I knew it was going to be a long shot, but I started digging. That is how I ended up on the website of Coudal Partners, the design company behind Field Notes Brand. And there it was . a perfectly gorgeous 6″ Field Notes ruler made from raw wood. Printed with black ink. I haven’t seen one for real since I was a kid.
I sent a quick email to them, begging to ship me one over the pond, to Europe. Aaron was a nice enough guy to handle this for me personally, and make sure that I get my ruler in a timely manner.

And it came. In one of those cardboard solid envelopes. The kind that has that special feeling of a mysterious content inside.
And as I was opening it, my girlfriend was asking me: “Hey! Why didn’t you get one those for me too?” . and while I was telling her that I haven’t thought about it . there it was! Not one, but TWO rulers with a personal note from Aaron (the owner of Coudal Partners). That saved my day. Again.
And I there were some other goodies in the envelope.

This envelope is going to my collection on wonderful boxes in which wonderful things came into my life.

If you want a quality notebook, pen and pencils, visit Field Notes Brand now and order some. They are cheap and very well made in the U.S.A. You will love them.
Trust me. I am more inspired now, whenever I draw down fresh ideas.

Site: http://www.FieldNotesBrand.com/

I just got back to the office and found an awesome surprise.
Our recently released game, Rail Adventures for the iPhone, just made it to no. 92, in the Top Paid applications in the US App Store.

This is yet another recognition of the success and quality of the games developed here at exosyphen studios.
We would like to thank everyone for supporting our game, and making this possible.

Comp-u-docs website: http://www.comp-u-docs.us

Happy Holidays to everyone!

I always had a passion for trains,railroads, 3D graphics and few other assorted things. I added in some extra details (adventure, horror, etc), and decided to write a 3D game in which you hop in a mine cart and race your way through an abandoned mine (and other nice sceneries), shooting monsters, jumping over obstacles, picking up objects, etc. And yes, I enjoyed the Indiana Jones movies, and specially the race scene on the mine railway

This project allowed me to explore the possibilities offered by the hardware OpenGL acceleration present in the iPhone. I programmed a lot of OpenGL and 3D graphics back when I was still in college. The iPhone has some amazing hardware capabilities, so expect more cool games from us.

There are a couple of cool concepts that were involved in the development of the 3D engine. It was also a research project, so I have taken the liberty to play around with some ideas. The whole 3D scene through which you race, is mostly generated mathematically on the fly. Basically, I have designed a cross section of a 3D mine (scene) model, and repeat/twisted it around a curved track. I had to go through some pen & paper moments to remember most of the math I have studied back in college, but it did work out eventually. You might think that the scenery becomes repetitive, but it doesn’t. There are a lot of other elements that change at each cross-section repetition (pillars, lights, etc). The cool thing with this model is that I can design new levels very quickly, meaning that you can expect a lot of new levels in future updates.

You will also notice something “new” in our games. A lot of 2D art graphics. That is thanks to my girlfriend and her talent in drawing things. I decided to spice up the game a bit with some nice art. Check out the splash image below, which is mostly hand drawn:

Head to the App Store and grab your copy of the game. It’s only $1.99 (as usual, we did our best to keep our prices as affordable as possible)
Here is the iTunes link:

Rail Adventures 3D - iTunes

Also, Hacker Evolution: Untold has been picked up for publishing, by IGN Entertainment’s Direct2Drive publishing service.
We are running a promo with them, so for a limited time, you can order the game and save 50% of the standard price (only $12.50 now).
Click the image below, to order your copy now:

See it yourself here: Phoload.com

Think of mobile phones. They come with generous displays, fast processors, high resolution cameras, GPS, etc. This can open some very new ways to think of, and implement multiplayer games.

One of the things I became fascinated about is the ability to use the geotags from within the photos taken by mobile phone cameras, and reconstruct the real word as a 3D scene for a game. I need to figure out a way to digitally process those images, and turn a few photos of a real life factory (for example) in a similar 3D world, set somewhere in a decayed future world, as a scene for an online game. There is a lot of research and math that will be going into this, but I hope I will be able to develop a tech demo, sometime this year. 

Also, I have decided to try and allocate more time to write and publish various documents for developers
and gamers. Just as I was finishing this thought, Chris from gamersdailynews.com proposed the idea of running a developer blog on his website. I think it will be a great opportunity to get in touch with gamers, listen to what they have to say, and develop our next games accordingly.

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Hello everyone,

First of all, I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year!brSecond, I would like to thank everyone for supporting us (specially with our newly released game, Hacker Evolution: Untold).

I rarely post photos of myself, but you can see me above, a few hours after the New Year’s midnight. I have spent the New Year in Budapest (Hungary), a city which I highly recommend everyone to visit. It’s absolutely beautiful in the winter.

2008 was a very challenging year for me. I had to rebuild my entire personal life from scratch, and find a new direction in life. It eventually turned out to be great, and things got back to normal. I have been a bit slow with development and work, but eventually I got around to release a sequel for Hacker Evolution, to keep the fans busy until we are ready to take the next step in our games. 6 years have passed since our first game release. Through this years, with the tremendous support we received from everyone of you, we managed to refine the original hacker game idea and turn into a great game.

There won’t be a new hacker game release (in the style you are familiar with). We will follow 2 separate directions with our games. We are currently busy with porting Hacker Evolution: Untold to the Mac and Linux. Also, I am planning to release an online multi-player version. As much as my time will permit, I will rolling out some (free) expansion packs with new levels and content. There will be plenty of stuff coming to keep everyone entertained.brThe second direction will be the development of (another) brand new game. We will take the hacker game idea one giant step ahead. The game-play and implementation will be an absolutely new addition to the gaming industry.

Also, I am planning to devote some time to research and explore new ideas. Some will come out as new products, while some will come out in the form of white-papers.

Stay around … we are heading into an exciting new year!

With a slight delay (of 1 week) we have finally released the sequel to the original Hacker Evolution game.
I didn’t wanted to call it Hacker Evolution 2, because the respective numbering scheme is pretty much crappy, and the action of the game takes place before the time of the original game.

Those of you that have played the original game, will notice a lot of changes. We have added some new commands, the target maps are more real and interactive, and the game play itself has changed quite a bit. We have some new concepts as well. For instance, every server you hack, contributes to your global trace by a certain amount. But there is now the possibility to go back to the server and delete the logs.

Also, the way we have designed the levels, has changed a lot. There are levels which require a lot of thinking and balancing to get through (level 4 as an example) a maze of firewalls. You have to hack them in the right order to be able to bounce through the hacked ones and advance to the next ones. The depth of the levels has also changed a lot. You will explore office buildings, houses, entire locations or an abstract global level.

This will be pretty much the last hacker game engine I will develop. Over 6 years have passed since we have released our first hacker game, and it’s time to move ahead and come up with new game ideas. Don’t worry … we are not heading towards the billion polygon-blow-things-up games genre. There are 2 mains reasons to continue to stick around. One is that I will continue expanding the game with new levels, features (freelance infinite play, online multiplayer, etc). The second one is even better. Our next game, which will be the next chapter of exosyphen studios, will be entirely based on the current hacking simulation idea, except that we will take it to a whole different level. All the things you have enjoyed in our current games, will become a small part of a giant and immerse game.

Download and enjoy the game, if you haven’t done so, already…