So I was too optimistic in my timeline for Maximum Security. Ah well, it's still pretty close to the end.

You can download the current version of the program as well as a level pack I've been working on, with two levels. (Also, here's a screenshot of a really dumb level that just demonstrates the physics engine.)

In particular, the level editor and main menu are now integrated into the program, and loading level packs and saving progress all work splendidly. It's all essentially complete, with the exception of a simple way to go from the level editor to a testing environment for the level being worked on. (Of course, you can always just load the level pack normally and test it from there.)

But now that the core program is finished, what remains (besides documentation) is to make some levels, and this is where I make other people do my work for me. If anyone is interested in making levels for Maximum Security, you can do it now!

As we've said before, Maximum Security will depend on level packs. Anyone can create a level pack using the main program as follows:

• Select Maker from the main menu
• Choose the option "Create new level"
• Enter the name of the level pack and then its password for editing
• Use the following controls to manipulate levels:
  • + creates a level
  • – deletes a level
  • × moves a level down in sequence
  • ÷ moves a level up in sequence
  • 2nd enters the actual level editor, for which the controls are as follows:
    • MODE to enter the tile selection menu
    • TRACE/GRAPH to quickly switch to the previous and next tiles in sequence
    • 2nd to set down a tile
    • DEL to delete a tile (same as pressing 2nd when the blank tile is selected)
    • ENTER to save
    • CLEAR to quit

This is all much more complicated than it really is; you can see an actual screenshot of the level editor in a previous post. If you create a level pack you're particularly proud of, email it to me to showcase it in an upcoming gallery!

Maximum Security is. (There's already a demo here for those interested, but in any case I don't expect the final game to take more than a few days!)

It's been a while since I've posted an update on an actual calculator game (and to be honest, it's been a while since I've worked on one). Well, thanks to a combination of (unfortunate?) events, I'm back to calculator game design for the summer!

First item of business: Maximum Security, the new, haphazardly awesome puzzle platformer I started working on after Fruit Ninja was finally released. I've posted screenshots of it before, and though there hasn't been any updates on the actual game engine (which is basically complete anyway), here's are some new updates on the progress of the rest of the program.

As you can see above, the menu as described in the mockup in the previous post is completely implemented. Apparently I've never gotten around to posting screenshots of the level editor, so here they are, from a year ago.

Expect the game to be released soon—all that's left is to clean up the level editor, create some default levels, and publish! I'm really glad I picked up this project again; it feels great to finish things.

I have decided to at least make an attempt at a Legend of Zelda reboot, since my Star Trek project was a bit too involved, but I don't entirely want to shave off the concept of a playable game. I feel like my assembly abilities have increased, so I should be able to get a decent amount of this game done. That being said, if anyone with some spare time and some assembly experience is able to code graphics, movement, and AI, please feel free to comment this post and ask me for access to the repository on Bitbucket. Anyone who contributes will be listed as a co-author.

One of the features I've considered for this game for about halfway through the game, to resemble a spread of evil, the graphics to slowly darken until the screen is entirely black, requiring the use of magic to light the area around you.

Many of you Linux/Mac gurus out there may be familiar with what file integrity software is. For those of you who aren't, file integrity software works by saving data on various attributes of files, and then periodically rechecking it. Any changes to those attributes could be a sign that they have been tampered with by someone.

As the TI calculator becomes more advanced (including recent improvements in the CALCnet 2.2 application, by Kerm Martian), the likelihood may increase that tech-savvy users may find a way to get malware onto your calculator.

Calculator malware ranges in severity from a simple prank to display rude text on your screen to a program that can destroy the screen, corrupt the operating software, and brick the calculator (term meaning "render permanently unusable, software-wise").

TI-IDS is a new software project that aims to bring file integrity checks to your calculator. The software will, the first time it is run, create a database of hashes for every potential executable on your device (applications, application variables, programs, and the OS and certificate [for advanced users]). You can update this database at any time. You can also scan the files on your calculator. New files not in the database, as well as files whose hashes have changed will be returned as "problematic" when the check completes.

Many "anti-virus" programs exist on the forums at ticalc.org, but most of them are either "for fun" programs that do nothing, or simply scan by name, but not by content. This aims to be the first TI calculator program that actually has a content scan.

This program is DoorsCS compatible. Version 7.0 or later required.
Version 1.0 goals: manual database updating, manual calc scanning for file integrity issues.
Version 1.1 goals: automated database updating, via RunProg integration (see DCS7 manual), OFFSCRPT. Detecting programs with mal-opcodes.

Some of you noticed that there had been significant downtime last month. Our apologies—the free host used by ClrHome had implemented a new daily usage cap, and it turns out that some of our heavier webapps (IES and ORG in particular) tend to be a bit CPU-intensive when they're compiling. (This only affects the server, not your computer.)

In any case, we've moved ClrHome to a paid hosting plan (finally!). It's been getting close to 100% uptime in the month since we've been here, which is great. For the curious, http://mon.clrhome.org has full uptime stats and downtime logs for all the servers we use (current server at the top). If you'd like to help with the cost of hosting or to support the projects we create, we also have a PayPal account now:

And it's been another big one!

