The International Serious Play Awards honor games that deliver high quality engagement and measurable training or learning in one or more of the following fields:
Preschool Education
K-12 Education
Higher Education
Healthcare
Corporate / Vocational Skills Games
Government / Military
Games for Good / Social Entrepreneurship / Non-Profit
Museum / Visitor Center Education
Other
Any digital or board games designed for education or training are eligible. Winners are invited to demo their products at Serious Play Events.
Digital game entries are due February 15, 2019. Board games for use in serious education or training are due March 1.
For more information and the entry forms, go to http://seriousplayconf.com/awards/.
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International Serious Game Award Entries due February 15, 2019
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International Serious Game Award Entries due February 15, 2019
The International Serious Play Awards honor games that deliver high quality engagement and measurable training or learning in one or more of the following fields:
Preschool Education
K-12 Education
Higher Education
Healthcare
Corporate / Vocational Skills Games
Government / Military
Games for Good / Social Entrepreneurship / Non-Profit
Museum / Visitor Center Education
Other
Any digital or board games designed for education or training are eligible. Winners are invited to demo their products at Serious Play Events.
Digital game entries are due February 15, 2019. Board games for use in serious education or training are due March 1.
For more information and the entry forms, go to http://seriousplayconf.com/awards/.
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Successful Indie Dev Team Seeks Expansion
Hello Devs,
We released our first title in January on Android, and we're looking to expand. We're currently working on a second title based on the perspective of someone who would normally be a non-player character in a normal RPG game, with both shop-sim elements and a strong emphasis on linear storytelling. We're building this title to ship (hopefully to console), so it's not the type of project for a normal hobbyist, but for someone serious about building both a game and a studio. Payment would be based on a Profit Share Model, similar to royalties. This has worked for us in the past because we all are team players!
We currently have a composer/audio artist (developing an orchestral score), a programmer, marketing/biz dev person, and a 2D artist.
We are looking for:
Another C# programmer (preferably someone with experience in Shaders & LOD)
Animator & 3D Artist (preferably someone who knows how to do both)
Developers who know how to do multiple things (or are learning across disciplines) are a PLUS! Our motto is that we grow together. Come grow with us! Interested developers please email office@emmersionstudios.com or send us a PM.
-Thank you
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New Crew Characters and a Control Menu
Happy new year again, this time from China! As Steam has started its Lunar New Year sale „Imagine Earth“ is 25% off for the first time in 5 years Early Access. Don’t wait for more until the game is finished ;). We are accompanying this sale with an update release that brings you much more than redesigned game characters and a classic strategy game styled build menu for advanced gameplay…
Please note that we are looking for beta-testers who can check on our new update releases days earlier than other players, please mail us if you happen to be that enthusiastic about getting your fingers early on new updates of Imagine Earth!
Meet the New Crew
The old avatars of the main crew members in the campaign are some years old by now and we always knew we’d have to give these guys a makeup someday. Nothing is a better way of showing how this game has grown up over the years than the evolution of Limas character. It goes all the way back when it was a casual game idea with comic characters. Maybe we should not have opened this old box but with the final release coming in 2019 this nostalgic flashback came over Jens..
The Brand New Control Menu
A new build menu on the left side of the interface will keep you informed about all your build options. Coolest thing about it is that this menu also shows your inventory and on top the craftable items. It has a category for all your gaia forces and shows if they are fully loaded. You won’t have to visit a workshop anymore to craft your stuff. It comes in addition to the classic build ring, so nothing changes, you just get more options.
World Visualizations
The control menu also offers a set of visualization tools. you can highlight fields that are threatened by rising sea-level caused by global warming. You can highlight rare resources, fertility, ground pollution, construct types and colony areas.
Standalone Diplomacy & Trade Panels
If you open a trade or a crafting panel it will be centered on screen from now on. The background is blurred out and playtime is paused, so you can concentrate on deals and negotiations with factions and traders.
Drone Reconfiguration
We are currently experimenting with how the drones are working. We decided to limit the city centers drones to one per level – so you are starting now with one instead of two. This makes it more important to level your city.
The maintenance station no longer comes with a build drone. Instead it comes with a repair drone that only does repair jobs and will automatically do this in the range of the building. As before it can be upgraded with a fire station.
