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Tools and applications for commercial clients (JAVA)

Over the years I have done many tools and applications for various clients. Here are some screen shots of just a few. These tools are all made in Java. The early ones are developed using the AWT GUI system in Java, and the more recent ones are made using Java's SWING technology which is the modern day GUI system. 

I have deliberately pushed the boundaries on my learning and skills of GUI design, with each new application looking and behaving better than the last. Much of my free time is spent pursuing GUI design and pushing my skills further in order to make my tools that little bit better each time.

Here are some of the things shown here, you can look at the title of each window to see its name:

VARS: The first screen shot here, is of my honours project at University (graduated 2002). It is an isometric "massively multi-player online game" allowing alumni of the university to log into the campus and chill with their mates in the bars they used to. Users can chat, buy drinks, go to different rooms, etc.

BlueMarket: The top right image here is BlueMarket, a program for bluetooth proximity marketing which is being used in the worlds largest mall in Dubai. It has a simple GUI allowing advertising campaigns to be generated and "adverts" to be selected to send out over bluetooth. It can send animgifs, jpgs, txt, wav, jar etc.






SuperWahWahEdit: The next couple of images show my level designer tool which was made for a mobile phone game (also shown in the mobile phone emulator). This tool was effectively used to design the entire game content, and specify every detail.



































MobyGooey: This tool is actually the sequel to my first personal build system "Alpha Putty". With the mobile market as horribly fragmented as it is, I decided to develop my own system for maintaining compatibility across devices. MobyGooey was a sequel which also includes a drag and drop GUI editor for designing canvas based mobile phone GUIs that work across all devices. This was achieved using the MobyGooey design tool, with incorporated build system, and an intermediate markup language that is generated by the design tool and interpretted by the MobyGooey engine on the phone.

















AirBlue: Another application designed to meet the predicted requirements of Bluetooth technology. This was made in anticipation of a demand, and is made for marketing companies or anyone who wishes to use Bluetooth in innovative ways.




 
Sparx: A tool to generate video ring tones for mobile phones. The user can get their name in fire or liquid metal and give it to their mates as a video ring tone. 





ModiCat: A tool for generating a personal art collection on your phone. This outputs an actual mobile phone program.






MQGGT: A tool for generating mobile phone quiz games. You fill in the questions you want and personalise it etc, hit generate and a mobile phone quiz game comes out! It works on all mobiles.










LunaIRC/SwAmIRC: An IRC client based on AmIRC on Amiga, with an exact clone of the GUI, to show off the power and speed of SWING.









StratOS Backbreaker: A level designer tool for a new physics based mobile game. The tool allows objects to be defined using the mouse, and then generates out actual J2ME code which is slotted into the game engine.






















Commercial Mobile Phone Games (J2ME)

Ever since I was a child I have been mesmerised by computer games. A lot of my personal free time is spent playing, designing and developing my own computer games. I take influences from the early classics on the Spectrum, Nintendo and Amiga and build games that are genuinely fun to play. Mobile gaming is a great idea, and I like making games for those moments when you're waiting for a train or bored on the bus. I have been lucky enough to work on some great licenses, and also design my own mobile titles. Again here is a handful of games I have done.

All titles here required extensive device porting too, which I was involved in heavily.

Paperboy Wheels On Fire: Paperboy returns to the mobile for an improved version of the classic. I was involved in porting this game to many different handsets (low and high spec) including Nokia, Samsung, Siemens, Motorola.




NHRA Championship Racing: The official NHRA drag racing game. I was one of the main programmers on this title. Various ports were produced for each handset.














Be The Boss: An official mobile football game for Birmingham FC, I was the lead developer and porter for this title. As you can see it was advertised around the football ground at Birmingham.
















Bad Lads Army (Extreme): The game for ITV's prime-time TV show, as you can see the advert was on TV after the show on Tuesday nights. I worked as the producer on this title.















Ice Age Skater: A game based on the license from the hit movie Ice Age. I was one of the programmers on this title. 














Super Wah Wah Ball: I designed and developed this title.















Commercial Mobile Phone Applications (J2ME)

I have worked on many mobile applications to do all sorts of tasks. One of the key things about mobile development is making sure everything scales to the correct sizes, and that things like keys are mapped for each device. Other issues such as device specific bugs, the speed and memory of the device also come into play. In fact most devices that run J2ME behave slightly differently and this can be a headache when developing. All of these applications were designed to scale to their host phone and minimise problems. In cases where one build must suit every phone and compatibility is the highest priority, I develop in LCDUI which uses the phones own GUI system rather than a custom one, this is a good solution when compatibility is required over beauty. 

