Last Monday, I have started teaching a course in ActionScript 3 to teachers at the Grafisch Lyceum Rotterdam. It is a short course aiming to bring teachers of different faculties up to date with ActionScript3 and OO programming.
It is my first teaching assignment and so far, I liked it very well.

I have designed the course around making a small game, a vertical scroller / dodgem kind of game. Every lesson I will explain different programming subjects and have the ‘students’ apply them in building the game.

Tags: actionscript, Flash, Game, GLR, teaching

The serious game Sharkworld just came in as the big winner in the European Innovative Games Awards, both overall and in the category ‘Software innovation and Media Use’.
The game has also just won the Dutch Game Award in the category ‘Best Serious Game’ at the Game In The City event.
The game was developed by Ranj. Working at Ranj, I developed the pilot version of the game which laid the groundwork for the actual release.

Tags: Award, Game, News

The GRIP project which I coded for Ranj has just won a national medical innovation award, the Nationale Zorginnovatieprijs. Read about it here (in dutch).
The project was commisioned by the health agency, for Stichting Diabeter.

This is a followup to this post.

Tags: Award, Flash, Frontend, Game, News, Ranj

Yesterday, with Ranj I implemented the english version of the enterprise game. We must have programmed something right because implementation of the translation cost only a few hours!
A spanish and a german version are being planned for translation as well.

Tags: Backend, Flash, Game, Php/MySql, Ranj

The Hello You gameworld has won the Cinekid New Media Jury Award. Hello You was nominated alongside Rayman, Raving Rabbids (for the Wii) and the Lola & Polo Tour.
My contribution to Hello You consisted of a handful of minigames which you can play in this playful learning environment. Check my earlier posts to read more about it.

Tags: Award, Flash, Frontend, Game, News, Ranj

I just realized that mirrormouse.com is the 20th piece I did for Rafael Rozendaal! 20 pieces, 20 domains.
Here is an overview of the results of our fruitfully working together:

Tags: Flash, News, Rafael Rozendaal

I have just gone independent. I quit my job at Ranj, although I have always found working there very pleasant. My main reason was a wish for more freedom, both in relation to time as to the kind of projects and work.
In three weeks time (which I’ll be spending on holiday) I will be a 100% freelancer.
(I’ll miss the people at Ranj!)

Tags: News

At Ranj I am currently working on a couple of big projects.

The first is an educational game which teaches highschool kids all the facets of being an entrepeneur. It is a multiplayer strategy game for which I am currently devising a pretty heavy underlying business model. I love designing such datamodels every once in a while! It demands a lot of my AI and mathematical skills.
The game has AI computer opponents, a very dynamic world and will be highly extendable.

The second one is a narrative driven management game, also educational, called Sharkworld, which teaches project management skills. Last year I made a demo for this. See my earlier post. This one leans heavily on video, has a nifty conversation engine and some nice features like automated outgoing calls and text messages to your mobile to enhance immersion.

These projects will keep me well covered until the end of the summer… I hope I can squeeze in some minigames now and again to let off some steam!

Tags: News

Since the beginning of this month I am working as head of Ranj‘ technical department. This means I’ll be doing less coding from now on, and more managerial tasks and technical design.
I feel I really needed the change and I am looking forward to the new challenge!

Tags: News, Ranj

The Orde van GIS project on which I worked for Ranj has won the CineKid New Media Award (Jury Award). The awards are part of this year’s CineKid Festival.
Among the other entries were Nintendogs (Nintendo) and Fifa Street 2 (EA SPORTS BIGâ„¢), which makes winning the award with this modest project even more of an accomplishment!

Tags: Award, Backend, Flash, Frontend, Game, News, Ranj