Play to Cure™: Genes in Space Launch

Great news, I've been waiting to post this for what feels like months but it's here at last. Guerilla Tea's project for Cancer Research UK and my first published project for the company has been launched at last.

Genes in Space is a relatively simple arcade, spaceship shooter with a twist, as you wind your way through dangerous fields of Element Alpha you're helping with real-life research into cures for cancer.

Just One Trip - A journey into the dark world of addiction

Last weekend myself and the folks from Guerilla Tea found ourselves at the Dundee site of Scottish Game Jam which itself is an arm of the Global Game Jam. The 48 hour game jam takes place at the same local time everywhere from New Zealand to Hawaii, but I'll cover the event itself in more detail another day.

What follows is an account of our game, Just One Trip and the dark journey it leads you on through the heart of addiction.

Note: This blog is still to be revisited with added pictures but I wanted to get something out asap.

An Update: Student No Longer

So, it's been a while since my last update and unfortunately this is going to be a quick one but hopefully you'll understand why. Having finished my studies and graduated as evidenced in previous posts.

So, I figured it was about time to get a job, become a real games industry professional. The poor souls at Guerilla Tea decided to give me a shot and that's where I've been at for the past few months.

Video Games! WebRTC for Gaming Purposes...

Note this is the second in a series of blogs, I'm writing on the topic of WebRTC, the focus of this one is the gaming applications of WebRTC. For an overview of WebRTC click here and for a tutorial on DataChannels - here. Large sections of this one however are taken from an essay, I wrote on the subject of camera feeds in WebRTC. You can see the original application here.

Abertay Graduation 2013

So, that's it - as of last Thursday, I am Brian Beacom BSc(Hons). Yes, it's been a busy ol' week for me so unfortunately I haven't had time to get a technology blog done quite yet. Instead you get to hear all about me, Graduation, Grad Ball and the politics of being a student in what is sure to be one of very very few self-centred posts.

Implementing WebRTC DataChannels in Chrome Canary (July 2013)

Hey Guys,
Shortly after my last blog post on WebRTC - WebRTC - The HTML5 late arrival - I realised Chrome and Firefox had both updated their implementations to include DataChannels, the part of WebRTC that allows peer-to-peer connections to be used for sending data packets.

Fantastic news, right? The Mozilla lot are all over it and I found plenty of resources on implementing it on Firefox however the information for Chrome is a bit all over the place and lacking one concise explanation, so having puzzled it out, I'm putting my solution here, going right from the first steps through to exchanging your first packet, accounting for Chrome's implementation.

Warning: This is a pretty wordy one, so if you aren't much of a skim reader or are totally new to the subject, you probably wanna go get yourself a cup of tea first... go on, I'm not going anywhere!

The SpecialEffect Charity Set 2013

I received an email from my friends at SpecialEffect today, asking if I could help out getting some people backing their latest project, I, of course, immediately obliged but I think it's pretty unique what they are doing, as a charity and for this fundraising activity.