Split (1)

train · 135k rows

instruction stringlengths 33 29.4k
I've designed my game entities using a common pattern of separating the entity from its components. In my case, I've used the Strategy pattern to give each of my entities an IDrawable component. I construct my entities using a factory, which constructs the entity and adds an appropriate drawable, e.g.: public static P...
Just wondering what people nowadays use for developing Commodore 64 Games? I've got the Programmer's Reference Guide which goes into all the details, but in the modern Age I assume I won't have to do development on an actual C64 itself? Are there tools that run on Windows or Mac OS X that are a bit like an IDE that off...
Is it possible to skin Qt 4.5 such that it looks less like an application framework but more of a game? I guess this probably means replacing the canvas, the title-bar and the artwork of the various widgets. Will such an approach be platform independent too?
I'm a freelance game designer, and I can't afford to hire someone to do skyboxes for me. However, I am unable to do them my self. Let's say I have a texture that can be tiled on four sides... If I put that very texture on each side of the skybox.. It just comes out looking like a cube. I'd like to know how exactly I ne...
I know preparing mount points and the like. But what's the best way to prevent Z fighting with customizations close to moving parts like elbows and knees?
This is more of an open ended question, but I hope to get some good insight on how to avoid the issue. When playing Games on Windows, I might want to ALT-TAB out of it. Some games have no problems, others are not so easy: They may take AGES to switch out and back in. Some are even prone to crashing or to weird behaviou...
Suppose I am doing a JavaScript game, and I wish the game to update the server if the user has successfully completes the game and his outcome. How should I ensure that the request came from the JavaScript game, and that the data sent has not been tampered with. I am using PHP as the server-side language. I do understa...
For an artist who won't be dealing directly with the code, what formats for 2d animation could they use that would be portable into an android game? In my particular case there are no collision requirements or anything, just need to be able to place the animation on screen at a specific point.
I'm building a simple Plattformer Jump n' Run Style game. I do not use tiles - instead i've geometrical shapes for my level entities (and the player is one too). I finished my collision detection code and everything works fine so far. Next, I wanted to implement jumping. Just checking if the player hits the appropriat...
I want to make objects in a side project interatible with each other. For this, I want to be able to create rules so "Collisions" (Interactions) can be recognised by testing the rules. The rules should be able to reference what object does the player is trying use, in what state the object is, with which object does he...
If I am creating a board-game type game, does anyone know if it is legal to use others' names in the game? ie. A playing card with "George Bush" or "Michael Jackson" on it. Also, is it the same for brand names?
As I understand it, MMORPGs are games that run on your computer like any other normal 3d video game but, with each action that happens with in the game, changes are made to the universe via HTTP calls to the server. So the players computer does all the heavy lifting in terms of rendering the graphics and animations but...
I want to create a simple Flash game. Let's say, it's about soccer hooligans. I would need the characters to walk around the isometric landscape, drink, fight or whatever it is they do. Now, how do I create those characters? I imagine it could be possible just to draw a separate movie clip for every action for 8 differ...
Irrlicht uses namespaces, a C++ feature not available in Objective-C: /* In the Irrlicht Engine, everything can be found in the namespace 'irr'. So if you want to use a class of the engine, you have to write irr:: before the name of the class. For example to use the IrrlichtDevice write: irr::IrrlichtDevice. To get rid...
I can understand when to use lists, but I don't understand when it is better to use vectors than using lists in video games: when it is better to have fast random access ? (And I understand why it's faster to insert/delete in lists because it just removes/adds pointers, but it still has to find the corresponding item.....
Almost all big titles that I have played require you to install the MSVC runtime. There have been numerous questions about "statically vs. dynamically linked CRT" on StackOverflow, the reasons for dynamic CRT generally boil down to: Reduced memory usage if other programs are using the same libs Can update the librarie...
