3.5 inch floppy disk jewel case trays

One of the things that is still on my mind is to create a retro-style game: on a floppy disk with game-art in a nice casing like in the old days. 3.5 inch floppy disks are easily available however, getting a tray for a standard jewel case is a lot harder to come by (unless you want to do it yourself).

On the internet I found some websites that still sell these 3.5 inch floppy/diskette trays. Unfortunately, most of them are only available in bulk, which means you have to buy 400 at once.

  • Plastic-collection.com

    From what I’ve found, these seem to have the only ‘real’ 10.4 mm 3.5 inch floppy disk jewel cases. There are two kinds they sell, besides the ‘floppy calender case’, which more sites sell. On top of that they also have the double-sided CD / Floppy tray, these are rare and difficult to find.

  • Iwonatec

    A case that can fit two floppy disks. These might also just be the regular ‘calender’ case, I am not sure about it.

  • mip-packaging.net

    These trays are different from the ones above since they are basically a cd tray with corners etched out to fit a floppy disk. The website states the following: ‘Perfect for retrogaming box sets!‘, it looks like they know their target audience! 🙂

  • jettrade.co.uk

    A 100 pack for 15 GBP (excluding VAT), which sounds like a great deal to me. One of the few websites that lists prices for this kind of product. The website seems to be malfunctioning at the time of writting.

  • Various

    A lot of websites sell calender cases that will fit a 3.5 inch diskette perfectly, most of these are even targeted as ‘floppy disk cases’.

Alternatives to the above are to make paper sleeves (you can find a lot of tutorials for this on YouTube), or to use some different kind of box to house the floppy.

Mochimedia went down

Mochimedia went down this month, which was very shocking to me. Not only because they host and advertise my games, but the downfall of this titan in the Flash industry indicates a rapid declining future of the Flash market. None of my games have functioning highscores now, some games such as Letter for Mimi and Sokobworld stopped loading.

I am going to switch to making HTML5 games now, as I should have done a long time ago…

How to use Mochi API with Flixel and actionscript 3 Flash

Edit 2017-04-28: Please note that Mochimedia has been offline for a couple of years now, so the example below cannot be used anymore. I’ve left this blog post intact for historic purposes.

As a supplement to my Flixel Adventure Game Tutorial, I have written this post to explain how to add Mochi ads to your Flixel game.

First, go to your Mochi Media dashboard, if you do not have an account you can sign up for free here. Go to My Dashboard -> Developer Tool -> Add Game and fill in the information required, tick the ‘yes’ button for live-updates, then click ‘Create Game’.

Mochi Ads in Flixel

On the next page, download the file containing the Mochi API and unzip it, copy the ‘mochi’ folder to your project’s ‘src’ folder.

Copy the Mochi folder as seen here.

Create a new file named ‘Preloader.as’ in the same folder as your ‘Main.as’.

// Mochi Ads Preloader.as
package 
{
  import flash.display.DisplayObject;
  import flash.display.InteractiveObject;
  import flash.display.MovieClip;
  import flash.events.IOErrorEvent;
  import flash.utils.getDefinitionByName;
  import mochi.as3.*;
  // Must be dynamic!
  public dynamic class Preloader extends MovieClip 
  {
    // Keep track to see if an ad loaded or not
    private var did_load:Boolean;

    // Change this class name to your main class
    public static var MAIN_CLASS:String = "Main";

    // Substitute these for what's in the MochiAd code
    public static var GAME_OPTIONS:Object = { id: "mochi_game_id", res:"640x480" };
		
    public function Preloader() 
    {
      super();

      var f:Function = function(ev:IOErrorEvent):void 
      {
        // Ignore event to prevent unhandled error exception
      }
      loaderInfo.addEventListener(IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR, f);

      var opts:Object = {};
      for (var k:String in GAME_OPTIONS) 
      {
        opts[k] = GAME_OPTIONS[k];
      }

      opts.ad_started = function ():void 
      {
        did_load = true;
      }

      opts.ad_finished = function ():void 
      {
        // don't directly reference the class, otherwise it will be
        // loaded before the preloader can begin
        var mainClass:Class = Class(getDefinitionByName(MAIN_CLASS));
        var app:Object = new mainClass();
        addChild(app as DisplayObject);
				
        // Set focus on stage after loading ad.
        stage.focus = app as InteractiveObject;
      }

      opts.clip = this;
      //opts.skip = true;

      MochiAd.showPreGameAd(opts);
      }
   }
}

Copy the mochi_game_id to your clipboard from the second Mochi page (select the text and press control+c). For security reasons I have replaced mine with the text ‘game_id’.

Game id is secret.

Paste your mochi_game_id in the ‘id’ part of this variable in Preloader.as:
Don’t forget to also adjust the resolution of your game if yours isn’t equal to 640×480!

public static var GAME_OPTIONS:Object = { id: "mochi_game_id", res:"640x480" };

Open Main.as and add the following line after the import statements in the file:

[Frame(factoryClass = "Preloader")]

Re-compile your game and upload it to Mochi, if everything went well you will be able to run your game and see Mochi-ads loading!

Now all you have to do is fill in the rest of the details over at the overview page of your game at the Mochi dashboard. Please note that it might take Mochi a day before advertisements will be approved for your game.

Samsung Chromebook with Ubuntu

Ubuntu on a Samsung Chromebook

I recently purchased a Samsung Chromebook because I desired a laptop that was light-weight and cheap. A Macbook Air was a bit too expensive in my eyes, so I settled for a Chromebook which I installed Linux (Ubuntu) on. Installing another OS was a lot easier than I had anticipated, I followed this guide written by Jay Lee.

The script has some errors in it: while installing you can specify the flavour you want, you should not use the default option as advised. By using the default option you are left with a version of Ubuntu that has no GUI and (in my case) no working wifi, which makes it impossible to sudo apt-get install a GUI. I had to reinstall and this time specify ubuntu-desktop as the flavour, which resulted in a working system.

When you have your ChrUbuntu up and running you will have a lot of difficulty moving your cursor with the touchpad. Fortunately, there is a fix that will save you a broken wrist: you can find it here.

The speakers in the Samsung Chromebook are sensitive, so try not to fry them.

I would suggest buying a Samsung Chromebook if you plan on using it just for checking your e-mail and browsing the internet. When you are a bit tech-savy you can install Linux so you can unlock more features, which greatly increases the usability and value of your Chromebook in my eyes!

Site update

The new website is up, looking fresher and greener than the two previous lay-outs. Central in this theme are the games, which can be visited directly from the homepage by clicking the little icons. I’ve also updated the logo of the website, it now features characters from various games I have made standing in line.

This is how the homepage looked like before:
April 2011 – April 2013
Second layout
December 2010 – April 2011
Old site

I think it is safe to say that you can see a trend of improvement. 😛