This looks great. Have thought about doing something similar for Monkey (www.monkeycoder.co.nz), which would have the added benefit that you would then be able to compile the programs afterwards on a desktop for various platforms. Have always been frightened by the prospect of writing a code editor for the iPad though - but it looks like you've done a really good job. I've requested TestFlight access ([email protected]). I hope to be able to give it a go
I wouldn't push them into anything though they did make half of the levels and craft skins for ground Effect. I've never even really tried to get them into coding and was simply making the observation that it was so much easier back in the day when coding was almost all you could do with a computer. My eldest son is nearly 17 and has just started his A Levels (including Math(s)) I was in exactly the same position 31 years ago and got kind of distracted from my own A Levels (including Math(s)) by the school's shiny new Commodore Pets. So distracted that I left school able to program but with pretty crappy exam results. Six years later I was having to learn Matrix maths for the game I was working on at the time, having failed to grasp it properly at school. The problem was, it had been all so abstract on blackboards and paper. Since then I've worked with a lot of people 10 years younger than me who's maths skills were enhanced by the fact they were coding on pre-internet PCs. Since then computers have mostly been used for games, porn and now facebook. Meanwhile working out where to start coding has got more and more difficult. Both my sons spend a lot of time on iPad while ignoring the TV that I'd have been watching at their age, most of it currently making music with the wonderful Beatmaker (some of it almost good enough to use in a game), the idea that they could grasp the basics of programming in a similar way is very appealing.
i was not judging , maybe the way i've read it made me getting goosebumps but your kids are well.. teenagers not kids anymore so that changes alot.. and that they help with your games is cool.. as for basics of programming.. why not give little big plant2 a try.. the editor is capable of tremendous things and you can make your own game within the game if you want to and that in a more playfull way than hacking text into a editor.. which usualy is as dry as it can get.. of course till the moment you hit compile and the boring text actualy becomes working and creates something amazing on the screen..
My younger son played a lot of the original LBP, some of it during the private beta. He even went as far as using the weird physical logic gates as found on those freaky 'computer' levels. You are absolutely right in pointing out how this is actually a great place to start programming. Most of the people I knew who started when I did had come from an electronics hobby background. Not me though, I weirdly went from Skateboarding to coding in 1980...
Hi guys Thought I'd post an update to show how Codify is going. 1.0 is approved (but not released), and 1.1 is nearly finished. Codify 1.1 contains a TON of cool new features. The full documentation is available here: Codify Reference Complete in-editor reference documentation. Tap the new reference key on the keyboard Full colour word based syntax highlighting Sprite rendering In-Code sprite picking: tap a sprite parameter to get a list of sprite packs and sprites. It's awesome. Two sprite packs using the fantastic Lostgarden.com free prototyping assets New Math button on the keyboard, tap it to get easy access to arithmetic and table operators I'm remaking some simple games in Codify now to include as example projects. Here's what I'm making, any suggestions? Doodle Jump style game Snake Bit Invader (space shmup) Tic Tac Toe For the simulation side of things I'm including Rope simulation Verlet cloth simulation Here's some screenshots of some of the new features: Tapping code to pick a sprite In-editor documentation browser Tapping code first shows you a list of sprite packs
Wow, cudos on doing such a nice job on the editor. I'm going to go download this right now For a language to introduce kids too, I have been *amazed* at what my 14yr old son has done with XNA and C#. He completed his own game that sat at #4 in free games on WP7 for over a month (Piggy Bounce, check it out!). All his code too; I only got to help with a little of the art. I think the reason he has picked so much up so quickly is you don't hit a lot of real hard roadblocks with XNA, you can't trash memory, you have a ton of nice classes to work with, none of the basic functionality you need is difficult.
