programming languages
The Gamasutra article Dirty Coding Tricks is a fantastic read. One part of it in particular rang true for me. Consider the load of pain I found myself in when working on a conversion of a 3D third person shooter from the PC to the original PlayStation. Now, the PS1
game development
Games that run in your web browser are all the rage, and understandably so. Why not build your game for the largest audience in the world, using freely available technology, and pay zero licensing fees? One such game is Evony, formerly known as Civony – a browser-based clone of the game
programming languages
For many programmers, our introduction to programming was our dad forcing us to write our own games. Instead of the shiny new Atari 2600 game console I wanted, I got a Texas Instruments TI-99/4a computer instead. That's not exactly what I had in mind at the time,
lua
Garry's Mod [http://gmod.garry.tv/] is a fascinating study in guerilla programming. It's an incredibly successful mod for the game Half-Life 2 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry's_Mod] that essentially converts it into a giant sandbox powered by Lua [http://en.wikipedia.
game development
I've written about the value of project postmortems before. Still, getting a project postmortem going (or, if you prefer your terminology a bit less morbid, a project retrospective) can be a daunting proposition. Game Developer Magazine's postmortem objectives offers a helpful template for conducting a postmortem
game development
I originally discovered the fiendishly addictive Tower Defense as a multiplayer game modification for Warcraft III [http://www.blizzard.com/war3/]. It's a cooperative game mode where you, and a few other players, are presented with a simple maze. A group of monsters appear at the entrance and
game development
Greg Costikyan's essay Welcome Comrade! [http://www.manifestogames.com/node/1425] is a call to arms for hobbyist game programmers: > Back in the day, it took a couple of man days to create a Doom level. Creating a Doom III level took multiple man-weeks. Thus budgets spiral
gamedev
This Gamasutra article [http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20051026/gabler_01.shtml] highlights some intriguing real world experiences in rapid prototyping: > The project started in Spring 2005 with the goal of discovering and rapidly prototyping as many new forms of gameplay as possible. A team of four grad students,
physics simulation
I love playing videogames, but I have no illusions whatsoever of being talented enough to write videogames. Game developers live a hard life, and not just because the industry is notoriously abusive. Even the most brilliant minds can get bogged down in the morass of complexity that is game development.
programming languages
I was recently reminded of this Dani Berry quote [http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,8515/]: > One of the great pioneers of computer and online gaming, Dani Berry died in 1998. He was born 'Dan Bunten,' but underwent what she always referred to as her
programming
In Extreme Programming Explained, Kent Beck notes that optimism is an occupational hazard of programming. Excess optimism, in the guise of enthusiasm, is a serious pitfall for game developers in particular: Rein in enthusiasm? Now why would we ever want to do that? Isn’t keeping the team motivated one
java
John Carmack, the primary developer of Doom and Quake at id Software, posted some great comments on his recent experiments with cellphone game development in Java. My favorite? there is something deeply wrong when text editing on a 3.6 ghz processor is anything but instantaneous. That’s quote of