The component based game programming paradigm is becoming much more popular. I was wondering, are there any projects out there that offer a reusable component framework? In any language, I guess I don't care about that. It's not for my own project, I'm just curious. Specifically I mean are there projects that include a...
I'm just getting started on an XNA game for Window Phone 7. For my Flash games I have my own framework that I was just going to port from AS3, but I have just found the built-in game component stuff in XNA. So should I use this stuff? Should my Entity class extend game component/drawable game component? I'm sure it wil...
I use a lot of 2D vectors in my Flash games - basically all velocities, positions etc I store in this way. My Vector2D class has lots of built in functions for rotation, dotproduct, projectOnto etc. The native Vector2 class doesn't seem to have half of this stuff, but it is used in a lot of places. The Vector3 has all ...
I making a new engine for my game, based on the component system. Every game object is a set of some components, like render, physics, AI, etc. I want to make my game extensible; I now how to make a plugin system with .NET, but how do I make my game able to add new resources from plugins, at runtime? How should such th...
I am making a flash game that will interact heavily with the server. For quite some time already I am using 'request hashing' technique to make sure that request data hasn't been tampered with. This works pretty well. However, in this game I'd like to go a little bit further and completely hide the protocol from the ob...
I'm trying to decide on how to structure my main game loop - every example I've seen of the game loop looks a bit like this: while (true) { UpdateGame(); DrawGame(); } i.e. it ignores the menu. Should my game loop look like this: if (ShowMenu() == Play) { PlayGame(); } PlayGame() { while (true) { ...
What are the "smallest" physics components in your component-based game engine? Would it make sense to create something like Positionable, Rotatable, Movable, Collidable and combine them the way you want or is it better to use one unified component like PhysicsInteractable?
I want to start off developing for my Xbox 360, and I've heard of the XNA framework that can target both the PC and Xbox. This sounds like an attractive option since my clients can use the game/app on normal computers as well. However I'm very new to the Xbox scene. Is XNA only for hobbyist development, and is it not r...
I'm looking for an engine that constructs it's entities using Lua or other scripting language. This is in order to find inspiration and do it in my own engine as well. I know that CryEngine does use Lua to make their entities, but I wanted to know if there are some other alternatives that I can look up. Thanks!
Runtime Storage (hardcoded) vs Static Storage (file storage) (original question) I extended my engines GUI from procedural style to object orientated style, but I still have to create menues, buttons etc. So I got the choice to create each menue via a class or have a static main class which loads menues fr...
There's this indie game developer who tried to come up with a new original idea for a game every day for a year - and he put all his thoughts on his website. +200 ideas so far, if I remember correctly. I don't remember the URL to his site, or the name of the author. Anyone know what I'm talking about? [Delete this pos...
I am using Ogre3D. How can I implement an energy shield like this image? In the picture, the shield is a semi-sphere, where I want to make it a sphere surround my object. The shield should be transparent (this should be adjustable). Can the community advise how to do this? Thanks.
I have a couple models that I've made or found in Google Sketchup, and I want to be able to use them in some programs I have that only support 3DS. What is the best way to convert, without paying for Sketchup Pro? Right now sketchup can export to .dae, so a .dae to 3ds would be just as helpful :)
I'm going to start developing a game for the Xbox 360, its a small homebrew development and I don't have an Xbox 360 yet. Is it possible for me to develop the entire game targeting the XNA framework on Windows, and lastly "Create Copy of Project for Xbox 360" and have it work flawlessly? What are the issues I would run...
For example, Havok Content Tools allows you to define physic bodies, properties, connections, etc in Maya, 3d Studio Max, etc. For creating full scenes/levels is this really the correct approach or is there some better way to do things.
I have heard that Ogre 3D is not actually a game engine, rather it is a 3D render engine. I have also heard people claim that one can piece it together with other components (engines?) to create a full featured game engine. So my question is: What are the other types of components/engines one would have to add to Ogre...