In projects, there were some small utilities released this year, which you can check out here; in addition, we're actively working on some new games that might be interesting. There's Star Trek, back in development courtesy of ACagliano and Sorunome, as well as Maximum Security, a new—well, you'll see.

On the site, we introduced a brand-new webapp called IES that lets you write code, draw images, and manage lists and matrices for your calculator projects online. We also made improvements to several existing ones, like adding autocomplete to the ORG assembly IDE and sprite image generation to Pixelscape. Many new features and a new online resource or two are planned for next year—keep an eye on the Resources page or subscribe to our RSS feed for updates!

On the official side of things, this has been the year that several new calculators have been released. Interesting ones.

Happy New Year to all of you us at ClrHome!

The Pixelscape project has received a few new updates in time for the new year! In particular, more support for exporting sprites as images and text has been added after a request was made for the feature. (As always, if you have an idea for any of our projects, feel free to shoot us an email or tell us via our contact form.)

While editing sprites on Pixelscape, there's now a new button next to Export on the bottom row labeled "Sprite." Clicking will bring up a dialog that lets you export the sprite you're currently editing in one of two ways:

	░░  ░░ ░▓▓░░▓▓░ ░▓█▓▓█▓░ ░▓████▓░  ░████░  ░▓██▓░   ░▓▓░    ░░

• Direct sprite images. You can instantly generate a URL to the current sprite as an image, so you can embed it in posts, pages—anywhere you want! Scaling and image format can both be customized. (The images above (on the left) were generated at 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 scale.)
• Unicode sprites. The idea here is that some places (such as text forums) may not allow you to include images in posts. Instead, you can use this new feature to copy-and-paste the sprite as a sequence of Unicode block characters that look like the sprite! On the right above is such a Unicode sprite (in reverse) of the images on the left.

Both features work for monochrome sprites as well as sprites with three and four levels of gray. If you have any comments or suggestions, please leave your feedback below!

Here we are again with some more updates on progress for Star Trek Multiplayer.

First things first: the project page at http://clrhome.org/startrek has been given a makeover. This makeover consists of an improved design, more concise information, and an overhauled downloads page.

The actual game has been coming along smoothly. While we still cannot project a completion date, many major features have been completed. All that remains to do is graphics, movement, and the battle engine. In addition, I have decided that the automatic update feature will be abandoned, and replaced by a simple window saying: An update is available. Check out http://clrhome.org/startrek to download.

Additionally, I will, when done, release the source code to a programmer who develops for the TI-84+ Color Screen edition, so that this game may be released in color for that platform.

Stay tuned for more updates.

There has been a slight revision to the intended release schedule for Star Trek Multiplayer. After discussing the practicality of it, Sorunome and I have agreed that it is viable to release a first alpha version of this program in the near future.

This alpha version will contain only a functional automatic-updating system--a system by which the program will automatically download and install later versions of the game onto your calculator with no additional action from you.

It is my hope that this system will encourage people to use my game, and make it easy for them to install future pre-releases, betas, and official versions of the program onto their calculator. Understandably, it is tedious for a developer to offer perhaps ten or twenty pre-releases and keep asking users to update, considering the process associated with that. With my automatic update feature, you no longer need to go through that. Just click on "Update" when prompted and you need do nothing else.

Stay tuned for the first alpha release to be uploaded.

Progress on Star Trek comes slowly, but surely. Coding is already done on a good portion of the client side program, and a list of message types and configurations for packets the server sends and receives has been prepared and uploaded to me and Sorunome's shared project directory.

Some screenshots for the program are below.

Additionally, I will be implementing an automatic update function in the game. Every time your calculator connects to our server, it will silently check for what the latest version we have posted is of the calculator-side program. If our version is newer than yours, you will be given the option to update the program, right from your calculator, right there. No downloading the game, transferring it yourself. All automatic. Of course, all updates will be made available for manual download on the project page as well, for those who don't already have the game on their devices.


The screenshot of the splash screen for Star Trek MP.


The screenshot of the program icon for Star Trek MP.

Star Trek Project Page
http://clrhome.org/startrek

Many of you probably thought this project was dead. Well, psyke. It is alive and well.

Star Trek's entire conceptual design has been given a complete overhaul. Sure, the game will still run as you would expect. But, under the hood, something a whole lot different will be going on.

Instead of having each individual unit do all of its updating and incrementing, then sending transmissions to every single calculator on the network, which would require finding enormous amounts of memory to store usernames and calculator ID's (similar to an IP address, but utilized by CALCnet to identify a calculator), I have decided to put most of this processing on the server. Every calculator communicates only with the server, not with another unit. The server handles figuring out what data it should respond with, or what to do with the transmission.

To exemplify this, assume that I have sent off a message to the server, asking for the other objects around me on the server. The server, in turn, responds with only the objects in my sector (immediate area). This includes terrain. This prevents the calculator from becoming overloaded with all that data for objects so far away I really don't need info on them.