Same goes for the remediation center. It now has a special remediation drones instead of a build drone
Gaia & UI Balancing
Based on feedback and the experiences we received from Wuik in the steam forums, we had another look at the Gaia balancing. The following changes have been done:
Doubled Gaia production
Reduced price of Gaia container
Display correctly how much Gaia is available in a temple
In addition display how fast Gaia is created and how this is influenced by the nearby population
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Limited life time object from a function
Good Afternoon Everyone,
I am reading over "Game Engine Architecture" by Jason Gregory and my question involves the Debug example on page 377.
In the book, there's a class like so...
class DebugDrawManager{
void AddLine( /*normal line params*/, float duration);
};
g_DebugDrawMgr; //global access to debug draw manager
And the example is used thus
void Vehicle::Update(){
g_debugDrawMgr.AddLine(/*line params*/, 1000.0f /*duration now is 1000 ms*/);
}
My question is, since a game runs in an infinite while loop, how is it possible to draw a line, say with a duration of 1000 ms, and then upon the next frame, in the same update function, not push_back another instance of another line with a duration of 1000ms.
In another piece of code, we might have something like this
void Person::Update(){
g_debugDrawMgr.AddLine(/*line params*/, 50000.0f /*duration now is 50000 ms*/);
}
We have the same problem. Some kind of line struct is getting pushed every update step with a life duration of 5000ms.
Does anyone know how such a function works under the hood?
Thanks again,
Mike
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How do you market a game on a tight budget?
What's the use of making a game if no one plays it? Any tips on marketing for cheap or free?
Are there any examples of companies who have marketed with a low budget?
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[BzLog 2]: SciFy storyline + Gameplay
Project BlockchainZ is already available on itch.io. You are so welcome to enjoy our Discord Server.
Scify Storyline
Far away in the future, the world has fell down and there’s no hope for the hopeless. Society is completely broken in pieces and the few humans alive try to survive at any cost. The whole planet is crowded of buildings burned to the ground. Cities have just became into ruins. But we are not alone. This is not our world anymore. We are sharing this shattered planet with something we get used to calling the dead ones but they are not now.
We created them. We created these creatures in the glory days of our society, when technologies were on the top of the world and we felt capable to return the deceased back to life. It took us a long time of failures to understand that death is something we cannot revert. And we tried to revert it so hard.
Now, these nonliving creatures are walking around the world, eating us, feeding themselves with our blood and beating our meat. Our bodies are just their fuel for life. What a terrible irony: living deaths killing the living ones.
Zombies.
That’s the word we try not to tell. Because that simple meaning do freeze our breaths. They are not just ordinary zombies, like movies always claimed. These creatures are stronger, incredibly resistant and very, very frightening. Just imagine for a while that you meet with something extremely capable to kill you. What would you do?
Survive.
That’s the only purpose of the life. And there’s only one way to kill zombies: BlockchainZ Ammo, a type of munition especially made to kill living dead, based in a very strong poison which attacks the zombie brain.
Gameplay
Once you are ready to play this game, you must understand there are some critical situations you will have to pass through:
You must protect the bunker until the reinforcements arrive.
You have to kill whoever and whatever attacks you. People protection depends on you.
You must clean the key places infested by zombies.
You need to spoil as much as Bz Ammo as possible to the raiders in order to kill the living dead. But remember: raiders will counterattack.
Be careful with the hordes of zombies. Once they arrive, there is no way out.
The world is based in a completely ruined city. And this city is your worst enemy.
Wanna ask you something: how many zombies are you capable to kill in just one battle?
Remember to join us on Discord!
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Looking for Artist for Couch Coop Heist Game
We are working on a cooperative puzzle game in a heist setting for Airconsole. The concept of Airconsole is quite cool: the game runs in a browser without the need for a console or a powerful PC. The players connect their smartphones and use them as controllers. The game is made in Unity.
The players have to work together to overcome puzzles and complete a heist, e.g. stealing something from a museum. The puzzles are something like deactivating an alarm, picking a lock, or disabling a laser trap. Each player may have different information on their smartphone. So, the puzzles can only be solved with team work and communication. For some puzzles, the players will also have to physically align their smartphones to get to the solution. The idea is, to make the puzzles more tangible and physical than with a traditional console game and force the players to think "out of the box".
