I have a question not necessarily specific to any platform or API but more specific to interactions in code between animations. A game is a good example. Let's say the player dies, and there's a death animation that must finish before the object is removed. This is typical for many cases where some animation has to finish before continu...
Every game tutorial and game framework (even the rather new XNA framework) start off with a never ending loop that has an equivalent of DoEvents() to prevent the OS from locking up. Comming from a non-game based perspective I feel this kind of code smells rather funky. Are there no better alternatives? --EDIT-- A lot of answers say eve...
It's a long one so you might want to get that cup of tea/coffee you've been holding off on ;) I run a game called World of Arl, it's a turn based strategy game akin to Risk or Diplomacy. Each player has a set of cities, armies and whatnot. The question revolves around the display of these things. Currently the map is created using a bac...
Dear all, I'm trying to implement a small-scale strategy, taking turns game implemented in Java, GUI is made with JFace and SWT. My challenge is to write a GUI implementation of the world map, where countries will act as clickable buttons. However, countries have no fixed boundaries, no rectangular shape, and simply no way I can think...
Has anyone noticed this odd behavior of application that utilize D3D or OpenGL when they go to full screen in Windows? It applies only when applications go to full screen and then switch back to window or terminate. They either shuffle window positions of other applications (when I am on single monitor machine), or move all the other ap...
http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2007/n2271.html According to that article STL isn't suited for game-development. What are your thoughts about this ? My current approach is this : use STL, if leads to performance problems exchange with homebrew container (or allocator) (didn't come to it yet, but I'm not doing a high-...
Hi, Say I have a game in PHP which is a money making game and everyday the prices on items change on the market. How would I make it so the prices in the database are automatically updated each day? Would I install a program on the server that detects when it has gone 24 hours then runs a PHP file which does the updating? Or os there a...
For example, in Fallout 3, a save game stores the state and location of every single object and NPC in the game, and only takes up a few MB's. How do they do that!?!? And then, during game play, how is this data added/retrieved in/from memory such that it can be displayed to the player in real-time? UPDATED: (I'm going to make you wor...
While Mahjong (the actual game, not Mahjong solitare) is fairly simple in terms of basic rules and gameplay, setting objectives for the AI to transition to aim for certain end game goals seems fairly complex. Is anyone aware of any papers, research, or other materials related to this topic? ...
I'm guessing this depends on the OS, among other things. I would guess that development for Windows using DirectX would "force" people to use Visual Studio, but is that always the case? What about when OpenGL is the graphics API? How about Java? Is Eclipse the norm? UPDATED: I guess the general consensus is that there aren't really...
What are the different ways to handle animations for 3D games? Do you somehow program the animations in the modeler, and thus the file, than read and implement them in the game, or do you create animation functions to animate your still vectors? Where are some good tutorials for the programming side of this? Google only gave me the mode...
I'm not a graphics or game designer but would like to build more interactivity into my iPhone apps and eventually start developing gaming apps. Tools such as Blender seem for out into the future for anything I'll produce useful from them. I need something similar to a FrontPage for game developers. For 300 bucks, Torgue for the iPhone...
I am just getting back into game development and I am really impressed with XNA. My only problem is that I want a community based 2d game engine so that I can harness the power of the community. Does anybody know of a good XNA 2d game engine that is currently being supported or Do I just have to write one myself? ...
Game development is a fantastic and fun job, but how to earn money with a so big level of piracy? Do you owns or works on a profitable game development company? ...
Hi all, is there an existing platform/framework for developing Web/HTTP based robots? Actually I'm interested in playing some web games, in which one can build his city, select and training his hero and soldier, and so on.. (such as Travian ) but in the game, such actions need time to complete (I hate waiting..) I try to write a automat...
Hi There, What would be the quickest route for a developer to learn to game development on the iphone. Ive some .net winforms and webform experience but no experience with direct x or any graphics and game dev. In my spare time I want to learn these skills but would like to learn via the iphone. So Im just wondering what are the best re...
Hello. I am going to start a game in about 3 weeks and I would really like the game to run at least on another platform (linux, MacOS) but my team thinks that's a lot of work. I am up for it but wanted to know what are the things I should watch out for that won't port to linux (apart from Windows specific APIs like DirectXsound)? I've b...
What kind of languages and IDEs are used to develop video games? like Xbox 360 games? Are they OOP? Thanks. UPDATE: Great answers guys, I am sorry I can only mark 1 as answer, you have all provided great feedback! ...
What is the best size for an individual tile in a 2D sprite sheet? I am creating a sprite sheet and am trying to figure out what the best resolution is to use for each sprite. Is there a standard size I shouldn't go above or below? ex. 64px X 64px, 512px X 512px, etc. I am trying to get HD quality sprites. Think Alien Hominid, Castle...
I'm in the process of writing a small overhead view RPG much in the vein of the classic Ultima series. I need a quick and dirty (more quick than dirty) way of designing large maps - say 1000 tiles x 1000 tiles, and i need some help thinking through how to go about doing this. I would say there are a good 50-60 different types of tile...