My final freelance project of the year is another educational game for Glasgow Science Centre.   Pixelated Pix explains some of the technology behind digital imaging, from CCD capture through to LCD display. 

The aim of the game is to correctly identify images that have been ‘pixelated’ in one way or another.  The game also sees the return of cheesy gameshow host Charlie Smiles, who last made an appearance in Bang or no bang.

The completion of this game ends a hectic year of freelance work which saw the development of:

• Four educational games: Epidemic Emergency, Forces at the Funfair, Glasgow Science Investigation and Pixelated Pix
• A viral game: Penguin Knockout for the Falkirk Wheel
• An e-commerce shopping site: Ruth Ruthven Jewellery

These projects have been a lot of fun, but have taken up a huge amount of my free time this year, probably around an extra 50 days on top of my day job.  So I’m going to take a wee break in early 2009 and turn my attention to some home improvements.   Tool time!

The second last of my freelance projects for the year, Ruth Ruthven Jewellery, was also my first ever e-commerce shopping site.  I’ve integrated with payment engines in the past for s1jobs and other related sites, but this is the first time I’ve built a full shopping cart style online store.  

The shop was built on Zen Cart, with PayPal integration handing the credit card side of things.  One benefit of Zen Cart is that you can use their CMS to allow editing of other pages.  So, for example, Ruth has control over the Upcoming Events page via the CMS, even though that page technically sits outside of the shop.

Another wee game I’ve been working on recently, just launched.  It explains some of the science behind criminal forensics and allows players to practice matching fingerprints, footprints and DNA samples in a “Guess Who?” style format.  

I wanted to call it GSI: Glasvegas, but we compromised on GSI: Glasgow Science Investigation.