I have just submitted my Dissertation for the BSc Creative Computing degree which I am reading at the University of London. My thesis was related to ‘Gamification’. I will link the dissertation if it is published by the University once it is corrected.
This marks a new chapter in my life, now that the degree is over I will be looking towards the future. I will try to learn new technologies now that I have more free time, or perhaps further my studies in the near future.
The game we (Barbagann Games) had developed during GameDev Challenge 2011 and GameZing 2011 has now been released on the Google Play store. Feel free to download it and leave any comments or suggestions: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.BarbagannGames.ScarFish&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS5CYXJiYWdhbm5HYW1lcy5TY2FyRmlzaCJd.
I was lucky to attend a 5 day in depth course which was organised by Bank of Valletta and was offered by Dr. Bart de Win who holds a Ph.D. in Software Security. The course focused on Secure Development in Java and .NET. I will not going in detail about all the topics covered during the course, however, I would like to point out some things which can be done in .NET applications to greatly help the security of the application using the least amount of effort required:
Comments and suggestions are appreciated.
I have now finished university and have found myself a full-time job at Malta’s largest Bank (BOV) where I was already a student worker for the last two years. I am currently fulfilling the role of a Junior Software Developer and I form part of a small team which builds web based applications. On the programming side, I have been working a lot with C# and asp.NET 4.0 Web Forms and I’ve had a very enjoyable experience so far. The .NET framework is great, C# is very similar to Java which is what I was used to, and the IDE is amazing. I have found tasks like stress testing to be a breeze with load tests and web performance tests. This is why I’m so excited to try out the new Visual Studio 2012 and the asp.NET 4.5
Thanks to Dream Spark, I am downloading the Visual Studio 2012 Professional version at this moment!
Me and some friends from Barbagann Games were at the Digital Games Forum 2012 yesterday, which was held at Corinthia San Gorg. The day consisted of talks from the Prime Minister Dr. Lawrence Gonzi, the Minister of Finance Tonio Fenech, Prof. William Latham (Games Audit UK), Ian Shaw, and Mr. Chris Deering (Chairman at TRC Media Entertainment, Ex President at Sony). When the talks were over, a panel of professionals were discussing about various topics related to the gaming scene in Malta. After the discussions, we had the chance to showcase our game, Scarfish, which placed 2nd at GameZing 2011 to those who attended.
Barbagann Games were asked several questions about gaming, mobile gaming, and the challenges faced during game development and this article was featured on the TV Guide which is handed out by The Times. The game Scarfish is still being developed and should be released some time next Summer. In the meantime, follow http://www.barbaganngames.com and https://www.facebook.com/barbaganngames for the latest news.
When I have a full, readable copy of the article, I will try to share it here so all of you can enjoy it 
The Sunday Times dated February 26th 2012 featured an interesting article about creativity in the technology centrefold, and part of the article included an interview with myself and nine other participants in the GameDev Challenge. We were asked several questions about the GameDev Challenge such as; why we chose to participate? what makes a good game? what makes a good team? and others which you can follow in the link below:
Other Articles where we were mentioned:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120226/technology/And-the-winners-are-.408778
Scarfish, the game we developed snapped 2nd place and an honourable mention from Vince Briffa, one of the judges during the GameZing 2011 awards ceremony who is the head of department of Digital Art within the University of Malta. The competition consisted of 13 teams in total from St. Martins Institute of IT, University of Malta, and a competitor from the University of Copenhagen. After achieving third place when we were competing at the GameDev Challenge 2011 we were quite happy that we improved our position in this competition, with more competing teams. We were also quite delighted we got an honourable mention from one of the judges for having the best graphics amongst other qualities.
After this success with Scarfish, an iOS/Android/Web game we have developed during the last 7 months, we would like to improve the game further until we see it is in a position to be placed on the Apple and Android App Stores. I would like to thank St. Martins for the support and tuition in the area of game development, GameZing for the awards ceremony and prizes, my team mates at Barbagann Games with whom we have worked so hard to achieve this placing and all of our supporters and testers.
