Code Sketching with Sketchpad.cc

So I've always been a little obsessed with "sketching" with code, ever since I learned to program in BASIC. Over the years there have been many tools come and gone which let me quickly bang out a simple (visual) idea. None of them have ever been "the one", though they've each had their pros and cons.

Lately I've been noodling around with Sketchpad.cc — basically Processing.js plus a simple online editor and gallery front-end.

There are always different metrics for what the "right" sketching tool is, but two that commonly rise up for me are:

1. Easy to start a new project.
2. Super ridiculously easy to share sketches.

While Processing.js may not be the most performance-capable sketching environment (in fact, it's terrible!), and the online editor at Sketchpad.cc may be slow and clunky and feature-poor... In those two criteria it blows pretty much everything else away.

The reason those two metrics matter so much is because they are the main obstacles between me actually making something and you actually seeing it. So in the end they carry a lot of weight!

There's probably some kind of lesson here about tool design, but I'll leave that to you.

Also, check out my gallery there. Just a few sketches, but hey, it's more than zero!

One-Week Projects

Starting September 10th, I've begun a series of one-week game projects. I've shipped two so far (Super Offroad Remake and Cube Folder) and, though I've gotten quite distracted this week, don't have any intention of slowing down.

Eight games total is my goal.

So what's the deal, anyways?

It turns out my motivations are legion; making these prototypes is just exactly the thing I need to be doing right now:

• The last project I was working on of my own design was incredibly ambitious. And so was the one before that. And one in the middle (Zombie Minesweeper) was supposed to be small, but blew out of proportion anyways. I want to get better and being concise in my design. So doing a series of small games seems like a good way to practice this.
• Due to the same events, I haven't actually shipped anything since last summer, when Zombie Minesweeper went out the door. I want to ship something again. Even if that something is really small, I'd just rather be active and prolific at this stage, as far as the rest of the world is concerned!
• I have opportunities coming in from all directions for projects, contracts, partnerships, and so on, but nothing is on my plate today. I spent a few weeks sitting around weighing options at the beginning of summer, and I look back on that with regret. So right now, I want to remain productive while being flexible while I wait for pieces of life to fall into place.
• It's always been my experience that great concepts are discovered, not invented. You really don't know if a game design is fun until it's in the flesh. Everyone talks about prototyping, but I so so so so rarely see this happening around me. So I want to prototype ideas and choose the strong candidates. I have no qualms with abandoning something that I've spent only a week on, and at the end of this I can continue work on the strongest idea, knowing that — at the least — it's stronger than 7 other ideas I could have been working on.

All Protoland Waits

Unfortunately I'm kind of off the rails already; this week, which should have been game #3, has turned to working on Zombie Minesweeper for Android. That's something I really need to get done too, and I fully intend to get back into gear next week, but for now, zombies await!

Bubble Chamber

Today one of my friends sent me this image, mentioning that he'd like to try to simulate it, and knows that I've done similar things. He was looking for some tips, but he ended up getting a Processing sketch from me instead.

I spent about 35 minutes on this all together; I was challenging myself to create a reasonable approximation of the reference image as quickly and simply as possible. There are definitely details in the source image that are not captured in this version (such as the "concentric" trails around the center, the seeming alternating attraction and repulsion, etc.), but at a quick glance, the similarities are undeniable.

Experiment successful.

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Cactusfruit

Sometimes it's fantastic when it's still, sometimes it's fantastic when it's moving. I appreciate this one for how it will start looking the same, and then suprise me with something different.

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Zoetrope Matchstickmen

This one was inspired by zoetropes, and also chinese characters.

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CA: Cave Spores

Wanted to get back into Processing, so I threw this together over an afternoon (took a lot longer than it should have.. blah.

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