I want to get started with XNA game development, and I have bought the Pro edition of Visual Studio 2010 so I have the required software to run XNA Game Studio. How do I get it? Is it released yet? Is it a free download on some Microsoft site? Do I have to pay anything? Where? Edit: Is this it?
I'm currently making a PC game in XNA. It's actually a collection of mini-games (there's 3 mini-games at the moment) however I plan to make and add more, in downloadable 'packs'. My question is, what's the best way to achieve this? Currently my thoughts are: Create a 'game' interface Build games to this interface but ...
The game would be a race from A to B through several checkpoints. I think there are two approaches for the concept of time. The game starts with some time and player has to make it to the finish before it runs out. Extra time is granted at the checkpoints. Time left at the finish is counted as a score. The time at the...
I am a newbie so when ever i start over i get stuck how to organize things (code) or what should be the order of my work. Can you share your experience of project granularity so i can make my mind what should be done first and so on.
What revenue models exist for online games?
As of 2010 with the release of XNA 4.0, if I buy an Xbox 360 with Kinect will I be able to access its motion sensing data with the XNA game I'm developing? Or is this only restricted to C++ developers with a devkit?
XNA 4 includes the Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio.Microphone class which can seemingly read the raw sound data off the microphone via its API as documented: GetData - Gets the latest recorded data from the microphone. GetSampleDuration - Returns the duration of audio playback based on the size of the buffer. GetSampleS...
Can I develop an XNA 4.0 game for the older Xbox 360 Elite? Or would I need a newer Slim model?
I was looking at the d3dx math .h and noticed that a difference between the "+" and "+=" operators: D3DXVECTOR3& operator += ( CONST D3DXVECTOR3& ); D3DXVECTOR3 operator + ( CONST D3DXVECTOR3& ) const; Why is it returning a reference in the case of a += operation and a copy in the case of + operation ? I'm guessing in...
Typically in C++ game development speed is valued over encapsulation, you therefore see a ton of publicly accessible class members which really shouldn't be public. I seem to find in most cases that only a very select few clases really need to known the inner workings of another classes to the point of modifying or rea...
My problem is this. I have a simple box made in 3DS Max 2009, the Box is 10x10x10. I've tried to load it on XNA and traslate the camera for 15 units, but I can seem to find the values needed to see the box properly. Can anyone point me to a good resource where I can find some good introduction to XNA coordinate system ...
I'm interested in adding to my game either recorded human or synthesized speech. I'm interested in what game devs have to say regarding the value of recorded human voice over voice synthesis. Thanks in advance! Points to consider: EDIT: First and foremost, the game is meant for kids (i.e. when you see an image of an ...
In my 2D game I have AI turrets that should assist the player by automatically firing towards enemies. I would like to make them fire intelligently and lead their target instead of just targeting an enemy's current position. So, given the (always constant) velocity and position vector of both the enemy and the turret's...
I'm looking forward to buying an Xbox 360 Slim 4GB to get started with XNA development. Can I develop games/apps on my Windows PC and deploy them to the Xbox without a Creators Club subscription? I'm not looking at publishing my work or putting it up on a marketplace. And does this model of Xbox 360 support game deploy...
I have a game concept which I wish to develop but don't have the funding to begin it. What should I do?
I plan to use XNA to build a game project. I'm not entirely sure at the moment if I want to add multiplayer functionality or not, bearing I have a lot of other problems to solve that I'm still new at. I don't want the project to necessarily get out of hand. My question is, If I head into my project with no plan to add ...
[crossposted from stackoverflow] In a game such as Warcraft 3 or Age of Empires, the ways that an AI opponent can move about the map seem almost limitless. The maps are huge and the position of other players is constantly changing. How does the AI path-finding in games like these work? Standard graph-search methods (su...
I have noticed that in general it seems like the 3d graphics and animations for MMOs and MMORPGs seem not as seductive and polished as the graphics for normal, non-online 3d games. How come this is the case? or Is my judgement inaccurate? If my judgement is inaccurate please provide examples of MMORPGs that render 3d ...
