The Game "Set" in WPF

Update - 2008-01-06: See this post for new details. Links below have been changed.

In theory, I have so many more important projects to work on. This was one of those ideas that got legs faster than I realized I should be working on something else.

If you haven't heard of Set, check it out company site or the Wikipedia entry.

Building the data model was half the fun. This is some of my first code that uses Linq features from .NET 3.5. I'm blown away. Without a doubt as big as generics. Wow!

The UI is super minimal and that was the goal. Get it all working and ponder prettier/sexier things later.

So, if you want to play:

• XBAP - Requires Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5. (Works in IE and Firefox.)
• Source and Binaries [53KB zip]

As I've discussed before, you can also take a look at the source on my SVN share using you favorite SVN client.

Future ideas:

• Add a timer and a notion of players. I think I'd layer this on top of the existing game model to keep things simple and clean.
• It would be cool to layer a 3D UI on top of the game model, too. I have some crazy ideas based on the Flip3D stuff from the bag-o-tricks.

Hope you enjoy it!

Note 1: Thanks to Karen for the details on making an XBAP project.

Note 2: I'll give a cookie to anyone who sends me an SVN patch that fixes the shapes so they match what's really in the game. (Drop me an email via the link on the right.) 2008-01-08: No cookie for you.

Other bug fixes are always appreciated.

Bag-o-Tricks Christmas Edition

Here's a token gift from me to you. An update to the bag-o-tricks. No earth-shattering features, but a bunch of clean-up. I've made everything work under VS 2008 and rolled up a bunch of common files under a 'common' assembly.

I've renamed the assemblies so it's easy to keep track of what comes from me--everything starts with J832.

I've also done some tweaking so that, by default, images are picked up from the users image folder on XP. You can still override this with a command line parameter.

As I hinted to with my post about TortoiseSVN, I've also put all of my code up on an SVN share: j832.com/PublicSoftware.

I'll try to make sure that the bits I check-in are at least building, but no promises. If you want to fix any bugs and send me the patch, I'd love to try it out. Promise that it's your own code and that you're willing to license your work under the MIT License. You can find my email address on my blog.

Happy hacking and happy holidays!

TortoiseSVN Rocks!

Yes, I'm considering writing a book: "Kevin Explores Things That Rock".

My company uses Perforce for source control. It works pretty well (although there is no shell integration and the Visual Studio integration is a bit flaky.)

I have my own projects on the side that I'd like to managed with source control. These are both code projects and non-code (poetry, screen plays, other writing) projects. Like I said, anything that I want backed-up, synced and versioned.

If you're like me, you share a set of conflicting tendencies.

• First, a tendency to have many machines that you work on.
• Second, a tendency to be paranoid about keeping important data backed-up and protected with good redundancy.
• Third, a tendency to hate redundancy! This goes along with SPOT. I hate when things get out of sync. I hate having things spread all over a bunch of machines.

Using a source control system helps a lot with this (especially if you're dealing with text-based data formats).

In the world of OSS, Subversion (SVN) is a big player in source management. It's supported by SourceForge. It's used by a mountain of OSS projects. And (drum roll) it has an amazing Windows shell extension: Tortoise.

• Step one: install.
• Step two: make directory somewhere on your machine.
• Step three: right-click and pick "SVN Checkout..."
• Step four: type in the URL of a public SVN repository. There are many out there. Check the list above.
• Step five: laugh at how easy it all is.

Tortoise supports the creation of patches. Renaming and branching. It even has great shell indicators so you know what's checked-in and what's pending check-in. (It works great on XP. So-so on Vista.)

Take a look at TortoiseSVN.

If you're looking for hosting for your SVN repository, check out DreamHost.

Happy Hacking...and don't forget to build an test before you check-in. :-)