mister Superb

One.com and html5 boilerplate

2012-04-18T20:28:41Z

Trouble setting up the terrific html5 boilerplate on your one.com webspace?

comment these lines out in your .htaccess file:

Options -Indexes

Options +FollowSymlinks

This ruins a great amount of the rewrite functionality of the boilerplate, so keep that in mind if you’re deploying on a one.com account.

AC Recollection

2012-03-09T08:35:39Z

Assassin’s Creed

Not that long ago my old colleague Filip told me about a game called Assassin’s Creed (1) and got me hooked on a franchise that would set the standard for all of my future gaming experiences on console and pc! Ever since that day I have bought every major AC release from 1 tot AC:R and I am obiously looking forward to AC 3 which should come out in October this year. (Taking place during the American Revolution, judging from the early cover releases!)

Assassin’s Creed Recollection

This is something totally different from the acclaimed action-adventure stealth video games although it does take place in the same universe as the games, comics, movies, cartoons and so on.

In a nutshell, it’s a digital Collectible Card Game (CCG) or Trading Card Game (TCG) on iPad, which allows player to battle each other using agents, spells and terrains for control of certain areas using their own strategies and techniques, very similar to other famous CCG’s like Magic The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, Legend of the Five Rings, …

According to Luc Duchaine, producer of the game, it is a way for Ubi to bring AC to the iPad (iPhone and Ipod version coming soon) so players can learn more about the universe, watch new artwork, get more involved and so on. He goes on praising the iPad and tries to compare AC with it which to me sounds like a lot of marketing rubbish to make up for the fact that this game does not run on Android. But being somewhat of a mobile developer myself, I can understand why it isn’t.

EDIT: iPhone and iPod Touch version now available!

Gameplay

Obviously, gameplaywise this isn’t your regular AC game, there is no stabbing, jumping, climbing, killing or any live animated action whatsoever so undoubtedly many people will not like this type of game and label it as ‘dull’, and that’s OK. (If you are one of those people, you should probably stop reading now…)

But if you’re still here and you’re really into the AC universe, you might want to try something a little more strategic and if you don’t mind the ‘no-action’ part, it’s sure is worth a try!

For the people out there, who love games like Magic or any CCG for that matter, this is just amazing! It’s got all the things you would expect from a CCG: a great variety of possibilities regarding strategy, a solid set of rules, 288 different cards in the first expansion (Renaissance), color factions and much more.

The big difference is, it’s totally digital, and it’s done incredibly well, like one would expect from an AC game! The UI is great and works like a charm! I went trough the included tutorial once and everything became obvious in an instant. If you played CCGs before, you will hit the ground running with this game! It’s the type of game that’s all about strategy and deck (or sequence) building guided by a wonderful backstory and tons of amazing artwork.

The Cards

Like most CCG’s you need to buy booster packs to get more cards. You can buy the cards from the in-app store provided with the game. You can either use credits you obtained while playing the game or you can buy them using your apple account in the in-app store. Depending on what package you buy, an Assassin’s booster pack costs around €1.2 or $1.5.

Ubi is currently working on an ‘auction house’ -feature to let players trade and sell cards among themselves but for now you’ll have to hope for the best when buying boosters.

There are 2 main types of cards, Templars and Assassins. Strangely enough, the Assassin-cards cost 9 times as much as the Templar-cards, but they’re rarely 9 times better, although there surely is a difference. I find the Assassin-cards more focused on certain strategies than the Templars are, therefor a complete Assassin sequence should perform much better than a Templar one. In most cases players mix both groups together to form their sequence but I expect that to change when the auction house opens.

Factions

Besides the two main groups, the cards are divided into 6 more factions, each with it’s own color as can be seen above. The factions are:

Unlike Magic, you can only use 2 factions + ‘Golden’ to build your sequence so keep that in mind while figuring out your strategy. Every faction has it’s own specific characteristics, making them suitable for certain types of gameplay. One thing to remember is that a powerful sequence does not rely on a few cards but on the combination of your entire deck. You need at least 50 cards to make a sequence and you can use 5 copies of the same card per deck. You can build as much sequences as you like, using the same cards across different decks.

Getting the game

You can find the game in the App Store for a very reasonable price, by the time I got it, they allready priced it down to €0.79 or $0.99 which is just ridiculous if you consider the amount of work that went into it and the hours of gametime you can get out of it. Buy now and face me on the sands, if you dare!

EDIT: The game is now FREE to download so what are you waiting for?

Some screens

Video

Click here to view the embedded video.

