Team Blog

Back around 2000, when I switched from dial-up internet to an "always on" connection, I felt a massive sense of liberation. Not because I was able to transfer more data, but because I was no longer worrying about every minute I spent connected.

Last week I switched my mobile phone service provider, partly because the plan I was on was quite expensive (since I don't make a lot of voice calls), but also because the GPRS data I used was charged by the megabyte. That's right, every time I did an email collection, or even a Google or Wikipedia lookup, I was thinking about how much it would cost, and that was limiting in just the same way. I switched to a contract with less voice minutes included, but with unlimited (within reason) data.

The liberation is remarkable - freedom to just check on something or look things up without worrying about the number of bytes I might be transferring. I even spent a few minutes when visiting my parents showing them Google Maps on my Treo 680, showing them an aerial view of where we were.

I'm not expecting to change what I use my Treo for - I'll still use my laptop for most of my work and email, but now as well as being a little window onto my data, my Treo is a little window onto the internet too - and without me having to worry about using it!

We haven't all gone mad, we're celebrating Towel Day.

On this day, fans all around the globe celebrate the life and works of the hoopy frood Douglas Adams by carrying around a towel.

"Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

Here in the Astraware offices we are mostly harmless, but we all know where our towels are (even if a few of those places are variations on "at home on the kitchen counter, waiting for me to pick it up")! Even Wiki Monkey and the Chuzzles are getting in on the fun!

I was also pleased to be able to park in an appropriately numbered parking space this morning!

Howard's towel - as you can see - is a bit on the threadbare side. He claims it still has nutritional value, and also works to defend him against the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal...

If you still think we've gone mad, you really need to read Douglas Adams trilogy in five books - the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - and then you may feel the urge to join in next year!

I've recently returned from a whistle-stop tour of the Far East with our friends from UK Trade & Investment and my first stop is Seoul in South Korea, so I thought that I'd take this opportunity to share with you some of my observations on the place, the people and last, but certainly not least, the technology.

I arrived mid-afternoon at Incheon International Airport, the largest airport in South Korea, and one of the largest and most technologically advanced airports in Asia. If you'd like to know more about the airport you can read about it in detail here. My initial trepidation (brought on by too much internet research prior to departing from the UK) was completely unfounded, as I found the staff to not only be incredibly polite and helpful but also their command of the English language was incredibly good. This proved to be the case throughout the whole of my stay, in fact from all my travels around the world I believe the South Korean people to be the most helpful and genuinely friendly people I have ever had the pleasure to meet.

Anyway, back to my travels. After a two taxi ride to the centre of Seoul, I found myself comfortably settled in at the Intercontinental Hotel which afforded me a fantastic view of the Olympic Stadium (built for the Summer Olympics in 1988) and the beautiful 'World Trade Tower'. At 748 feet, it is one of the tallest buildings in South Korea, and it stands above one of the coolest malls I have ever visited, the COEX Mall. The COEX Mall is the largest underground shopping and entertainment complex in Asia and the 1,280,988 sq ft of space includes a multiplex cinema, 65 food outlets, a full size aquarium, eight water-themed shopping areas and a full convention centre!

The most amazing part about the COEX complex is that directly across from it you will find one of the city's best kept secrets, the Pongun-sa Temple (pictured above). I was surprised that a temple of this size could be located in this busy, ultra-modern part of Seoul. However, the temple has a rich history that dates back to the early days of Buddhism in Korea and one that has survived both the ravages of time and war. Established in 794 during the Silla Kingdom, the temple was originally called Kyonsong-sa which literally means "seeing true nature". Although the temple fell into decline during the late Koryo era, it was reconstructed in 1498 under the patronage of a Choson Kingdom queen who renamed it Pongun-sa, or "offering benefit". With its impressive historical background and its unlikely location in urban Seoul, Pongun-sa is a holy place for worship and practice for more than 200,000 lay Buddhists. It also remains a beautiful, interesting and comfortable cultural centre for Koreans, as well as foreign residents and visitors to Korea who have been fortunate enough to discover it.

So, "What about the technology?" I hear you ask! Well, I was quite frankly amazed. Over 75% of the population in South Korea have access to high-speed broadband (via cable modem, ADSL, VDSL (Very high data rate DSL), FttH (Fibre-to-the-Home), BPL (Broadband over Powerline), WLAN, WiFi, B-WLL (Broadband Wireless Local Loop), or broadband via satellite). Many of these services have speeds in excess of 24 megabits per second, and have succeeded in driving not only the uptake of VoD (Video on Demand) but also the huge subscription numbers of massively multi player online role playing games. The biggest of these is World of Warcraft and it's such an important part of the average Korean's daily life that most shopping areas have at least one PC Bang! (Internet Café) that specialize in lunchtime and pre/post work/school WoW sessions. In fact the aforemention COEX Mall has three PC Bang! plus a dedicated WoW area of the MegaBox Multiplex.

