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Avoiding Obstacles in Dyanamic Environments
The GoalGiven a dynamic moving field of objects, leverage the existing capabilities of the physics engine to allow an entity to navigate from any position to any other position while appearing to...
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Why Do Mobile Games Often Fail at International Expansion?
According to WSJ, the global mobile game market is expected to increase eightfold from $3.77 billion in 2010 to $29.6 billion in 2017. And among all the countries, the Asia Pacific region, with China...
View ArticleMaking Games is Hard
A year and half ago, Cadence was nothing more than a post-it note on my wall. Today, the game that was supposed to take six months still isn’t done. The “gentle practice run” into the art of releasing...
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Composing an Indie RPG Title Track
While I download and install Unity 4.6.21 beta, I think this is a good time to share all the work that is going into the music side of Archmage Rises. Music sets mood, tone, and feel. Perhaps I should...
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Intercepting a Moving Target in 2D for a Rotating Shooter
In a previous article, the problem of hitting a target with a fixed velocity was discussed and a solution described. In that case, the shooter had the ability to launch the projectile immediately at...
View ArticleWhat's In Your Toolbox?
Big things are made of little things. Making things at all takes tools. We all know it is not the chisel that creates the sculpture, but the hand that guides it. Still, having a pointy chisel is...
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Standard Gameplay and IAP Metrics for Mobile Games (Part 2)
This article continues on from my previous article (Part 1). In this article we will be looking at using analytics to measure and improve gameplay for our example game "Ancient Blocks". As before, the...
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Retro Mortis: RTS (Part 1) - It was found in a Desert...
Greetings, Preface (You may freely skip this Preface without risk) Let me preface this by saying that I realize a lot of what is to follow will be built upon conjectures and subjective observations....
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Setting Realistic Deadlines, Family, and Soup
Jan. 23, 2015. This is my goal. My deadline. And I'm going to miss it. Let me explain. As I write this article, I am also making soup. Trust me, it all comes together at the end. Part I: Software...
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A Room With A View
A Viewport allows for a much larger and richer 2-D universe in your game. It allows you to zoom in, pan across, and scale the objects in your world based on what the user wants to see (or what you want...
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300 Employees On Multiple Continents: How We Work Without An Office
We decided to go office-less at the very start. For a small translation agency focused on working with IT companies via the Internet, this was a logical step. Now, ten years later, Alconost includes...
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Implementing a Meta System in C++
Hi everybody!I am relatively new to game development, however I would like to share my experience in developing a meta system for C++. I faced the problem of embedding a scripting language when I was...
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Designing a "Playable" UI That Secretly Teaches How to Play
Editor's note: The majority of images in this article are animated gifs, but we've had reports that they don't always appear animated for all readers -- if you're seeing a still image try clicking on...
View ArticleOpenGL Batch Rendering
Over the last 10+ years I have created many different game engines to suit my needs. In this article I describe the batch rendering technique that I use in the OpenGL Shader Engine that I am building...
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Banshee Engine Architecture - Introduction
This article is imagined as part of a larger series that will explain the architecture and implementation details of Banshee game development toolkit. In this introductory article a very general...
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Retro Mortis: RTS (Part 2) - Then a Blizzard came...
-=- Full "Retro Mortis" Series Article Index -=- Retro Mortis - RTS (Part 1) - It was found in a Desert... Retro Mortis - RTS (Part 2) - Then a Blizzard came... Greetings, While not mandatory, it would...
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Data Visualization in Games: Leaderboards
In one of my earlier gaming memories, I'm playing Centipede on an old, busted arcade cabinet. Not at an arcade though, but at a doctor's office. I guess it's a bit strange now to think that a doctor's...
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Humble Bundle Distribution
A few people have asked this question by email and I was happy to offer short answers, but perhaps a long answer is warranted. How should marketers or even game makers view bundling platforms? I’ve met...
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Generalized Platformer AI Pathfinding
PreambleIf you're writing a "jump and run" style platformer game, you're probably thinking about adding some AI. This might constitute bad guys, good guys, something the player has to chase after...
View ArticleTips for Developers: How to Make a Good Sequel to Your Game
The team of Renatus Media shared tips for game developers based on its own experience with creating a sequel called Bubble Chronicles Diamond Edition. This formed a solid base for a guide meant for...
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