Welcome to the Starting Small series. The aim of this series is to take a programming language that you hopefully know a bit about (enough to feel comfortable using) or that you want to try out and show you how to use it to make games. The language that this […]
Monthly Archives: August 2009
I think I chatted about the initial World of Goo dev diary at some long-forgotten point in the past, but now TIGSource has amassed the links from the finished product for people to look at and learn from. This collection describes the game’s progress from its hideous first draft (with […]
Crafting a world (of Goo)
So there’s this game called Silent Conversation on Armor Games, right? Well, I like it. I’ve already seen mixed responses to the concept, so not everybody is going to enjoy it … but, well, screw that. Silent Conversation is a game that’s built entirely out of words. Instead of basing […]
Gaming through words
I’m going to assume you know about Game Career Guide and their regular game design challenges; if you haven’t, then I clearly need to talk about them more than I already have. Of course, it’s not entirely fair to single out GCG for awesome content, because, over at Dev.Mag, we’re […]
Latest Game Career Guide challenge results
Geometry plays a central role in game programming, underlying not only graphics, but also physics and spatial AI. A lot has happened since geometry was first formalised by the Greeks more than two thousand years ago, most notably the invention of coordinates and vectors. These inventions are indispensible for doing […]
Vector Fundamentals
Something that I’ve been idly mulling over for a while is the recently-announced pricing revision for Xbox Live Indie Games. For those who don’t know already, the old 800/400/200 MSP system is giving way to 400/240/80 MSP, meaning that the lowest price point is potentially just under a single US […]
Your opinion: Xbox indie game prices
Well, we’ve just come out of the long weekend down here (Monday off, yay!), and I’ve decided to take a lazy stroll through my RSS feeds to find something nice to write about today. This little Tuesday reading snippet, entitled “What are indie games?” comes from the Wolfire blog. I […]
“What are indie games?”
Disclaimer: This article covers the hyperbolic ranting of an entirely fictional (and very foul-tempered) stick figure thing. As such, we reserve the right to label this article as satire and advise you to take any of Angry Joe’s advice in good humour and high spirits. Whether or not he happens […]
Four issues that developers need to drop already
I’m going to be very terse here. It’s necessary, don’t worry. Steam has this offer, right? They’ve packaged 10 games together, offering it for $30. No, it’s not just any 10 games. These are some the best indie games currently on offer on Steam. There are more IGF finalists and […]
The most amazing weekend deal
Now in development for roughly eight years, Cortex Command is already quite a familiar feature in the mindscape of many gamers. It is a hard one to ignore with its colourful graphics, spiffy tunes and very surprising chaotic outbursts – for example, your heavily armoured heavy-weapons supersoldier may well be […]
Cortex Command
I like GameCareerGuide, but I tend to find that it’s aimed at people who are currently game dev students, or have at least got some development experience under their belts. In other words, people who are well on the road towards game dev business already. That’s why I’m really enthused […]
“Become a dev right now”
I’d like to just point interested readers to a new thingie on the Game.Dev forum that looks set to become quite an interesting regular: the community is starting to hunt down unaffiliated South African games and offering critiques from an outside perspective, starting with an educational Flash game known as […]
Critique: Save It
I was recently linked to a Slashdot Games story about a competition to create the best Super Mario Bros AI. In this version of the game, levels are randomly generated and coders will have to find a smart and savvy way to make Mario autonomously negotiate obstacles and get to […]
… And a Mario AI comp
You know, I would be genuinely intrigued to know if there’s any readers out there who actually haven’t seen or heard of the Zero Punctuation review series on The Escapist. For those who have (and doubtlessly you are legion), there’s a very interesting little competition going on right now. Its […]