So far the setting is only loosley defined, since we are still experimenting with the game mechanics. It will be set in the present time with maybe a bit more futuristic devices than currently exist, e.g. like in the Mission Impossible movies. We can imagine a museum or a mansion of a drug dealer and you need to steal some nuclear weapon codes to prevent them from going to the black market.
We are looking for a 2D or 3D artist to create the game assets and ideally also the UI. The visual style will be defined together with your input :)
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Looking for new or experienced devs to collaborate on 3D Unity Tennis game!
Hi all, I'd like to briefly introduce myself and a pet PC game project I've been nurturing over the years. If tennis or 3D sports games are your thing, please PM me here or on Discord @ kenBlade #2331
I'm a former IGF student game developer turned AAA game company associate producer and researcher, and I'm now working on a passion project full-time. Prior to this undertaking, my background was mostly in MS VBA, games user research, and the business of making games. As a games user researcher, my favorite project was Top Spin 4.
I took a long break from the games industry to diversify my skillset in product design and traditional software development, during which hiatus I found myself gravitating more towards tennis and all things related, including PC tennis simulation games. Since then I've been dreaming up lots of ways to revolutionize PC/console tennis games and extensively studied game accessibility, balance, and crowdfunding. Just recently, I discovered that many tennis sims were built by talented solo developers. That's when I started learning Unity and inertia-based mocap just to see if I --a less talented developer -- could also pull off a unique tennis game. Design pillars are accessibility, believability, and customizability.
To date, I've been working on this passion project for three months part-time and three more months full-time. Most of my time was spent acquiring and learning the tech (a decent rig, mocap equipment, input devices, Unity and Unity Assets) while prototyping the core mechanics and control schemes. I haven't implemented production ready physics or aesthetics yet in case other devs floating in this gamedev.net ether would like to contribute and outshine my crude attempts at art and (Playmaker-assisted) Unity scripting. My goal would be to eventually turn this pet project into a crowdsourcer.io project with a small team of passionate developers, and then seek out crowdfunding once we hit the alpha stage.
Whether you're experienced at developing games or not, please reach me if this project interests you. Demo available upon request. Let's reach for the moon and fall upon the stars! Physics.
Discord @ kenBlade #2331
#Unity #Tennis
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Looking for portfolio project/experience/internship
Hi everyone!
I'm a studying sound engineer from Stockholm, Sweden who´s aimed to work in the video game industry as a Audio Designer.
While looking for internships in this area I got lots of replys but everyone was requesting a portfolio. (duh). So kinda missed my chances.
Anyway. I'm now looking to expand my portfolio and therfore looking for a developer who could use help in ether a short period or a ongoing project. Bottom line is that I'll do the work for free as it's a part of my studies and have 10 weeks I can dedicate to a project, funded by my government.
Just throwing this out here! I can also travel to be on site for the 10 weeks if a internship would be possible.
Also, how could a audio portfolio for the gaming industry look? Would anyone of you be able to share yours?
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Microsoft is planning to bring Xbox Live gaming to Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, and more
Microsoft is reportedly planning to bring Xbox Live cross-platform gaming features to PC, Xbox, iOS, Android, and Nintendo Switch. This news was first reported by Windows Central via a GDC 2019 schedule on Xbox Live. “Xbox Live is expanding from 400 million gaming devices and a reach to over 68 million active players to over […]
The post Microsoft is planning to bring Xbox Live gaming to Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, and more appeared first on Packt Hub.
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box selection in bullet
i am trying to make a basic rts with 100 vs 100 character, but as in rts we need box selection for picking multiple units, and if we
are in perspective projection we need to define the frustum against the camera where it is defined by the cursor position.
now my question is i am somehow able to get eight vertices in the 3d world that defines frustum against which collision should be checked
but i don't know how to put that eight vertices in the bullet physics engine,
should i use the btConvexHullShape, then how am i supposed to fit this eight vertices as a triangular mesh.
or
is there a thing called btFrustumShape or more like it.
or
there is a fully another way to do this thing.
i implemented the single click selection via ray casting with bullet.
one thing more i am un-projecting the mouse coordinates with depth 1.0f and 0.0f first when it is clicked and released which gives
topleft and bottomright coordinates of the 2d rectangle(selection box).
thanks in advance.
excuse me for poor syntax😁.
