Clixmaker is open source and free

Yesterday my brother Dave and his son Alex came over for dinner. We had frozen lasagna (meat and vegetarian), pre-packaged ready-to-serve lettuce (I added a sliced tomato) with Honey Dijon salad dressing, orange juice, and Oreo cookies for dessert. After dinner I made tea.

Earlier that afternoon I bought groceries and got the Bran Flakes for free. Before joining the line at the checkout, I calculated in my head that my groceries would cost $34.96 plus about a dollar for the 2 tomatoes I was buying. The cashier weighed the tomatoes last, and the price on the monitor was $1.38. The total came to $36.64, so I knew immediately it didn't add up. I checked the receipt and I was overcharged 30 cents for the Bran Flakes. Then I carried my 3 grocery bags and the jug of OJ back inside the supermarket and checked the price of the Bran Flakes, which was $3.99 but I was charged $4.29. So I told the cashier and got the Bran Flakes for free.

Alex is 18 and currently in Grade 12. Next year he might go to Ryerson University (which is downtown) or the University of Guelph (about an hour west of Toronto). I used his cell phone to apply for a Google App Engine account (they send you the verification code as a text message). I'm going to eat lunch soon (I did the dinner dishes earlier today), and then I might download the Java Tic Tac Toe source code from the Google web site. For 2 Thursdays in a row I got up early and arrived at work in Mississauga by 9:30 a.m. I hope to do that every week (just once a week). Time to chow down after I publish this post.

Clixmaker Stuff

The rest of this post has already been emailed to Cathy, Ralph, and Jesse.

Clixmaker will be open source, and will make money solely from advertising. In its implementation I will be using Java, JavaScript, Canvas, HTML5, Channel API, Google App Engine, Google Web Toolkit, Google Friend Connect, and Google AdSense.

All Clixmaker software will be implemented in Java. I will use GWT to translate parts of Clixmaker into JavaScript, the language used by web browsers. Canvas and HTML5 are used to handle graphics and animation (HTML5 is supported by almost all web browsers, so Clixmaker will work on phones and iPads). Channel API is used to add multi-player capabilities to GAE game apps. GAE lets you use Java to implement apps that need web server capabilities; they run in the cloud, hosted by Google. To run a GAE app, you visit its web site using your browser (no need to download anything). All Clixmaker game designers have a GAE account (it's free), and all Clixmaker games are GAE apps. Games which are very popular may incur bandwidth fees (for network traffic) to Google, paid by the game designers. Game designers use Java as their scripting language.

The main Clixmaker web site (itself a GAE app) includes a searchable database of links to Clixmaker games. Google Friend Connect adds social networking capabilities to my web site, so you can link up with your friends and challenge them to a game of [your game here]. Google AdSense displays ads on my web site, and I get paid whenever they are clicked on. GFC lets users send messages to each other, and I can use the contents of those messages to tailor which ads are displayed at those times.

Yesterday I went through the Java version of the GAE tutorial. The next step is to download the source code of the Java version of Tic Tac Toe, and test it. I can use that project as my starting point. I also have to develop a 2-player Pong test game, and write the detailed Clixmaker design specs. Clixmaker is an enormous undertaking, but I can recruit Java programmers to help me out, by posting a Project Help Wanted notice on SourceForge.net.