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Last week’s Adobe AIR Camp in Zurich was interesting, challenging, fun and exhausting at the same time: After a short introduction of Serge Jespers and Mike Downey about the new features that AIR has to offer and how to create applications with the various tools, everyone was up to develop the coolest AIR App within 24 hours.
I, for my part, tried to create a multi player game, that would connect to a Milgra based Java server. Turns out, it wasn’t the best idea to start developing my first Java application during a contest… So, sadly, when judgement minute came after 24 hours of coding, consuming engery drinks and no sleep at all I didn’t have much to show :(

At least, after a few days on the couch trying to recover from the camp, I was able to write a few lines on the Liip blog expressing a critical view on AIR’s potential.

And since I assume, winning is overrated anyway, I’ll just finish up that game in the next months and simply pretend I won that ultra smooth, super light and shiny MacBook Air … oh, crud, that’s not the same!

While everybody else seems occupied digesting the fun they had attending Flash in a Can in Amsterdam - why, WHY did I miss it? - I’m trying to mentally ready myself for tomorrow’s Air Camp in Zurich.

Since the workshop is being followed by a 24h contest in building the coolest Air application, we’ve been racking our brains to find ideas for suiting programs we could enter with. While my buddy Sandro still seems unsatisfied with his options, I’ve given up thinking and decided for a small desktop game thing. Don’t wanna go into detail too much, right now, but it seems I’m gonna be using Milgra to implement multiuser interaction.

Milgra is a small lightweight open source java server that I recently stumbled upon. So far it has only reached version 0.5 but that one already comes with a good bunch of needfull features and handy examples on how to use it right away. It seems quite easy to setup and use for as little as I’m gonna be needing. Red5, on the contrary, seems way to heavy for my needs.

Can’t wait to dig into this and develop my first multiplayer game *shiny eyes*

Sometimes it seems unbelievable how time flies. It’s been a week already since we had to call off our second devjam, since Wolli caught the flews. So we’ll have to delay the work on our new game.

But my own game, that I decided to call “BubbleMath”, advanced pretty well during the last weeks and I put some extra attention to the engine that’s behind the game: I added a ScreenController and AbstractScreens, which allow building static menus easily. I hope to be able to post a first screenshot soon. Right now, I’ll have to work on a quick slideshow player for my parents big birthday this weekend. Pew!

In other news… I got an invitation to the Adobe AIRcamp, Switzerland, which takes place in Zurich on 28th and 29th of February, and signed up right away. Besides a six hour AIR workshop the free event includes a 24 hour contest in developing an AIR application. The best program does not only win a Macbook but will also be promoted at this year’s best of swiss web awards in March. Only one thing left to say: Wheeee! :)

So, time to practice my Flex skills, which reminds me: my Liip colleague Sandro and I will be giving speeches about two ActionScript 3 workflow approaches at the Swiss Flash user group meeting in Zurich next Monday. One will consider the basic workflow setup with FDT and one will be about our recently evolved Flex template approach. So if you’re around and interested, sign up today! :)