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Looking for 2D artist for xcom like game with a twist
Looking for a 2d artist to help make a game. Might be realised on steam and later date, if lots of progress gets done (If so we would of course share revenue). or might just be left as a hobbyist project. The game idea is like xcom, but you decide all the moves before the battle (obviously randomness would have to be taken out) - think human resource machine plus xcom, if anyone's interested hmu
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using system generated SV_VertexID in VertexShader fails
Hi,
i could pull each of my hair because i can' t find my bug for hours i really got headache
in my Indie game engine i use DrawIndexed
and want to use the VertexID in my Vertex Shader in Directx 11 ( working with win7).
here the manual of Microsoft
Using System-Generated Values
VertexID
A vertex id is used by each shader stage to identify each vertex. It is a 32-bit unsigned integer whose default value is 0. It is assigned to a vertex when the primitive is processed by the IA stage. Attach the vertex-id semantic to the shader input declaration to inform the IA stage to generate a per-vertex id.
The IA will add a vertex id to each vertex for use by shader stages. For each draw call, the vertex id is incremented by 1. Across indexed draw calls, the count resets back to the start value. For ID3D11DeviceContext::DrawIndexed and ID3D11DeviceContext::DrawIndexedInstanced, the vertex id represents the index value. If the vertex id overflows (exceeds 2³²– 1), it wraps to 0.
For all primitive types, vertices have a vertex id associated with them (regardless of adjacency).
end of Microsoft Text.
When setting my Material_idx manually e.g. to 25 or another value the shape is displayed accordingly
But when i try to get the actual shape idx from the system generated vertexID i always get the attributes of shape 0
But the manual states when call drawindexed the vertex id represents the index value.
The Question is:
Does this mean, that the value of the vertex id will alway stay in the range of e.g. ( 0 to 7 ) for a cube Vertexbuffer even i do a draw call with a binded indexbuffer of e.g. 36 000 indexes all referring to the same 8 vertexies in the tiny small vertexbuffer ? ( Trying to draw 1000 different attributed shapes )
In the Blog Post http://www.joshbarczak.com/blog/?p=667 "Why Geometry Shaders Are Slow" there is chapter where the author does exactly the same i want to do.
Big Indexbuffer and tiny vertexbuffer to draw multiple cubes but NOT with the drawinstanced method.
Method 2: The “Instancing Sucks” Way
Let’s do the same thing, except let’s not use instancing. The reasons for this will become clear shortly. Now, we don’t want to go doing one drawcall per box, because that would just introduce more overhead. We also don’t want to duplicate the same unit cube 250K times. That would consume unnecessary bandwidth. Instead, we’ll do this by generating a gigantic index buffer and doing SV_VertexID math. We know that cube i will reference vertices 8*i through 8*i+7, so we can figure out our own local instance and vertex ID from a flat index buffer. The only drawback is that now we need to fetch our vertex and instance data explicitly:
uniform row_major float4x4 g_ViewProj;
Buffer<float4> Verts;
Buffer<float4> XForms;
float4 main(
uint vid : SV_VertexID ) : SV_Position
{
uint xform = vid/8;
float4 v = Verts[vid%8];
float4 R0 = XForms[3*xform];
float4 R1 = XForms[3*xform+1];
float4 R2 = XForms[3*xform+2];
// deform unit box into desired oriented box
float3 vPosWS = float3( dot(v,R0), dot(v,R1), dot(v,R2) );
// clip-space transform
return mul( float4(vPosWS,1), g_ViewProj );
}
DrawBoneShapes_VSOut DrawShapeColored_unique_sequenz_VertexShader(DrawShapeColored_VSIn input, uint vertexID : SV_VertexID)
{
uint a_Material_idx = vertexID;
// Test Case Cube:
// has 8 Vertecies
// has 6 Sides * 2 Triangles * 3 Vertecies = 36 indexes
// vertexID never gets greater than 8 (I assume) so allways the attributes of 0 th Cube are displayed
a_Material_idx = vertexID/36;
// set manually attributes of 26 th Cube ( all works fine !! )
a_Material_idx = 25;
DrawBoneShapes_VSOut Output;
float4x4 WorldViewProj_Shape = mul(BoneShapeList_WVP[a_Material_idx], WorldViewProj);
Output.Position = mul(input.Position, WorldViewProj_Shape);
Output.Normal = float3(0, 0, 0);
Output.TexCoord = float2(0, 0);
Output.Depth = 1;
Output.Material_idx = a_Material_idx;
return Output;
}
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[BzLog 5]: Fresh news! Patch notes 1.0.1b
Hey everybody!