On the visible side, there are some notable new features planned. First and foremost is existence of user accounts. Each player must have an account in order to join the server, for the purpose of storing save files. Players can log in, register, and change their username and password from right on their calculator. Additionally, instead of holding game saves in an appvar on your calculator, save files are kept on the server, associated with your account. When you join the server, your save file gets downloaded to your calculator. When you disconnect, your calculator uploads the most recent save data back onto the server. This is another attempt of mine to minimize the memory used by this game.

Last but not least, welcome to the dev team Sorunome, and thanks a million for your assistance with this project. :)

The image here is a mockup of the title screen to the upcoming game Maximum Security. As with a lot of other things in the game, the highlight around START will be another unnecessary animation in the actual program, which I'm working on now. This idea got big fast—it was originally meant to be a quick little project to prove I'm still alive, and here we are a year later!

As promised, here's a screenshot of MaxSec. (Don't you just love CamelCase?) It's not entirely new (having been taken two weeks ago), but it's certainly an update on the last one.

Since there's a lot going on in this screenshot, here's a quick run-through of the things that the player encounters in traversing the demo level:

• Water starts pouring into the upper part of the level.
• Turret (aimed at the player) launches a bullet.
  • Bullet strikes a boulder and bounces off.
  • Bullet strikes a dynamite crate, which triggers a chain reaction, clearing the level.
  • Water from upper part of level can now flow down the new corridor.
• Player pushes boulder onto turret so it's safe to walk by.
• Player collects coins, opening the exit door (which changes visibly).
• As player is underwater, his breath count (white "health" bar on the right) drops bit by bit. (Kinda proud of that bubble animation myself.)
• As water covers the entire map, it leaves some air pockets which player uses to replenish his breath count.

The water behaves a bit oddly in this level, but anything I try to fix the water algorithm seems to leave me with a fantastic RAM clear. I'll probably just design levels in a way that it doesn't look quite as odd, or call it something other than water. Why not acid?

So here it is—our latest major project. More screenshots are yet to come as the remaining parts of the project get finished!

Before we get any further, here's the download link. (It's a multipurpose unit converter, in case you didn't get the hint.)

Look, I know there are tons of helpful little programs on ticalc.org, and many of them do exactly the same thing. I realize that unit converters are a lot like the many other types math/science utilities swamping ticalc.org. Just like quadratic solvers, these things have so burdened the famous calculator file archive that there's a whole category dedicated to them, all in TI-BASIC and all for the TI-83/84 Plus series. (For the record, I have a quadratic solver there too—click if you dare.)

But this one is hopefully different. It was made to pack as much stuff in as small a package as possible, so here's a single, 2,977-byte program that has 132 units spanning 15 different categories:

Length Area Capacity/volume Mass Speed

Pressure Energy Power Force Temperature

Charge Current Radiation Time Angle

Thanks to math, I can claim this program supports 1,170 different conversion functions in less than 3 KB. And there you have it—yet another unit converter to grace the halls of ticalc.org.

If you've seen any list of the games I've worked on, you know that what I really love making are puzzle platformers. They're even more fun to make in Axe, where there's plenty of speed available for a nice physics engine.

Well, despite the Contra project still being in a sort of limbo state, we announced a new game tentatively called "Turret" back in January. It would be the dogpile of all that's fun to work with in a platformer, with features such as water levels, dynamite, and movable boulders. And turrets—lots of them, and lots of bullets to come with them.

But "Turret" was just a working title, and it didn't come with a decent storyline. Thanks to codebender on Omnimaga, however, the game now has both a real title and a real story!

Trapped in a maximum-security prison against your will and without knowing why, your fate is changed by an explosion that rips open your cell. All of the guards and other inmates have mysteriously disappeared, leaving you alone to find your way out of the compound.

Passing through room by room, your journey is fraught with dangerous equipment and materials once meant to keep prisoners in check. You must navigate around vaporizing laser arcs, falling stacks of boulders, exploding crates of dynamite, gun turrets that track your movements, and dangerous liquids pouring through the walls and threatening to drown you.

There are no weapons or tools at your disposal. All you have is your own ingenuity; use it to manipulate the hazardous equipment in each level to serve your own ends, to help you escape. Find your way through the corridors and discover what happened to the compound—and why you were taken there in the first place.

Fresh animated screenshots of Maximum Security are coming soon!

While BBCode may be one of the most popular languages for forum post authoring, not everyone posts their code on forums. Since HTML is a much more widely used markup language for the web (and BBCode compiles to HTML anyway), making the BBify'r prettify your code as HTML has been one thing I've been planning to do for a while.

The feature has finally been added: the BBify'r project, which was first announced two years ago as a webapp to syntax-color your calculator code to as BBCode so you can paste it in a forum, now generates HTML (and a live preview!) so you can paste it anywhere else. It works with all the languages the BBify'r has always worked with. Z80 assembly, Axe, TI-BASIC, and Lua are there by default, but you can always easily create your own language rules using the BBify Builder tool (which I apparently forgot to post a news about).

The only problem now is that the name of the webapp no longer means anything. It's not just BBCode anymore!