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Articles by Isu Diss
Setting an Appropriate Tone for Your Game
"The term embodied cognition is a philosophical term which has also been studied in psychology and it basically means that our rational thoughts are interconnected with our sensory experiences." As someone well familiar with the work of one of the major figures in the field, the neurologist Damasio, I'd like to point out that the definition you give is misleading as it only looks at one half of what the body provides to cognition--sensory input.
The Latest Evolution in Microtransactions
Its not too often you see a thoughtful article on micro-transactions; many are screeds posted in anger over being nickle-and-dimed to freely progress, or simply to optimize the grinding experience. I think if you take the article to a logical conclusion, although it wasn't explicitly stated, it re-enforces the notion that a player should pay something to experience the fullness of the game, and receive something worth experiencing in return.
The Viral Formula
Hi Kevin, Thanks for sharing your knowledge! It seems like another bunch of work with all this marketing stuff after one finishes his game ;) We are a small Indie startup from Hamburg, Germany, and just finished a first Alpha version of our game "FreudBot". Right now the only "fans" of our game are friends and family, but of course we like to really start to spread the word now. We already have setup our channels on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and a own website.
Entities-Parts III: Serialization
Download RPG Battle Example and Java version of Entities-Parts Framework Download C++ version of Entities-Parts Framework I. Game Objects II. Interactions III. Serialization (current) The previous articles focused on entity structure and interaction. In the previous version of the RPG Battle Example, all of the code that defined the entity attributes was in the CharacterFactory. For example, it contained code to set the health of the meleer character to 200 and add spells to the support mage.
From Donkey Kong to the Silver Screen: The Past, Present and Future of Game Cinematics
Beyond intros and outros Whilst examining cinematics in games, we are not merely referring to simple cutscenes - intros and outros to levels - but to the epic, ambitious cinematic sequences seen in contemporary gaming titles. Nevertheless, whilst the role of cinematics has increased in leaps and bounds over the years, there are many other areas that could benefit from such an approach that, at times, even game developers can be guilty of underutilising.
5 Core Elements of Interactive Storytelling
I'm not sure what to think of this article. I agree with some parts, but disagree with the overall idea. My main problem with it is: It must be remembered that the players are playing in order to experience a story The article revolves around that opinion made fact. Of course, I know you mention that it's a personal view, and I get that. I just have to say that I can't agree with that sentiment. Plenty of games focus so much on narrative that they end up hurting themselves.
Creating the Financial Model for your Company Part I
Hello. So in this article, we are going to be going through the process of creating the financial model for your company. For us at Sanctuary Game Studios, this was one of the steps we had to go through when determining the financials, and how much money we would need to pitch for to an investor. So from here on out, I'm going to try to make it as simple as possible in two parts. Part I will be covering the Parameters and Product Sheet.
How To Make Videos For Games
Recently we at Alconost were producing several videos for games and, in the process of working with clients, we heard questions again that we had heard before: what should we show, should the video have a voiceover or not, how expensive is it to translate into multiple languages, what source materials do we need, how can we capture video of the screen of a mobile device...
Pathfinding and Local Avoidance for RPG/RTS Games using Unity
If you are making an RPG or RTS game, chances are that you will need to use some kind of pathfinding and/or local avoidance solution for the behaviour of the mobs. They will need to get around obstacles, avoid each other, find the shortest path to their target and properly surround it.
Polygon Triangulation
Modern GPUs have an annoying habbit of only liking to draw triangles. Often when using 3D modeling programs or vector-based drawing applications to produce game art, you'll get instead a soup of arbitrary polygons. This is an issue if you plan to rasterize these polygons. Fortunately, polygons can be decomposed into triangles relatively easily. There are many different ways to decompose polygons into triangles.
Advertising Through YouTubers
Thats totally right, but the question is also, how would they like to be contacted so it doesn't seem as spam at the same time? Of course introducing yourself and telling why exactly his channel would be nice. But would you start telling them at the beginning how much you want to pay them or when they contact you?
Pitching Your Game to Asian Publishers
This article aims at helping you find your way to Asian publishers once you're confident that you have a solid established product. Please note that these observations were based on my experience and may not cover the full spectrum of what you're likely to encounter, but I hope this is helpful to you. "Is it Free-to-Play?" This is the first thing you're most likely to hear if you reach out to publishers in Asia. For a number of reasons, the Asian market is currently dominated by F2P games.