@GregH Thanks! While it is approved by Apple, it's not released. I don't want to release version 1.0 as is. So I'm submitting version 1.1 as an update this week and when that is approved I will release it.
now i want a desktop version even more a cool lua editor with integrated lua references , easy drag and drop media selection etc.. hmm.. sadly there is no way to get actual data into codify on the ipad.. (like your sprites, soundfiles etc.) .. sometimes apples descisions are weird.. @glennx : well i actualy googled comodore pet and loled since this behemoth was my very first computer.. but i think the name was different in germany but i don't recall anymore.. when i got that as a gift it was ancient tech, was around the time the amiga 500 was released.. but it was free and i way more than happy to have a computer at all.. sadly one day the casette player catched fire .. at least my dad was so nice to replace the pet with an amiga 2000 on my next birthday.. that was quite a techn jump for me.. where most of my friends had still an c64 hehe.. but still the pet was special since it was my first.. ohh the loading times of the casette player a snore fest by todays standards hehe.. ;D nice memories you digged up.. thnx
you know that you can still (and should) at least give out some promo codes.. your app does not need to be on the store to be downloaded.. promo codes for 1.0 still work ..and if you plan to make 1.1 your release version then snag all 50 codes for 1.0 at least shortly before 1.1 gets approves (maybe whil its in review) so you get 100 codes in total instead of only 50.. since promo codes are not bound to the version the "old" codes could still download the current approved version
You are absolutely correct. I've attached 9 promo codes to this message, if there is some interest I'll attach more. Please note that 1.1 is significantly improved from 1.0. It has much better syntax highlighting, better autocomplete, full documentation, sound effects, sprites and sprite packs, and a lot more.
Brilliant - thanks for the promo code! I grabbed the second one as the first had gone (so the next person start from #3 ) 1.1 looks fantastic, can't wait to try that version - and great thinking building those superb free lostgarden assets into it! I'll post back here with my full impressions when I've had a chance to have a good play around and see how easy it is to knock up this prototype idea I have (so in a couple of days).
Thanks DemonJim. Because version 1.0 doesn't have them: if you need reference you can find docs here Codify Reference. Note that this works quite well as a web app on iPad. So you can install it alongside the 1.0 install to use for documentation. Jonbro from this thread put together an awesome little drum machine. Unfortunately it won't work in 1.0 due to the lack of sound effects. Also tonight Codify 1.1 has been improved with Multi Touch support, full Bluetooth Keyboard support, Auto-indentation. I've attached 10 more codes for 1.0 in case anyone missed out.
I've taken no. 9 from the second batch, thanks. I'm very impressed by this - I can see it taking off.
Had a quick play but don't think I can really start anything serious yet as things appear to go wrong with the renderer (on iPad 1), just get black screen for the square render view sometimes. Absolutely loving it though, I will 100% be using this to play around with random ideas, and v1.1 looks even better so looking forward to that. The Gravity vector doesn't work on iPad 1 btw - it doesn't have the full accelerometer of the iPad 2 so is something to consider for release. I'm assuming you know about a these issues and all probably already resolved so won't go into any kind of detail (repro steps, frequency etc). When I get my next update submitted (very soon I hope) I plan on giving this my full attention and put together a couple of test projects. I think what I would like most for prototyping is a full-screen option and to be able to set up virtual screen buttons and even analog sticks really easily, so maybe consider these if you haven't yet.
This is actually fixed, there are two ways this can happen: • Runtime error in your code, 1.1 now informs you of this and pauses playback • Copy + paste bug, if you copy and paste code with indentations iOS inserts some unicode characters that cause runtime errors - this is also fixed in 1.1 Thanks for the feedback! The Gravity vector is fixed in 1.1 for iPad 1. Good point about the full screen view. I'll probably have it as a function you can call in setup (fullscreen()), for projects you'd like to use like that. Edit: Missed the bit about virtual analog sticks. That's a great idea and could maybe be built in as different control templates you can initialise, each one providing your project with different callbacks. Just to reiterate there are so many bug fixes and improvements in 1.1. It's such a major update that it's almost a whole new app usability-wise. The major improvements in 1.1 (so far) - Full syntax highlighting of comments, keywords, numbers - Sprite rendering and sprite picking - Sound effects, random sound effect generation using SFXR - Multi-Touch support - Full integrated reference documentation - Math keys built into a keyboard popup - Intelligent Auto-indentation, much smarter autocompletion - Bluetooth keyboard support - Faster performance, especially on iPad 1 - Lots of API additions including timing functions, perlin noise and other stuff
