We have used tiles to decorate our living spaces for more than 4000 years. Tiles have several properties that make them attractive for use: they can be mass-produced; they are easy to build with (because of their geometric properties); and combinations of tiles lead to a huge number of decorative […]
Development
Introduction We’ve come a long way, and we’re almost there! Telling a story can be pretty easy, but really grasping the ins and outs of what goes into proper narrative is a little bit more challenging. But that’s why you have this guide! Before spit-polishing our final story, we need […]
Narrative: Part 5 – What’s he talking about
Hello there boys and girls, and welcome to part 4 of the Narrative Guide that will help you on your way to telling the world your story! Please have a seat and relax while we delve even deeper into the magical world of story-telling…
Narrative: Part 4
We’ve covered drawing basic meshes, and we’ve covered the all-important transformation functions. We’ve also covered lighting. Now that we have all these basics down, it’s time to start on some of the nifty tricks that you can pull using what we’ve learned.
3D graphics with Game Maker Part 3
This article originally appeared in Dev.Mag Issue 21, released in March 2008. One way to populate large worlds with objects is to simply place objects on a grid, or randomly. While fast and easy to implement, both these methods result in unsatisfying worlds: either too regular or too messy. In […]
Poisson Disk Sampling
If there’s one thing that I take pride in when I offer humble slices of gaming pie to oh-so-hungry colleagues, it’s my ability to carefully consider the difficulty level. Whether I’m making a run-and-jump platformer or a purely cerebral puzzle game, I always live by the same basic mantra: give […]
The difficulty of difficulty
86 (Originally appeared in Dev.Mag Issue 20, released in February 2008.) Perlin noise is the foundation of many procedural texture and modelling algorithms. It can be used to create marble, wood, clouds, fire, and height maps for terrain. It is also very useful for tiling grids to simulate organic regions, and […]
How to Use Perlin Noise in Your Games
For anyone who hasn’t been following, we’re currently looking at narrative structures and how it applies to gaming; but more importantly, we’re looking at every aspect of story telling, fleshing it out, and helping you along your way to compiling the best tale to push through the game you’ve worked […]
Narrative: Part 3
In Part 1, we learned how to set up a basic camera, and draw the 3D primitives that Game Maker provides functions for. If you took my advice and messed around on your own a bit, you’ll have noticed a few limitations to included scripts. For instance, how do you […]
3D graphics with Game Maker Part 2
10 This article originally appeared in Dev.Mag Issue 29, released in February 2009. Last month we covered some of the very basic ways of testing whether object A hits object B. But, while the techniques we covered could quite likely take you very far, you’ll inevitably encounter a time when they […]
Basic Collision Detection in 2D – Part 2
22 This article originally appeared in Dev.Mag Issue 28, released in January 2009. Almost every video game needs to respond to objects touching each other in some sense, a practice commonly known as collision detection. Whether it’s simply to prevent the player character from walking through the walls of your maze […]
Basic Collision Detection in 2D – Part 1
It goes without saying that almost every game developer probably started out wanting to make games in 3D. After all, practically all of the AAA games that we played growing up were in 3D, so it comes as no surprise that we want to create our own 3D wonderworks. What […]
3D graphics in Game Maker Part 1
Have you ever wondered how anyone was able to create that magical cursor in the World of Goo? Wonder no more, noble Dev.Mag reader, for this article will explain how you can put that gooey cursor into your game, in just 15 minutes. We will be using Game Maker Pro […]
World of Goo cursor in 15 minutes
Think game design is about hard code and gameplay? Well, it can’t be denied that those things play some of the most important parts in making up a game – but to make a game that’s truly something special, you’re going to have to exercise that creative muscle and let […]
Narrative: Part 2
This article originally appeared in Dev.Mag Issue 28, released in January 2009. Many of you have experienced it. You go online, log into your instant messenger or e-mail account and receive a link from some excited friend saying, “ARARRRAARARR PLAY THIS GAME ASBFLARGAFAG www.insertrandomlinkhere.com!!!!!” Chances are it’s either an Internet […]