I'm sending an Xbox 360 to a guy in India. Will he be able to play the games I'm sending along in India? Will Xbox Live work in India with my US-bought Xbox? Can he do XNA development on it?
Well, The question is pretty explicit on its own. I want to know if I can deploy a game from my PC directly to a XBox. I'm not a professional developer of games, I do it on my free time because it amuses me, but nothing else. Im planning on buying an XBox but only if I can connect directly to my Visual Studio and test ...
I've seen a couple of these, namely Java and C#/XNA...and I've recently been picking up Python. Which kind of made me think. What (famous) games have been written in Python, with Pygame/Pyglet/Pyopengl?
Shadow mapping uses the depth buffer to calculate where shadows should be drawn. My problem is that I'd like some semi transparent textured quads to cast shadows - for example billboarded trees. As the depth value will be set across all of the quad and not just the visible parts it will cast a quad shadow, which is not...
I've been googling this for a while and haven't been able to find anything (blenders importer does not work). How can I import a .x file to 3D Studio Max? There are heaps of resources in converting formats readable by Max to .x but not the other way around.
this is a graphics/math problem. Consider this 2 sprite / surface As you can see they are a tank and his gun turret. Now, i manage the turret rotation, and it works, and, also, the rotation of the tank on the screen. What it'snt work is the correct "blitting" of the turret on my tank. The problem is that the turr...
i'm wondering: how to create a simple "car headlight" (for i.e) or a torch spotlight in Sdl or Sdl.NET ? Does anyone know how ? Thanks
i'm developing a 2d game (top down), and i'm a beginner. Now, i've to create a map, with object (to interact with) ... I don't know how to .. manage the problem ! Does anyone can help me ? What are the methodology used ? Thanks
I would like to draw a land for a motocross game. I've been thinking of Bezier Curves but I am not sure whether this is the best approach. Can you give me some advice? I want to do it in JavaScript, not very good choice but it's personal project so for time being it's OK.
I'm using XNA to create an FPS camera that uses a Direction vector instead of a Target vector control the camera's orientation. I'm having trouble with the math for looking up and down when the camera is rotated about the Y axis. No problems looking left and right. Here's my code: Vector3 LookDirection {get;set;} publ...
In order to save bandwidth in my multiplayer game, I do not update every object every server tick, instead each object has an updateRate which tells the game that this object is expected to be updated every X server ticks. When I receive an update message for an object I calculate the time I expect the next update to c...
So I've been looking around, but it seems that information on this is scarce. If one wants to develop an arcade game (as in, coin operated), ignoring the software side, where does one start on the hardware side? I mean, is there some kind of company that sells arcade systems with some kind of spec for you to develop th...
I have been looking for and found any.
I believe everybody has heard of Minecraft. It is a deceptively simple game, that was made by a single indie developer, and sold more than 500k copies - despite having no active marketing and being technically a buggy alpha-version. That is really great success for an indie game. And I think we can all learn much from ...
I'm looking to have people share game content, save files, or characters on a mobile game platform. That means they need to be able to upload and download from their phone, other iOS device, or computer. What's the best way to do this? Does Apple have a history of allowing games to download 'content' (incl. graphics) ...
Say I have a list of (in my case, indie) game ideas, from which I need to select a new project to work on. What are the questions/heuristics that you would use - and ideally have already used successfully in the past - to narrow down such a list to a single idea to work on?
A partner and I are in the midst of creating a (not so) simple game via C++ and SFML (2D). We have both created some simple games (not together) and would like to start work on a more serious, larger project that challenges our abilities to program, interact with large code as well as working together without getting i...
Are there any tools that would let multiple people edit things like sprites or code at the same time? Perhaps something that works with services that host code.