Introduction to Unity Test Tools
This article was originally posted on Random Bits Unity Test Tools is a package officially released by the folks at Unity in December 2013. It provides developers the components needed for creating and executing automated tests without leaving the comforts of the Unity editor. The package is available for download here. This article serves as a high level overview of the tools rather than an in-depth drill-down.
Flexible particle system - The Container
Overall I like the article, but... *puts on armor and jumps on horse* ...I need to ride to std::vector's rescue here. Of course we could use std::list or std::vector and change it every time, but would that be efficient? Yep! std::vector is very efficient. Is it good to reallocate memory often (each time we create a particle)? std::vector doesn't do that. std::vector only reallocates memory when it runs out of reserved memory. It reserves more memory that you are currently using.
From Game Prototype to Release in 2 Months
From Game Prototype to Release in 2 Months
Multilevel-Multiplayer with Unity
In this article I will describe my experience with Unity by creating a Multiplayer-Multilevel 3D application. I'm not calling this a "game" because I intend this to be something where you don't need to shoot, or destroy, or earn money, or all other game stuff. So what is the application doing: in a 3D environment with streets/buildings you can communicate with other users directly or leave a message at their home.
Dynamic Narrative in The Hit
I've been dreaming about a player-driven dynamic narrative system for the last 20 years, and trying to come up with a workable design for the last 5. The Hit will be the first part of that to see a public release. I'm going to need as much user feedback and player metrics as possible, so I'm designing the game to be enjoyable and attractive from the start, and only building in the framework for the dynamic narrative system.
Let There Be Shadow!
Shadows in Unity is something that in most cases is a given through the use of surface shaders, but sometimes you don't want to use a surface shader for whatever reason and create your own vertex/fragment shader. The biggest advantage is that everything is in your hands now, but this is also one of the drawbacks because you now have to handle a lot of stuff that Unity conveniently handled for you in a surface shader. Among such things are support for multiple lights and shadows.
Postmortem: "Pavel Piezo - Trip to the Kite Festival", a game for learning languages
As production of "Pavel Piezo - Trip to the Kite Festival" was recently finished I reviewed the material I collected for the Postmortem and found it too much and too diverse to put in one huge article. So, I identified the topics that can stand very well on their own, which were not limited to this specific game or production, and decided to write three short(er) posts in advance to the Postmortem.
Axonometric Projections - A Technical Overview
Abstract This article discusses how axonometric projections may be used in computer graphics, multimedia applications and computer games. It compares the axonometric projection, or parallel perspective, to the linear perspective, lists the major properties and tackles some implementation details. The focus of this paper is on the isometric and dimetric projections, the most widely used varieties of the axonometric projection.
GPGPU image processing basics using OpenCL.NET
OpenCL is a cross-platform framework used mostly for GPGPU (General-purpose computing on graphics processing units). There are plenty of tutorials available on image processing with OpenCL using C/C++, however there's not much information that would cover OpenCL image processing with .NET. I won't go into details about OpenCL kernels/queues/etc.
Untangling 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 merchandising, licensing, intellectual property management and production.
Smarter Steering: Using Context for Direction
I 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 2013 AI Summit lecture. For the most part the ideas and hard work are based on his lecture, although I've added a few twists of my own.
Crafting a Platformer Game
The topic on the Platformer games is a very interesting one. This genre of games is one of the best places to start if you are a beginner-level Game Designer or for that matter, a developer. This comes from the fact that the Platformer has enough action in it to make it fun, yet it is simple to design and build. You don't have any real constraints here to hinder you and you actually have a lot of freedom in designing your game.
GDC 2013: Interview with Richard Hofmeier
The Dead Space series is a "great brand" for Electronic Arts, but a new entry in the series not in active development, the publisher has confirmed. "I wouldn't say [the Dead Space franchise is] cancelled at all," EA Games boss Patrick Söderlund said. "Dead Space remains a brand that is close to Electronic Arts' heart.
GDC 2013 Interview with Justin Ma
The Dead Space series is a "great brand" for Electronic Arts, but a new entry in the series not in active development, the publisher has confirmed. "I wouldn't say [the Dead Space franchise is] cancelled at all," EA Games boss Patrick Söderlund said. "Dead Space remains a brand that is close to Electronic Arts' heart.
