Mr Speaker

Author Archives: Mr Speaker

Pixelmator save, Project reload.

End result: Hit save in Pixelmator, web page automatically reloads with new PNGs. Tools: Pixelmator (image editor), Grunt + LiveReload (task runner), Automator (Mac automation thingo), Bash (Bash). I’m generally not a fan of automating tasks, unless the task is consistent over multiple projects and over long periods of time. Automating things is fun – […]

DIGIBOTS & CO.: a game in a month.

“Make a game in a month, with crazy retro-like restrictions, and if you win you we’ll put it in a real-life arcade machine in front of the general public.” Now that’s a pitch that I’d find difficult to walk away from. And so I poured selected parts of my heart and soul into “DIGIBOTS & […]

Into the third dimension

My loyal long-term readers (by whom I mean Anton) would know my technological aesthetic bent strongly favour the 1980s. Seeing as the third dimension was not discovered until 1992, I have thus far had little inclination to bother with it. But things have changed: now that the 90s are suitably retro I feel it’s finally […]

Pix Up, Look Sharp: a pixel resizer for Pixelmator

Pixelmator is a fantastic image editor for Mac, but it lacks the ability to stretch an image via a “nearest-neighbor, big pixels please” method. I know, right?! Anyhoo… I made a Quartz Composer called plugin Pix Up, Look Sharp that does it for you, allowing you to set the width and height scaling amount. To […]

More is Zmore

Ludum Darer JellyCakes has been live streaming his playing-and-rating efforts of entries in Ludum Dare 26. He’s an excellent reviewer: testing each game very thoroughly and fairly. And he’s hilarious. After giving my entry a good run through its paces he concluded with the above video. Might not fit the competition’s theme of “minimalism”, but […]

DHTML Lemmings: an awesome hack

That image is the punchline to the question I awoke with in the middle of last night: “How the FLIPPIN’ ‘ECK did that guy do destructible terrain for DHTML Lemmings… in 2004?!!!”. I lay there for some time as thoughts raced through my mind: There was no canvas element in 2004. No WebGL. In fact, […]

Short function syntax is here!

It’s happened. It’s finally happened. Short function syntax is here! At least, if you’re running the nightly version of Firefox (which I am now, due to my promise to adopt the first browser to introduce short function syntax). Short function syntax replaces the lengthy function keyword with a symbol =>, and the almost-as-lengthy return keyword […]

#Random Hex colour

Want a random colour between white and black? “#” + (Math.random() * 0xffffff | 0).toString(16) That is all. [Update: after I posted this I thought… i bet this has been done a zillion times already. It was, and by Paul Irish in 2009 no less. Additionally – it doesn’t work. The best looking one there […]