Here is a few screenshots of applications I have written for the mobile phone for various clients. 

MODI: The first 2 screenshots show a digital gallery viewer with custom menus and networking ability to get new content.

Quiz Game: A simple mobile quiz game designed to work on all mobile phones. Utilises LCDUI for extreme compatibility. This quiz and its generator (a PC program shown above, MQGGT) was developed for the South African Education system, so they can create quizzes to distribute as homework.

Argento: A mobile phone level and gameplay editor. This allows the game to be edited "live" as the game itself plays out. For example whilst playing you can drop in new enemies or powerups. This is an experiment in game development methodologies which is one of my interests. It also allows me to design game content on the move.

MobyGooey in action: The tool mentioned above (MobyGooey) was used to design one login screen, here you can see the same login screen adapting to 5 different mobile screensizes. It actually uses different sets of graphics for each build and the markup language which defines the page allows it to scale to the screen with no porting need at all. 

Commodities Client: A client for tracking the price of commodities live from the mobile. It can do Forex, News, Commodities etc with live updates indicated by colours. Also supports landscape mode.







Flight App: An application for booking flights online from mobile. Both a LCDUI and LWUIT (canvas based using the new LWUIT GUI system) have been developed.

IMDB client:, an IMDB client, featuring a smooth scrolling menu which accelerates to make long lists less tiresome.

RTBS: A program to back up the users telephone book (over HTTP or SMS) 

PlayBlu: A program for displaying multi-angle pornography on the mobile.





Visto Mobile: The worlds leading J2ME mobile email client. I worked as a contractor on this program and developed some features during my time there.

MobyCam: A program to link to some custom hardware and control it remotely using SMS and GPRS.

SMS2HTTP: A program I made to simulate an SMS gateway to aid and cheapen the development of programs which require an SMS gateway.




















Other Platforms

Since around 1998 I have focused my efforts mostly on Java. In 2003 I decided to focus most of my efforts on J2ME. As a result most of my recent work is mostly J2ME and mobile oriented. This is because I believe there is a huge market in mobile phones, and the skills required to be at the cutting edge require a lot of practice and dedication. I do work on other platforms from time to time and also in the past. Here is a few screenshots of other things I have done outside of the world of Java and J2ME.

Before I went to university all of my programming was done exclusively on Amiga:

Gloom 3 (aka Ultimate Gloom): My first commercial Amiga title. Based on the engine of the successful first 2 gloom games. I made an official sequel which was available in shops world wide for £19.99.

Zombie Massacre: My second commercial Amiga title. Again based on the same engine and an unofficial sequel to Gloom 3. Was available in shops for £15.99 and is still selling on ebay.

After university I branched out into Java and C++:





Sprintz: A drinking game which is installed into bars. 3 hardware units are embedded in the bar so that players can compete against each other in drinking shots as fast as possible. The machine records the times and they can enter their names into the high score charts etc which is displayed on a large screen. The hardware is all controlled by Java through 2 serial interfaces on a PC under the bar.










Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: After my degree and before my Masters degree I had a brief stint as a programmer at Rockstar North, working on the GTA VC team.




Ferox Neutrino: I began VJing in 2007 (that is, supplying club visuals which accompany the DJ's music), I have now developed my own custom VJing tool in the "Processing" language to do my live VJ sets with. Ferox reacts to the music and also allows me to control it live in club venues.






Spot the difference: The official Spot the difference game for iPhone. I produced this title for the popular iPhone and will be doing a lot more with the iPhone in the future.


The future?

Staying on the bleeding edge can be an extreme effort - the future of technology and mobiles is changing fast. In order to keep up with the trends I am currently now developing also on Blackberry, Android, iPhone, Microsoft XNA (stay tuned for 2 new games I have in production during my spare time), Processing (see processing.org). I am also continuing to review new languages and technologies and learn which I deem to be the finest. I will also be developing J2ME and JAVA for many years to come and have some titles again which will be disclosed once they are completed.

If you need an application developed, please get in touch. For more information please see my CV/Resume here: www.garethmurfin.co.uk . You can email me here: gareth.murfin@gmail.com