Indie tutorial: Starting a project and forming a team
If you're creating your first game ever and you don't know programming or you can't draw... don't look for someone that will help you with it. If you're more of an artist download GameMaker or Stencyl and with some English knowledge (if you are reading this I bet that you won't have any problems with that) along with your own willingness to spend time on it, you actually CAN handle it on your own. Same goes for programmers. To develop a prototype you do not need god knows how many top notch sprites.
Why Is It Building So Long?
In the "or even..." bit, what is the reason you left private: std::unique_ptr<class CarImpl> m_pImpl; rather than moving it to the implementation file as well? 'm_pImpl' is the pointer to the implementation. It is required to be there. 'pImpl' stands for 'pointer to the implementation', and where we get the name 'pimpl idiom' from.
Advanced Python Part One: List Comprehensions
Shadowisadog, I would be very surprised if someone didn't know what the ** operator did. It is one of the operators taught in all the beginning courses I've taken, and if someone hasn't studied python enough to know what ** means (or doesn't know how to google it) then I shouldn't be importing the math module and using an extra function just in case. List comprehensions are almost always better than the longer and harder to read solutions.
APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur
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 Plus!, and learned first-hand that self-publishing is a complex, confusing, and idiosyncratic process. As Steve Jobs said, "There must be a better way." With Shawn Welch, a tech wizard, I wrote APE to help people take control of their writing careers.
Games as Art and Why You Shouldn't Care
all this carries a few assumptions: that art is an end in itself; that the value of art is to be put on a pedestal and admired. if we instead assume that everything is based on some sort of personal pragmatic value, then there is no issues. games serve to entertain the players. the question might then be raised: what then is the practical value of art? well, it does appeal to the emotions and aesthetic sensibilities of people who are into art.
Building an In-Game Store for the First Time? Here are the 4 Keys to Success
I'd like to chime in on this and try to be constructive. You may recall that I responded to this when it was posted in your journal and I responded somewhat negatively, which I somewhat regret. Moving on... I think the best way to improve this article would be to actively discuss the pros and cons of in app purchases and different styles of stores. The tone here suggests that maximizing money is the one and only purpose on a store.
Haskell Game Object Design - Or How Functions Can Get You Apples
In this tutorial, we will see one possible way to model game objects in Haskell. To do so, the tutorial proposes several design problems with increasing levels of difficulty. For each of these problems, a solution in C++ is presented first and then potential Haskell alternatives are discussed. By the end, we will have seen how to dodge subtyping and dynamic dispatch in the design of game objects by making use of the close relationship between objects and closures.
Cross Platform Test Driven Development Environment Using CMake (Part 5)
With the release of CMake 2.8.11, some new features have been made available which greatly simplify certain areas of work compared to the prior articles. The primary feature of note is what the CMake documentation calls 'target usage requirements'. In general, CMake now maintains a hierarchy of information about targets, what is needed to not only link them but to also use them from other targets.
Practical Guide to Bezier Curves
This is meant as an intermediate guide to Bezier curves. I'm assuming you've all read about Bezier curves and the Bernstein basis functions and have a general idea about how it all works. This is meant as the next level up and some ways to implement them in practical code. This isn't meant as a thorough exploration of the mathematics, but as a jump-off point.
Improving a Sprite-Based Rendering Procedure
What sort of rendering pipeline are you actually using? Is this using older-style blitting? If so, then I think your approach is ideal, although the blitting methods themselves are not very hardware accelerated and thus possibly not the best if you're going to have lots of transparency and other elements. You might consider doing some more specific profiling to see exactly what is causing your FPS drops.
Modern Garbage Collectors under the Hood
When you are like me, as old as the Gulf Wars, you probably started programming in a managed language like Java, Ruby, Python or C#. As many of you before, you didn't really know what the language is doing with your objects, you create them when you need them and forget about it. As many programmers gain experience, they start to learn more and more about what happens behind the facade, about Garbage Collecting and overall memory management.
RPG Character Design: Technical Blueprints 101
In this article, I'm going to try to get over a 101 guide on how to do the technical design for an RPG's character classes and how you can implement a basic programming model in order to make your development consistent, flexible and generic. In order for this article to be of any use to you, you should have at least a base knowledge of Object Orientated Programming and concepts like working with Interfaces, Inheritance, Polymorphism etc.
Techniques for Finding Unlisted Game Internships
And to add to this, you have to prove that you have the skills you're advertising. This is to show an employer exactly what you're capable of. If you're looking for an internship, do your very best work and expect it to not be as good as an experienced persons product. If you want to be a programmer, you'd better have a sufficiently sized program which demonstrates your technical aptitude.
