yet, a blog about a top down turtle game. So let me tell you something about our Inspiration. Its evening and there is a cool breeze drifting in the air. The sound of waves is the only thing one can hear from miles away. Not a single soul is there to see what is about to happen. A silhouette appears, as the waves retreat. The turtle is slow and walks unevenly. It enters the beach and looks around. There’s no one there, yet little whispering sounds keep coming from somewhere. It then starts to dig, at this moment it is easily spooked. Now alert more than ever, as it drags itself over the hole. For about 10 minutes, it lays small spherical eggs in the hole every now and then, as it struggles to keep a steady balance over the hole. When the ritual has come to an end, it blankets eggs with heaps of sand and leaves. 55 days later…. PUSH….PUSH….PUSH….CRACK! As the baby turtle works its way to the surface, towards the ray of light it knows that its life has just started and trouble’s are not too far. As it enters the shoreline, It feels the swishing of the waves and starts trotting, with just one thing in mind– reaching the blue water. Maybe the journey has just started, but who knows what is yet to come…..

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Tough Road Ahead For Apple?

admin — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:00:53 +0000

With the release of Galaxy S3, Samsung has made sure that it is not going to kneel easily in front of Apple, and now since critics are going gaga over its awesome features, Apple has to make sure that its new iPhone 5 has to be a game changer.

Right now Apple is trying real hard to keep Galaxy S3 away from the U.S market and every now and then tries to convince the US Authorities to ban Samsung’s products like Galaxy S3 and Galaxy range of tablets or HTC’s new range of smart phones from import into US.

Just before the release of the Galaxy S3, Reports of Samsung getting 9 million pre-orders for S3, which made it the fastest selling pre-ordered phone of the year. Just after its launch, it became the most popular smartphone of the year in UK. With the previous Galaxy launch, Samsung was able to replace Apple as the world’s largest smartphone maker.

Apple wouldn’t have worried if the other smartphone maker’s weren’t flourishing, but with Android taking 56.1% market among the smartphone OS market, there is a strong reason for Apple to worry. Well Apple is not far behind, with 22.9% market share, but what is bothering them is a wide range of companies using Android and providing exceptional services.

According to various reports, Galaxy S3 is already being touted as the Best Smartphone available in the market right now and honestly it does beat iPhone 4S in terms of hardware with a sleek design and a large 4.8 inch screen. These features has really made the road for Apple’s next iPhone very tough.

Apple has to keep up with its own bar which it has set over the years, along with, it has to fight tough competitors. Apple does have an upper hand when it comes to UI but along with this they have to create an anticipation like Samsung did.

As of now only Apple has the answers for its future plans, but who knows, may be Apple is planning for something much bigger and out of the world.

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Useful Apps For Better Tomorrow!

admin — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 07:15:43 +0000

iPad has changed the business forever.Since it’s inception it has broken all the records of sales and made Apple from just a company to the Biggest brand in the world.

But what kind of changes it has made on our lives.How do we utilize this “one of the greatest innovations of the 21st century” in a better way.What does it mean to us?

Obviously, iPad is mostly used for Games and interesting Applications but it also gave us the power to take care of ourselves,in a much better way

Nowadays,there are whole lot of applications available for healthcare,doctors & patients. There are Apps available for calculating calorie intake,Apps for calculating carbohydrate,Apps for getting necessary info related to disease including allergies,HIV/AIDs,Lung Cancer etc.

If you are a fitness freak or if you want to lose all that extra fat from your stomach,even than there are Apps available for you,which includes Apps for jogging,daily calorie burn counter,Apps for setting Diet goals and even Apps for making six pack Abs.For those who are addicted to smoking than there are Apps which will help you in quitting smoking and lead a healthier life.

Apps For Autism And Asperger’s Syndrome

But my favorite of all are the Apps which are helping the children’s suffering from disease like Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome.These Apps really motivates a child and make them learn faster and improve with the communication.Recently I read an article where a women has explained,how iPad is helping her son,suffering from Autism to learn quickly.Even if the normal children’s Apps are not targeted towards the Autism, they can be useful for Autism too.

The iPad might not be the ultimate cure for these disease but it can be very effective in fighting with these diseases. So if someone calls iPad as the Greatest Innovation of the 21st century, than it wouldn’t be wrong.

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Google Unveils New ChromeBook With Faster Speed And Exciting Features

admin — Wed, 30 May 2012 12:30:10 +0000

Google along with the partner Samsung ,yesterday unveiled its new Chromebook with desktop Chromebox.

