When I announced previous Pixel Wheels release, I said I expected the next one to be 1.0.0. But that was before Google Play rejected the game for not complying with their terms of service. I wrote a snarky article on that topic, but sarcams aren't going to fix the problem, so here is version 0.19.1. This version comes with two flavors for Android: the Google Play flavor links to the project home page and does not mention support. The Itch.io flavor links directly to the [support page]. The Google Play flavor has been accepted by Google Play, so I think we are good there.

I recently updated Pixel Wheels banner image on Google Play. That triggered a review of the game: shortly after the update I received a message telling me Pixel Wheels was "not compliant with Google Play Policies". What nefarious activity does the game engage in? Sneak on users? Mine bitcoins?

Nope.

If you are like me, your git repository checkouts have a tendency to accumulate lots of branches over time.

Git Bonsai is a command line tool to help you clean this bush.

What does it do?

Git Bonsai can perform the following tasks for you:

• Fetch remote changes, then loop over all your tracking branches and update them to their remote counterparts.

• List merged branches and let you select which ones to delete.

• Do the same for duplicated branches (when you have multiple branches pointing to the same commit).

Pixel Wheels 0.19.0 is out! This is the first release of 2021, and it might be the last 0.x.0 release: the game is a bit light on content (12 vehicles, 6 tracks, 3 championships) but I want to "finish" this project so unless I change my mind, next version will be called 1.0.0.

What's new in 0.19.0?

The most important change is... music!

I spent much time on opengameart.org looking for free music and ended up picking 5 pieces from FoxSynergy:

• Grey Sector v0.86
• Core Descent (16-bit)
• Cosmo Blast v1.0
• Lunar Harvest v1.0
• Bouncing Baal v0.95

I was surprised how adding music really gave the game a more "finished" feeling:

(View on Youtube)

Hey, Pixel Wheels 0.18.0 is out! This version brings a new track to the game: "River". This track completes the "Country Life" championship: now all championships have two tracks. It's not much, but I think we can agree it's better than a one track championship, right?

0.18.0 also comes with Android TV support, making it easier for you to play the game in your living room.

Our computers are getting faster and faster, but compilation and startup times are still something we want to avoid.

One situation where waiting for compilation and startup to finish feels like a waste is when you are fine-tuning an aspect of your application. For example when you are adjusting spacing or colors in a user interface. Having to wait between each iteration not only costs us time, it also makes us less likely to do more experiments.

In this article I am going to show a few tricks to reduce these pains.

I just released Nanonote 1.3.0, my minimalist note-taking application! This release comes with two new features:

First a search bar, implemented by Pavol Oresky:

Second, the ability to reorder selected lines using Alt+Shift+Up and Alt+Shift+Down. This is very handy to order lists:

I just released Pixel Wheels 0.17.0. The main focus on this version has been the graphics, lot of work has been done on the various background tiles: roof, roads, trees, sidewalks, bridge, sand have been improved.

I spent way too long time working on the roof tiles in particular, to the point where I was starring at roofs every time I went outside, looking for inspiration. You can see the evolution of the tiles in this short time-lapse:

Today I want to present a testing technique I now use in Nanonote unit tests.

Nanonote main component is a QTextEdit with several "extensions" to provide custom behaviors such as indenting/unindenting selected lines with tab/shift+tab or moving selected lines up and down with alt+shift+arrow keys (next version feature, #spoileralert!).

Testing these extensions is not particularly difficult but it requires tedious setup to set the text, position the cursor, define the selection. Then you perform the action and have to write more tedious code to check the new text, cursor position and selection match your expectations. Not only is it tedious to write, it is also error-prone and hard to read.

I finally found the time and motivation to get a new version of Pixel Wheels out, so here comes 0.16.0.

Not many engine changes in this new version, mostly new content: first a new track: "Welcome". This track takes place in the countryside, so you'll race among fields and should spot an old tractor. As its name imply it's a simple track, designed to be the track new players begin with.

It is part of a new championship called "Country Life", which for now contains only this track, so it's very short... I plan to add a new track to it in the next version.

The other content addition is a new car: the Dark M.

It's a bit longer than the others. Maybe I should shorten it a bit, what do you think?