Links

Assassin’s Creed Recollection Homepage

Gameplay video (youtube)

Assassin’s Creed Wiki

www.ubi.com

Join the conversation on the ubisoft forum
Join the conversation on the unofficial forum

Jodecor

2012-02-20T09:36:52Z

Jodecor is een bedrijf uit Marke dat zich toespitst op interieur vormgeving: schilderwerken, renovatiewerken, raamdecoratie en vloerbekleding.

Jodecor stelt dialoog en kwaliteit voorop. Dankzij de jarenlange ervaring kan u rekenen op een eerlijk en vakkundig advies.

Wij ontwierpen en ontwikkelden de nieuwe website en een html alternatief voor mobiele gebruikers.

Neem zeker een kijkje op http://www.jodecor.be

A-Frame Architectuur

2011-04-19T20:33:48Z

Ik ontwierp en ontwikkelde de nieuwe website voor architectenbureau a-Frame te Gent. Een jong maar ervaren team van architecten dat fantastisch werk levert!

Ik citeer:

Nieuwe uitdagingen bekijken we met nieuwsgierigheid en openheid. Hierbij vertrouwen we op een vaste stylistische vormentaal. Architecturale Expressie is het resultaat van een dialoog tussen ontwerp, functies en de gebouwde omegeving…

Bezoek alvast de website!

http://www.a-frame.be

Whisky Festival Gent 2011

2011-02-15T12:39:13Z

Last year I went to the Whisky Festival for the first time, this year I had to go back for more! It’s a great opportunity to discover new names and flavours and to learn more about the drinks themselves. The biggest difference with last year was the fact that you couldn’t taste anything for free anymore, every glass had to be payed for with ‘drams’, the festival currency. At first I found this a bit strange, specially because you pay 25€ just to enter the conference, (you do get a glass and 3 drams for it but still). On the other hand, the festival is becoming more successful which means more people are attending and off course tasting. I can imagine giving away so much whisky isn’t really profitable for the resellers so that’s probably why they upped the prices. The good thing about this is that you go looking around for the things you would really like to taste instead of just filling up your glass at every stand and drinking away.

Another thing I’ve noticed, even more than last year, was the fact that you don’t really get taken seriously if you’re below the age of 30 like me. People assume you’re just there to get smashed and don’t really talk or pay attention to you, so the trick is to go about and listen to the stories the seller’s are telling the old chaps and pick up some of that.

All in all I had a splendid time and will probably go back next year!

F.A.C.T.S. 2010

2010-10-25T12:12:40Z

Vandaag en morgen loopt in Flanders expo in Gent de jaarlijkse F.A.C.T.S. comic beurs. Het is ondertussen de 20ste editie en dat zullen we geweten hebben. Voorgaande edities vonden plaats in het I.C.C. maar dit jaar zijn er dus 3 hallen in de expo.

Wat direct opvalt is dat er dit jaar veel aandacht besteed werd aan games en consoles, iets wat vroeger minder of niet het geval was. De grote namen zijn aanwezig met al even grote standen waaronder Nintendo, Playstation, XBox, Ubisoft, …

Na de games, komen de collectibles en de merchandising. Kledij, wapens, T-shirts, pins, maskers, action-figures, card-games, foto’s, posters, schilderijen, prints, bustes, standbeelden, speelgoed, helmen, gezelschapspelen en ga zo maar verder. Het valt op dat er vooral veel nieuwe Franse standen zijn en dus ook veel meer Franstalige bezoekers dan vorige jaren.

De laatste hal, de belangrijkste, is die met de comics en eerlijk gezegd mochten er wel wat meer standen geweest zijn. Er waren 3 grote standen met mainstream-comics, veel manga, maar graphic novels zijn er nauwelijks te vinden, als je goed zoekt vind je wel enkele pareltjes maar het genre lijkt een grote afwezige op deze beurs.

Mijn aanrader voor deze beurs is het debut van Serge Buyse, zijnde Adventures in Cult City. Go get it!

Berlin Calling

2010-10-25T12:12:00Z

We went on a 5 day trip to Berlin some time ago and here are some things we found out:

If you are planning to go to Berlin, try and find a hotel or place to stay at the East side of the city because that’s where all the good stuff is at.
Use the underground to get from one place to another or your feet will kill you by the end of the day.
If you like street-art and graffiti, definitly visit Mitte and Kreuzberg, maybe even take the ‘alternative tour’ with superguide Taylor, it’s well worth the money and it takes you to places you wouldn’t think of visiting by yourself. New European Tours
Comic shops are hard to find in Berlin. There are 2 shops both called ‘Modern Graphics’, one small, one bigger but they were kind of a disappointment to me due to the lack of English books. Yes, they even ‘dub’ comics, like the television wasn’t enough. More about that later…
Both shops offer different types of comics but mainly manga, indi stuff and German dubbed mainstream comics. The big shop had a lot of figurines and merchandising too which is nice but not what I was looking for. Anyway, on with the list…
If you want to buy a really cool and original card or gift for your friends or family, go to Tacheles in the Oranjien Stra§e, go up to the 4th or 5th floor and visit the shops of the people living there.
Go and have breakfast in the city instead of the hotel, you’ll be sure to find many places where you can have a cosy first meal of the day.
Take a walk in one of the many parks and maybe even visit the Zoo (zoölogischen garten).
Shops open and close pretty late, so you don’t have to get up early if you want to go on a shopping spree.
The guys in green with the hats are cops, not zookeepers…
You can rent bikes almost everywhere which is great if you don’t need a map to find your way.
The bus is slow, the subway (U-Bahn) is much faster.
If you go to club KitKat, know that their dress code only allows 3 possible outfits: 1. Uniform / 2. Fetish-clothes / 3. no clothes.
Free wifi is very expensive in hotel Agon Opera. Also most of the hotspots in the city are provided by T-Mobile or Swisscom and they charge 8€ for 60 minutes or 13€ for 24 hours of precious access.
Don’t go to Mr. Hai & friends for cocktails. Although the people are friendly, the drinks are quite the disappointment.
Berlin has the greatest percentage of Turkish people of all cities in Europe (accept Turkey), so just like in my town they do park in the middle of the street and find this very normal.
The Jewish museum is an impressive building which mainly reflects how much money, power and influence the Jews really have. Just look at the list of companies who contributed to the project and you’ll know enough. Also notice they use iPods as audio commenting systems and Sennheisers HD25s at all 50+ computer booth’s.
Don’t watch german television, every channel accept CNN world news is in German. I’m still trying to erase Joey Tribiani saying “Heeeey, wie gehts” from my mind. They even did it to South Park…
Sausages are indeed breakfast, diner and lunch in some German homes!
When a guy in a suit whispers “entshuldigung” in your ear while you’re on one of those automatic staircases he means: “get the f*** out of my way, you f***ing tourist”.
Parties start between 11pm and 1am and can last for days…
The traffic lights for pedestrians switch back to red so fast, it’s impossible to make it to other side of the road in time.
The closest thing to a night shop we’ve found was a video center that stayed open really late.
Watch out for scientologists! They’re selling L. Ron Hubbard books at street corners…
The Berlin Music festival was a very bad organized event and it’s a shame we spent money on it. The location was terrific, the bands should’ve been great but we didn’t see much of them because the police closed off half of the party grounds because they were affraid of a second love parade… Sad!

Berlin is a great city, definitely worth a visit! Here are some pictures we took:

Hanne De Brabander

2010-06-27T18:58:36Z

Hanne De Brabander (a.k.a. Misses Superb) is een jonge illustrator/vormgever woonachtig te Gent. Ze ontwierp haar eigen portfolio website en ik stak hem in elkaar. Je kan haar werk bekijken op http://www.hannedebrabander.be

AS3 decimalen afronden

2010-05-22T18:23:17Z

Misschien nuttig voor de AS3 developers onder ons, afronden van decimalen tot een bepaald niveau:

private function roundTo(number:Number, depth:int):Number { return Math.round(number*Math.pow(10, depth))/Math.pow(10, depth); }

dus:

var i:Number = 0.123456789;


var rounded:Number = roundTo(i, 2);// outputs 0.12

Texas Instruments

2010-05-19T09:16:38Z

Onlangs was ik op zoek naar een pci firewire kaart, specifiek ééntje met een Texas Instruments chipset. Aangezien het blijkbaar niet zo evident was om zo’n ding te vinden, schakelde ik mijn Twitter account in om mensen om hulp te vragen. Tot mijn grote verbazing kreeg ik enkele uren later dit bericht van TXi zelf:

Bij Texas Instruments weten ze dus hoe ze social media correct moeten gebruiken, nice! Een ideaal voorbeeld van de mogelijkheden van social media voor een bedrijf.

Ik antwoordde dat ik nog niets gevonden had en of ze me eventueel konden doorverwijzen naar een online shop waar de kaarten te vinden waren.

2 dagen later kreeg ik opnieuw een bericht:

Sweet! Na het doorgeven van mijn coördinaten kreeg ik een uitgebreide mail van Claire van Texas Instruments met verschillende links naar verschillende shops waar ik het betreffende stuk hardware kon aanschaffen. Fantastisch! Dit laat niet alleen een positieve indruk na maar zal ook mijn keuze bij een volgende aankoop sterk beïnvloeden. Thx again Claire and keep up the good work TXi!

http://www.ti.com/