game-development

Game development with XNA or Unity3d

What can make a game developer to choose between XNA or Unity 3d as game development platform and what are the pros and cons of choose each one? ...

Is there a graphics/game engine that supports PC & Mac?

Is there a graphics and/or game engine that runs on both Mac & PC? I've seen Unity and that's a possibility, I'm wondering if there are any other choices. Ideally I want to port the same C++ game code to both PC & Mac platforms, but let the underlying game/graphics engine take advantage of the appropriate hardware. edit: I'm looking on...

How to stretch a bitmap in C and SDL?

I am making a game for my CS class and the sprites I have found online are too small. How do you 'stretch' a bitmap... make them bigger using SDL? (I need to increase there size 50%, there all the same size.) A snippet of example code would be appreciated. ...

In .NET, Does SQL have any part in game development? Is it used for anything?

I'm a self teaching beginner, and I know absolutely nothing about the technical specs of computers/programming in general. I am using a C# book to learn it, and I mainly just want to learn everything that relates to game development, if something has no part in game development/no use in it. I won't bother learning it for the time being....

Good book(s) for MMORPG design & implementation?

I am a long time professional C/C++ programmer (mostly embedded systems) and a hobbyist windows & php hacker. Can anyone recommend a book(s) specifically aimed at designing and (hopefully) implementing an MMORPG? I don't need general how to design or how to code books. Maybe a really good generic games book, but I am not interested in ...

Open source libraries for sound effects in games

Hi, does aybody know about an open source sound library in C++ or some other popular language that can be used in open source games for recreating sounds and especifically in car racing games to recreate engine sound? Thanks ...

What does it to make a multi-player game on smartphones?

What precisely do I need to make a multi-player game on smartphones like Blackberry and Android? I know that I have to implement a server by using sockets in Java. How? Can anyone guide me on that? ...

What Language To Learn For Developing Web/Mobile Games?

Hello, I would like to learn how to develop web/mobile games. What language is best for that? Java? C#? Ruby? ActionScript? I'm not interested in developing desktop games. ...

How did the Lunar Lander example make the image backgrounds transparent?

Hello. I'm trying to make a GUI program with the Android SDK, using their Lunar Lander example as a significant self-teaching tool in the process. I've noticed their sprites' images' backgrounds, which were at least usually pure white, did not show up in their program. I want to ask how they did that, since their site doesn't explain ...

Is there a standard size for the Tetris grid?

I am, as a lot of other programmers, building a Tetris clone. But the thing is that I try to do my best and I know maybe it's not a relevant detail; but I want to know whether there's a standard size for the grid. Thanks in advance. ...

How to use Http connections like a TCP Socket in Java

Hi All, I may be asking a bit much here but I have faith in the community so it's worth trying. I'm making a game and I'm trying to pick the connection type to use for communicating between a Java mobile client and a Java server backend. Socket programing in Java is easy - there's a lovely tutorial on the subject and two way communicat...

Flash Game: All resources do not completely load for different users

Hello, I am running an online flash multiplayer game. However, I have been facing a problem lately where some users cannot actually completely load all the resources required to run the game. The percentage that users get stuck at is different for different users (for instance, one could get stuck at 43% and some other at 91%). I don't...

Theory of Game Interface Design

Anyone know of a good book on Game Interface Design (not game play mechanics; the actual UI). I'm particular interested in theories of cognition, and how game interfaces are designed to allow the enduser efficient communication with the game (whether it in FPS, RTS, or so on). In a modern game, the amount of information conveyed to th...

Displaying "broken" sprites?

I'm quite new to the world of 2D-Engines. I figured out how to load images and display those as sprites and stuff, but theres one question that bugs me. For instance, when a "rocket" hits an object it will deal damage to it and leave a crater behind. I'd like to have the crater shown on that object. That would require "skipping" some of...

Console or Graphical Game Design?

I am starting to get into programming as a hobby, I had several classes in JAVA/C# at school and would like to get into game programming. Honestly, this is just for myself. I am not looking to fast track the next A+ game, just something I can work on during my downtime at work. I have already decided on C# using SharpDevelop at work and ...

Trying to switch a texture when player dies (OpenGL + C++)

I'm creating a 2D game and when the player dies I want the texture I to switch to another (to show an explosion) I also want the game to pause for a second or two so the user can see that the texture has changed. My textures are loading correctly because I can apply it to a shape and i can see it if I say switched it with the players or...

Is unit testing viable in game programming?

I'm fond of the idea of unit testing but I'm having trouble applying it to game programming. Games are highly stateful and often the code doesn't break itself into distinct units. In my experience, most functions mutate state rather than returning values. Consider a simple action like playerJump(height). I'd love to have a test suite th...

Finding cells in a grid with varying grid cell sizes

I have a grid of rectangular cells covering a plane sitting at some distance from the coordinate system origin and would like to identify the grid cell where a straight line starting at the origin would intersect it. The cells on the grid have equal sizes (dx,dy) and there are no gaps between cells, but since every cell on the plane has...

[iPhone] Disabling Anti-Aliasing for fonts

Hi, I'm writing a retro type game for the iPhone, and need to render a pixel style font to the screen. However, it looks nice and sharp when I run it in the simulator, but not when I run it on the device. Is there any way that I can disable Anti-Aliasing for fonts? I have already tried this: CGContextRef c = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext(...

Is there a 2d sprite library for webgl?

I am looking to build a 2d game using WebGL. I want the hardware acceleration that WebGL provides and I cannot get this from the 2D canvas context in the canvas tag. With that said, is there a tutorial on creating 2D sprites using webGL? Or, better yet, is there a 2D sprite library for WebGL? Ideally, I'm looking for something like c...