I'm interested in tinkering with the AI in Civ 5. I know there are XML files that can adjust the AI's strategies, but are there other easily moddable AI components? The XML files contain comments that reference some CPP files, are those available to end users or are those comments just aimed at internals?
We've seen that multi-touch on smartphones has been wildly successful. On the iPhone, in fact, it's the only tactile input the user can provide! However, I'm wondering how likely it'll be for multi-touch to take off on desktop PCs (and PC gaming) in the future. Right now, it's mostly a lack of good multi-touch monitors...
Does anyone have specifications for the bio2s scripting language from Bohemia Interactive? They develop Operation Flashpoint, Armed Assault (ArmA), and Virtual Battlespace. These scripts are sometimes called O2 or Oxygen scripts and are used in their terrain and modeling tools. Oxygen is Bohemia Interactive's modeling ...
Do you know of any terrain formats for FPS games that use a triangulated irregular network (TIN) instead of a grid for elevation representation? Or at least a game whose development tools accept a TIN as input for terrain elevation? The only example I have is the ASCII Scene Export (ASE) format that can be used as inpu...
I've seen great questions on similar topics, but none that addressed this particular method: Given that I have multiple collections of game entities in my [XNA Game Studio] game, with many entities belonging to multiple lists, I'm considering ways I could keep track of whenever an entity is destroyed and remove it from...
In another thread I was asking about independent arcade system development, and partly it was because I'm interested in using available 3D holographic technology for the displays. I saw one which involved a rotating mirror at very high speeds, so that's probably not going to be too feasible (I'd hate to think of what h...
I've noticed that the trend of movies is diving into the world of movies with 3-dimensional camera.For me it provoked a thought as if it was the same feeling people got when they saw a colour movie for the first time, like in the transition from black and white to colour it is a whole new experience. For the first time...
In the example I found, it usually uses one images for a particle system. Is it possible to use multiple images in a system?
How action game controls should be implemented so that they would work on smart phones as well? At the moment I use wasd/arrow keys and I am able to handle for example two keys down at the same time. But many phones has no physical keyboard so should I render some control areas? Are there any JS libraries for this?
I know that XNA for Xbox 360 has limited access to networking, rumored to only allow communication via a propitiatory Microsoft protocol to other Xbox 360 units. What are the networking possibilities XNA offers? How many Xbox 360 units can be connected to the same subnet? 16 maximum? Can any Xbox send data to any other...
From a game design perspective, I've got the following idea: Traditional Tower Defense game. - an open, mazeable field as monsters approach the castle. "Towers" consist of ground-pounding units like foot soldiers, moats, and other things. yawn However, I'm adding the following features: "Town" - a separate screen for ...
I'm working on a board game called Farlanthia: Lords of War. And I need some help with resolving diplomacy during play. My original idea was to have Diplomacy be a form of "attack" like in RISK. This would force another player to perform an action (like a trade, or peace treaty, etc.) The idea is that each "season" you...
This question is simple, but for me is hard to do! How to implement side (horizontal and vertical) scrolling for (i.e.) a 2d car game ? Both car and background must move. How to ? Thank you!
Before I start development of an XNA game, I need to choose a 3D game engine to develop upon. Is this belief unfounded? Does XNA have basic object transformation, lighting and mesh/texture importing functionality by which you can develop a decent 3D side-scrolling game? Chances are I'm going to need a 3D engine such as...
I am fairly new to c/c++ but I do have experiance with directx and opengl with java and c#. My goal is to create a 2d game in c with under 2 pages of code. Most of what I have seen requires 3 pages of code to just get a window running. I would like to know the shortest code to get a window running where I can draw line...
I am currently working on an OpenGL procedural planet generator. I hope to use it for a space RPG, that will not allow players to go down to the surface of a planet so I have ignored anything ROAM related. At the moment I am drawing a cube with VBOs and mapping onto a sphere. I am familiar with most fractal heightmap...