The cross-gender, variable age group interest in gaming, whether it be PC, console, handheld or mobile, is refreshing in South Korea. This is a nation that doesn't treat gaming as a child/teen-only pursuit. It actually has a higher percentage of overall leisure time hours across all ages than TV and movies. This is also important for the future of mobile in Korea. Already ahead of most of the Asian nations in the technology stakes, and far in advance of any western nation, 3G, 3G+ and HSDPA already have a strong subscriber base, and with the recently launched KT WiBro (Mobile WiMax) service from Korea Telecom and Samsung, desktop broadband speeds are now available to mobile users (including downloading and playing Astraware games via their Samsung AnyCall Windows Mobile powered Smartphones) and with it, the joy of an always on mobile experience and digital TV via their mobile handsets.

So, as you can see, Korea both enchanted and excited me in equal measure. I encourage anyone who gets the chance to visit the Far East to ensure that they make the effort to visit one of the most fascinating, friendly and enlightening cities on the planet. Remember to come back and I'll share with you my thoughts on my next destination, Hong Kong.

It's not often that we scrub up and put on our black tie dinner jackets and our glamourous dresses, but last Friday a group of us headed to Birmingham's Think Tank at Millenium Point for the 2007 West Midlands International Trade Awards Dinner!

We were amongst many of central England's up and coming exporters including some well known companies in the region, all nominated for prizes from UK Trade & Investment. UKTI is a government organisation dedicated to helping business.

The reason we were there is that we take part in the UKTI's Passport to Export scheme, which is designed to help companies that are looking to expand into new international markets. It has allowed us to look at new business partners in the US, and also to go and investigate Australia and the Far East and see what prospects are there (John will be blogging soon about his recent trip to Korea). We were nominated for "West Midlands Passport Exporter of the Year"...

...and we won! Because we sell our wares on the internet we rarely think of ourselves as exporters (I call it painless export - you don't need couriers), which makes this award all the more exciting! The photo on the right is of Howard and I with Louise Barth who was our Passport to Export trade advisor.

With the release of my first game getting closer I thought I'd take some time out to tell you a little about how it all happened...

When I started working here, almost a year ago now, I joined as a web programmer with aspirations to become a games developer. In between adding and fixing things on the Astraware website I began to learn C/C++ from various books and slowly started delving into the Astraware framework. One of the examples I worked through was a simple card game, so I decided to try implementing something similar within the framework to see how well I was understanding everything. It was actually easier than I expected (even if I still forget the double equals in if statements sometimes ) and I soon had something running which resembled a card game. Howard spotted my attempts and I suddenly found myself working on my first real game!

The first task was to decide whether it was a feasible project, i.e. could we make our game better than all the others so that people would want to buy ours. I compiled a list of features we needed to include to be as good as our competitors and then added some suggestions to make ours even better. We had to make decisions on things like the number of games to include, how to make the cards feel tangible so that it plays more like a card game than a computer game, and how to make the game approachable for everyone. The user interface for the title screen went through a large number of variations until everyone was happy with the design.

One of the tasks I particularly enjoyed was choosing the solitaire games to include and working out how to create viable variations on each of them. The products which include hundreds of single player card games include a large number of simple variations on a theme, giving each a different name. Rather than presenting the user with such a list, I wanted to give a small number of games each with a number of customisation options. This allows you to play your favourite game exactly how you want to whilst providing the ability to play a large number of variations, without feeling swamped by a huge list of unfamiliar terms. Obviously there are the well known games like Klondike where you can vary the number of cards you turn over, and how many times you can deal through the stock pile but I soon realised there are only a few really well known games. I asked around the office and our beta testers for their favourite games which they would like to see included alongside those I'd already chosen and received a few suggestions. I played each game a number of times finding ways of adding options where players may want to adjust the game rules. A lot of games have known variations which I researched and included, with others I got to create my own!

The most challenging part of the development has been getting to grips with all of the different platforms and resolutions. Although, it was fun making the game switch from portrait to landscape with the piles of cards automatically spreading out! I've also enjoyed working with the beta testers whose feedback has really helped to spot bugs across the many variations of each game. This time last year I had never written more that a few lines of C/C++ or even seen a Palm device, yet here I am with a multi-platform game soon to be released!