Design Patterns: Singleton Basics
Design Patterns are among the bread and butter of the good developer's cookbook. Basically, any serious job interview you will have as a Junior to Mid-level programmer, will have a question on Design...
View ArticleFor a Career in Gaming, are Game Design Degrees Worth It?
Many students and parents believe that if they are interested in a career in gaming, then the best thing for them to pursue is a degree in "Game Design", "Game Programming", or "Game Art and...
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Spring RTS Engineering Internals
Spring is a free open source RTS game engine originally created by Stefan Johansson and Robin Westberg, members of the Swedish Yankspankers game clan. Originally intended to bring the gameplay...
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Game Programming: Snake
IntroductionWhat is Snake?Quoting Wikipedia:Snake is a casual video game that originated during the late 1970s in arcades and has maintained popularity since then, becoming something of a classic....
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Crafting a Maze Game
In this article we are going to perform some basic Game Design for a simple five stages maze crawler. Let's start with the obvious question – what is this maze crawler game going to be and how are we...
View ArticleUntangling Licensing and Copyright in Game Art
First off, I am definitely not a lawyer. So please do not take any of this information as legal advice.However, I am a producer at Heavy Cat Studios, and I have a fair amount of experience in...
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Case Study: Bomberman Mechanics in an Entity-Component-System
The Bomberman series of games are simple games with an interesting set of mechanics. Having used an ECS framework in a few projects, I thought it would be useful to see how we can implement these...
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From Python to Android
I have published this article to my blog before, but because it is not so frequently visited and I did not find much advice for this subject I am writing the same article down here to share with...
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Simple but Effective Collisions Part 1: Radial Collision Handling
The illusion of smooth collision detection is paramount to a realistic gaming experience. Imagine if you were playing a horror game and you suddenly slipped through the dungeon walls, or you were...
View ArticleConjuring a Compelling World
Many types of games rely heavily on a well-crafted world, be it imaginary or partially based on reality. Some obviously will need richer environments than others; classic role-playing games are much...
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APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur
Author's Summary In 2011 the publisher of one of my books, Enchantment, could not fill an order for 500 ebook copies of the book. Because of this experience, I self-published my next book, What the...
View ArticleGames as Art and Why You Shouldn't Care
“The chess pieces are the block alphabet which shapes thoughts; and these thoughts, although making a visual design on the chess-board, express their beauty abstractly, like a poem… I have come to the...
View ArticleTips for Working With an Art Studio
In 2012 I had the pleasure to work with Meta3D Studios in developing artwork for my mobile game Hamster Chase, and I'd like to share some tips on getting the most out of working with an art...
View ArticleThe Shaming of Pac-Man: A Remake of the Classic From the 80's With A Beginner...
In this long titled article, I will address two things:Firstly, I will present my Pac-Man remake that I prepared for the themed article contest of May. Following a brief technical overview and...
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Build-Order Optimization in StarCraft
David Churchill and Michael Buro University of Alberta Computing Science Department Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Abstract In recent years, real-time strategy (RTS) games have gained interest in the AI...
View ArticleSmarter Steering: Using Context for Direction
Smarter SteeringI should begin this by giving credit where credit is due. The idea for contextual steering described herein is lifted heavily from work by Andrew Fray as described in his excellent GDC...
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Redesigning an Old Game for Mobile Platforms
This article covers the process of remaking an 8-bit game into a brand new mobile game, adapting the game everywhere it needs to fit the new screen and control methods.The Original GameAlcatraz is an...
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Configuration And Tweaking
A Configuration and Tweak SystemSetting up a configuration system for a game sounds like a trivial task. What exactly is there to store beyond some graphics, sound and controller information? For the...
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Five Common Mistakes in Game Usability Testing And How To Avoid Them
A couple of weeks ago we held a massive game usability testing session at the Gamefounders game accelerator, the first of its kind in Europe. In this article I will share with you our experience from...
View ArticleTools of a Game Designer: What I use and What is out There
There are a variety of ways to go about designing a game. Luckily enough I’ve had enough projects to work on and enough freedom to try different ways to design them. Some ways have completely failed me...
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