Kitchen sink chaos

I had a few things I needed to get done this weekend, and one thing (or a set of things, time permitting) I particularly wanted to do. That was to export the new draft graphics for Drop Rock as bitmaps, and convert them to RISC OS sprites. That in turn would have allowed me to update the game code in order to try it out with the new (larger) tiles, take some screen grabs and post an update about that.

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Updating Drop Rock part 1 – some background

Back in the early 1990s, one of the games I wrote and sold through Soft Rock Software was called Drop Rock. I’ve recently decided to look at the game and see what I can do to update it and give it a new lease of life on newer RISC OS computers. I’ve also decided to write about the changes as I go, but before embarking on that here’s a little background on the game itself.

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Scrambled egg or not scrambled egg?

That is the breakfast! Back in September, Rick Murray mentioned on his blog that he made some scrambled egg and chips. When I read the post and saw the picture, my immediate thought was (and I commented that) it looked more like a deep omelette (but with no filling) than scrambled egg. I don’t make scrambled egg often, but I decided that next time I did, I would take a photo and put it online for comparison.

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Cracking the code

And later devising one! Having mentioned my ancient and long lost collection of comics recently, and noting the annuals I now have amongst other things, I’ve started browsing this type of stuff on eBay. I have made a small number of purchases, which I may or may not talk about another time, but for the moment I’m focusing on something else. Looking specifically at annuals, a number of old titles jumped out at me and triggered an old memory, and that in turn another from a few years later.

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An Amazon delivery fail

The block of flats in which I live has two entrances. One is at the front, giving access to the front car park, and on which there is an intercom for visitors and delivery drivers to contact the relevant flat and, if necessary, be ‘buzzed in’. The second is at the rear, giving residents access to the rear and side parking areas, and which doesn’t have an intercom. The only way in through that door is with a key (or coded fob). Therefore, you can logically expect delivery drivers to…

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