The company upgraded Chromebook laptops making them faster with a new interface. According to Sundar Pichai,Senior Vice President,Google,Chromebook will let the users access the Web based applications by providing tools for accessing Gmail and other software’s outside the browser. The new Chromebooks will feature faster Intel Core chip with 4GB RAM.Unlike the other computers Chromebook doesn’t have a hard drive.The Chromebook is priced at $449.

Along with the Chromebook ,Google also launched its first ever Desktop Chromebox, which resembles Apple’s Mac Mini. Chromebox can be plugged into display monitor and can work as a full fledged desktop computer.The Chromebox is priced at $329.The Chromebox contains more ports than the Chromebook. The latest Chromebook ,similar to Mac and Windows machines,will feature a bar at the bottom of the screen which will help users to access the Web applications.

The upgrades includes the editing feature for the Google Documents.Until now,Google documents were only at read-only mode, but with new Chromebook ,users will be able to edit the document,even when they are not connected with the Internet.Other features include viewing Microsoft Office Softwares like Excel and Word.

When Google launched Chromebooks last year,it was not a very successful venture as more and more people were shifting towards the iPad and other Tablets available in the market. The move highlights Google’s plans to enter into a unfamiliar territory and will bring Google in direct competition with the established brands like Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp..On the other hand they are already competing with Apple in the smartphone market with the Android Software.

While the analysts are of the opinion that it is not a right move from the Google to launch its computer Applications in the age of iPad. Only the future will tell us , whether this move by Google is a sensible one or not.

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Will Yahoo “Axis” can Challenge Google?

admin — Fri, 25 May 2012 13:50:20 +0000

Yesterday Yahoo! launched its own browser called as Axis in order to remain in the competition against it’s rival Google, and it pretty much succeeds in doing so.

Axis allows the user to search,with displaying the visual results,without making the user to leave the page he was on. Right now Axis is available as a stand-alone browser App for iPhone,iPod touch and iPad but for the desktop,it is only available as a plug-in, that works with all the major browsers including Firefox,Safari,Internet Explorer and Google Chrome.

Now,from the demo,it looked like it really succeeds in taking searching to a whole new level.

As you install the extension for your browser,it starts displaying at the bottom left corner of the page.As you click in the search box,the box expands into one-third part of your browser.

Now as you start typing your search query,it starts showing the results in the right hand side of the browser,which is really good,because you don’t have to leave the screen you were working on.

The best thing about Axis is the design and the use of Slaty black color in the background which makes it visually appealing.

The iPhone and iPad version were also quite impressive.May be in future they also release a standalone browser for desktop too. But its going to be interesting to see,where this war of the browser will reach.

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Apple Orders Large Screens for the next iPhone 5

admin — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:08:00 +0000

The Wall Street Journal reported that Tech giant Apple has ordered large screens from its suppliers in South Korea and Japan for its next iPhone, iPhone 5.

According to the report, screen for the new phone might be 4 inch long diagonally as compared to the iPhone 4S 3.5 inch model , the new iPhone 5 screens will experience 30% increase in viewing area,since Apple keeps the other dimensions proportional.Since the introduction of iPhone in 2007, Apple has used same 3.5 inch screen.

Apple is reportedly ordered screens from LG,Sharp and Japan Display Inc.,which was created last month with a collaboration between three Japanese companies and the Government.The production will begin by next month.

Analyst have a opinion that this will intensify the rivalry between Apple and Samsung Electronics Co. who recently unveiled Galaxy S-II smartphone with a 4.8-inch display,one of the largest smartphone screens available in the market.

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‪Apple is Getting Ready to Bring iPad Mini Revolution ‬in October

admin — Sat, 12 May 2012 11:45:58 +0000

There is a buzz going around that Apple is in the process of launching iPad Mini coming october, a 7-inch tablet along with the launch of iPhone 5. According to the rumours, this new launch will be priced between $200 to $250 with a 8GB storage carrying the same resolution as iPad, almost touching the price of Apple’s iPod Touch.‬ But there is no need to worry as iPod touch will remain in the product line.

‪With the iPad mini launch, Amazon is expected to face direct competition for its Kindle Fire. The rumor also indicates that Apple is doing this in order to remain in the competition under the “mini” category and give stiff competition to Samsung, Rim and Amazon who are already rivals in the 7-inch Tablet market.

While Steve Jobs never liked the idea of making iPad’s smaller, Apple is showing the signs of entering into the post steve era ‪and we are hoping to see something unconventional which would beat the ever changing tablet market.‬

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