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 driving a vehicle through a forest, only to crash into a tree with no effect or feedback. The facade of realism would instantly be broken. The horror game's environment would no longer be immersive, and driving your vehicle would simply feel like moving a camera through a world you cannot touch or feel.
Taptitude: two years of success on Windows Phone
It's been two years since we launched Taptitude on Windows Phone, and we're still going strong! Keeping with our tradition of openly sharing our download and revenue stats, we'd like to take a look back at the last two years to see how far we've come, and where we have room to improve. This article will primarily focus on the Windows Phone version of Taptitude.
For a Career in Gaming, are Game Design Degrees Worth It?
On 3/24/2016 at 6:42 AM, HuToday said: Being a sophomore of CS, I definitely disliked the major now and found it not too helpful for game designing. Homework and group work keep me busy from making my own games... Did you study linear algebra? 100% of transformation in 2D and 3D space works on it. Did you study analitical geometry? 100% of collision detection works on it. Did you study computational geometry? 100% of visualisation works on it.
Building a First-Person Shooter Part 1.1: Visual Studio Setup
This is a continuation of a multi-part tutorial on Building a First-Person Shooter - Part 1.0: Creating a Room. Setting up the VS 2010 project Now that we've finished building our level it is now time to begin the coding side of the project. For this lesson, we will be using Visual Studio 2010 on Windows, but you can follow the equivalent steps for Xcode on Mac. Right-click on the project name in the project list and select the Open Folder menu item from the context menu that pops up.
Building a First-Person Shooter Part 1.2: The Player Class
Note: Please offer only positive, constructive comments - we are looking to promote a positive atmosphere where collaboration is valued above all else. That is what I am seeing at the bottom of the page. The comments I am seeing are just uncalled for. Wasn't going to bother saying more until I saw the comment from d4n1. My grammar and spelling is terrible so I usually don't judge but I have no clue what you are saying. Don't criticize an article if you can't even write a clear comment.
Codecks - Smart Project Management for Game Developers by Game Developers
Hey there, we're game developers who have created their own project management tool, since we felt nothing out there was quite fitting for what we were looking for. The things that we used were either.. ..too complex (resulting in only parts of the team using it and/or information getting stale) ..too simple (not being powerful enough to stand up to a full production cycle) So we designed Codecks and have been happily using it for 3 years now internally for all kinds of projects.
How to Become a Game Designer - Interview with Game Design Professor, Al Doyle
If anyone knows what it takes to break into the game design industry, it’s Al Doyle. A teacher of art, architecture, animation and game design for over 25 years, Doyle has been witness to the evolution of the gaming industry. From America all the way to Russia, Doyle has taught and given lectures in game design to students and children across the world.
Make it Difficult, Not Punishing
This article was first published on https://medium.com/@ricardo.valerio/make-it-difficult-not-punishing-7198334573b8 Difficulty plays a big role in keeping players motivated, engaged and, unintuitively, in marketing. Some games have it better designed than others. Some design it even to make it satisfyingly hard, likeDark Souls.
Using DOT to Debug Data Structures
Hello everyone I am here to gather your opinion, remarks, ideas or any constructive criticism you may have about what I am going to present. Don’t be shy! A bit of background: I am working alone on an indy web-based game, a simulation of RPG (idle game) where the player controls a group of 4 characters that he can sent into battle and that will fight automatically based on some AI preference that are similar to the FF 12 system (but more complex / powerful).
The Quest for the Custom Quest System
[The original post was published with its original formatting in The Gamedev Guru's Blog] Heya, Unity Addressables fan. Last week, I posted a short but powerful article detailing three ways Unity Addressables can help you developing better games. The article was very well received, thanks for your active participation. Just at the end of that post, you were given the chance to test your knowledge in Unity Addressables through a short quiz.
The Entity-Component-System - BountyHunter game (Part 2)
Hey Folks Welcome to part two of the series "The Entity-Component-System". As always you can checkout the original post here. In my last post (The Entity-Component-System - An awesome game-design pattern in C++ (Part 1)), I talked about the Entity-Component-System (ECS) design pattern and my own implementation. Now I want to show you how to actually use it to build a game with it. If you not already have seen it, check out what kinda game I built with the help of my ECS.
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