My physics engine is coming along quite nicely, and I'm ready to start working on some more advanced features. I'm trying to set up my collision engine so that an arbitrary delegate can be notified when a collision occurs. Say we have object A, object B, and object C in the physics simulation. I want to be able to inf...
I'm currently working on a side-scroller which lets the player alter their speed and I wondered how should I properly generate and control background tiles for such a kind o game. I'm using Flixel but I believe it's a strictly mathematical problem. Here's how I see and do it right now: actually the player is static bu...
TL;DR: Where should elevation be anchored on a civ-style hexagonal grid? Center, side or vertex? (Or more complex?) Question proper: Consider for a moment a classic game we all know and love (maybe?), Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. The map model introduced the brand new concept of visible terrain elevation to the classic ...
I'm developing an RPG (goodness, I'm doing a lot actually.) and I'm trying to come up with a decent die roll mechanic for skills. In d20 systems, it's usually Die Roll + Skill + Bonuses - Penalties >= Some Target Number For Many Warhammer (old) systems, you: compare skill vs. skill on chart, Die Roll >= # given on cha...
For a long time I've tried to search for an open source manager game, but without any luck. I'm looking for a suitable project for a reference to my own pet project. Features like well designed data model, tournament and fixture generation and understandable match simulation algorithm would be a great bonuses. I'm espe...
i'm a newbie. I'm trying to develop a 2d game (top-down view). I would like to load a standard background, a textured ground... My "world" is big, for example 3000px X 3000px. I think it is not a good idea to load a 3000px x 3000px image and move it... So, how is the best practice ? To load a single small image (64...
I am planning on making a simple real-time strategy game from the series Stargate Universe. For those who don't know, in the series' center is a spaceship called Destiny. It has a nice control room, with a control interface, what has a holographic control screen. The game basically would run on this. That's what I want...
A large png on disk may only take up a couple megabytes but I imagine that on the gpu the same png is stored in an uncompressed format which takes up much more space. Is this true? If it is true, how much space?
I apologize for the subjective "best" keyword. My friend and I have started creation of a 2D adventure game. It will be top-down in the style of pokemon or zelda (just the perspective). We have been discussing methods of creating a large world-map that the player can traverse without straining the memory capabilities o...
Disclaimer: I'm first a programmer and then an RTS gamer. This means I'm a complete and utter newb in terms of patterns, best practices and glossary of technical terms on the game dev world. Since I was a kid that most of my electric/electronic toys were always taken apart to learn how they were made and most of the pi...
So far I've done web design/development and applications programming and of course video games has always been one of those things that I've wanted to take a stab at but never tried outside of a few minor and failed incursions. The only notable game programming I can say I have done was a little puzzle-ish game for the...
TL;DR: How do you design a ruleset for a Civ-style TBS game that prevents city smallpox from being a profitable or viable strategy? Long version: Civ-style games are pretty great. Bringing a civilization from cradle to grave is a great endeavor, and practicing diplomacy with hard-line human players is fun and challengi...
What are the features and language objectives (general problems to solves) or paradigms that a fictive programming language targetted at games (any kind of game) would require? For example, obviously we would have at least Performance (in speed and memory) (because a lot of games simply require that), but it have a pri...
What angles and long-side/short-side ratios give the most aesthetically pleasing and graphically regular isometric (squashed and flat side up) hexes, that additionally resolve to whole pixel sizes for several sizes when rendered?
I have a simple grid-based map composed of rooms, like this (A=entrance, B=exit): 0 1 2 3 ######### 0 #B# ##### ######### 1 # ### # ######### 2 # # # # # # 3 # # # ######### 4 # ### # ######### 5 ###A # ### # 6 ### # ######### And I'm stuck trying to make a suitable algor...
I would like to create an online implementation of a board game. What engines could I use to write the game and make it easily accessible to as many people as possible? I would like it to be as widely accessible as possible, so it would be best if the user interface would run in a browser, not in a separately downloade...

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.