We’re working on more meaningful additions, so here’s Patch 1.0.1b! The update is ready for you! We are introducing a new kind of raider, bigger and more powerful, who uses a shotgun (Let us know if you like it). We also add some improvements in the Bullet Time skill, which we’ll explain you with lots of details in the next week devlog. Besides, a new weapon is at player’s disposal, The shotgun: Ready to kill zombies without remorse. Also a big optimization that allow us to put more Units at the same time: 100 to 300.
Additionally we are still working on the story. We’ll show you very soon more info about concepts and who are the factions and what we finally decided about the zombie idea. We are discussing it on our Discord Server, and you are invited to participate.
Patch Notes:
New weapon included: shotgun.
New Raider with a shotgun.
Big optimization that allows more units on screen at the same time, from 100 to 300.
Movement of enemies improved (Improved pathfindings).
Response time and physicis now uses less resources.
New mini map icon for zombies.
Adjusted win time to concentrate action in more fast paced battles.
Modified alarm bait duration to make it more usable.
Changed Bullet Time, now it’s a time based skills instead a stamina one.
Now you can choose whether the soldiers in the bunker come to help you or not.
Now you can choose the initial weapon when you start the battle.
Some aesthetic improvements in the text boards.
New Feedback when the alarm bait is activated.
New Feedback while Bullet Time.
Increased player jump height.
New Feedback when you are reloading ammo with the Ammo Box.
Raiders Supply Depot always have bandits inside.
AI units identify the Ammo Box as an obstacle.
Bug fixes.
… and much more in future patches!
We will continue working on new improvements and patches, and will be glad to know any feedback or suggestions you have. Don't forget to join us on Discord!
Thank you all for the support, it’s really useful. Hope you enjoy the new patch and have fun!
Project BlockChainZ Team.
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Master Thesis suggestions
Hi guys,
I'm writing Master Thesis this year and my topic is 'Game engine architecture'. I chose DirectX 12 for rendering, but can't seem to come up with any ideas what I could improve in such an engine (the target of thesis is to create something innovative/upgrade something that already exists). Was thinking about low level programming and maybe additing multithreading to some part of the engine. I would really appreciate any ideas in regards to any game engine improvements.
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New Hero Added 02-07-2019
New hero added: Dude Questioning How In The World He Got Here
Game Link: Click here
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Dungeon Challenge Part 4
Not long to go now! Today I spent a couple of hours on the game, and added a few new features. Monsters now drop loot, either gold, spell scrolls or health potions. I added treasure chests which can be collected and give you gold.
I also added a title screen and instruction screen, did some graphics for the logo and the inventory screens. Also added a door which can be unlocked with keys. The goal of the game is to find the key then unlock the door to exit the maze, you can fight or avoid the monsters.
I still need to add keys into the game but then it's pretty much done. There will probably be bugs due to the time scale of creating a game in such a short period, but it's pretty playable right now. I also need to expand the map and make the maze bigger and more interesting.
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Develop:Bright 2019 Registration is Open - get a discount!
Develop:Brighton takes place July 9-11, 2019 at the Hilton Brighton Metropole, and registration is now open. Register before April 3 for the Super Early Bird rate of 35% off full price. Learn more here.
GameDev.net members can get an additional 10% discount on top of the Super Early Bird discount by using this code at checkout: DXEDSX.
Interested in speaking at Develop:Brighton? The Call for Speakers submissions closes February 13. Learn more here.
View full story
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Develop:Bright 2019 Registration is Open - get a discount!
Develop:Brighton takes place July 9-11, 2019 at the Hilton Brighton Metropole, and registration is now open. Register before April 3 for the Super Early Bird rate of 35% off full price. Learn more here.
GameDev.net members can get an additional 10% discount on top of the Super Early Bird discount by using this code at checkout: DXEDSX.
Interested in speaking at Develop:Brighton? The Call for Speakers submissions closes February 13. Learn more here.
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