Used it during the first reincarnation of "Fix It" and now I'm using it for the XNA port. I'll try to livestream as much as I can so you can see the development, and
Watch live streaming video from thatsnail at livestream.com
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Fix It (XNA) : Livestream and Devblog
That DevBlog
Used it during the first reincarnation of "Fix It" and now I'm using it for the XNA port. I'll try to livestream as much as I can so you can see the development, andbe inspired decide to permanently never ever ever ever ever become a game designer.
Used it during the first reincarnation of "Fix It" and now I'm using it for the XNA port. I'll try to livestream as much as I can so you can see the development, and
Monday, February 20, 2012
Udacity + MIT Online Classes
Retired Prof. Sebastian Thrun of Stanford University is hosting free, online classes. Applying takes two seconds.
I've taken an AI class he hosted before and have to say it was absolutely excellent.
Currently, he's hosting a course on programming a self-driving car and building a search engine. Pretty neat.
More info here.
There's also an MIT course on circuitry and electronics here.
These are all great and I'm really happy that people are doing this. Free knowledge. Mr. Thrun resigned from his position at Stanford in the name of free knowledge, I look up to that.
I've taken an AI class he hosted before and have to say it was absolutely excellent.
Currently, he's hosting a course on programming a self-driving car and building a search engine. Pretty neat.
More info here.
There's also an MIT course on circuitry and electronics here.
These are all great and I'm really happy that people are doing this. Free knowledge. Mr. Thrun resigned from his position at Stanford in the name of free knowledge, I look up to that.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Werewolf : Round 4
Ever heard of Mafia? It's a popular parlor game where there's two sides, Mafia and Civilian, and they try to find out who the "mafia" is and lynch them without lynching too many of their own kind. It's based on tricky psychological work and Machiavellian scheming.
Werewolf is Mafia, but on steroids. A full game is 32 players, with 8 "wolves" (mafia) and 24 "villagers" (civilians). Plus, it's on a forum, and lasts several weeks. So there's the added element of communications, networking, and very complicated social logic.
We're trying to start a round on Friday, March 9th with as many people as we can get. Everyone and anyone is welcome.
If you're confused about the rules, here's an excellent read about it.
Werewolf is Mafia, but on steroids. A full game is 32 players, with 8 "wolves" (mafia) and 24 "villagers" (civilians). Plus, it's on a forum, and lasts several weeks. So there's the added element of communications, networking, and very complicated social logic.
We're trying to start a round on Friday, March 9th with as many people as we can get. Everyone and anyone is welcome.
If you're confused about the rules, here's an excellent read about it.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
How to Make a Game in 72 Hours
What if I told you it was possible to make games in 0 hours?
Crazy, right? It's actually completely possible, with some stretch of the imagination. The 0h Game Jam does it by starting development right before daylight savings time changes, and using the extra "turned back" hour to make their game in what would, in fact, be zero hours.
If you can successfully pull that off, stop reading now; you're certainly much more experienced than me and won't benefit much from this. For the rest of you, here's some tips on how to design a game, from start to finish, in 72 hours. You'll find that it's actually a generous amount of time.
Quick note: I've included a small list of tools useful for speed-dev at the bottom of the post. Go check them out, maybe.
1. Know the tools you're using, at least a little.
This is fairly obvious but worth stating. If you haven't used a language before, you're going to run into quirks. No exceptions.
As a start, build a platform engine or a shoot-em-up. Get an idea of how the structure would work.
Some things to know first:
Crazy, right? It's actually completely possible, with some stretch of the imagination. The 0h Game Jam does it by starting development right before daylight savings time changes, and using the extra "turned back" hour to make their game in what would, in fact, be zero hours.
If you can successfully pull that off, stop reading now; you're certainly much more experienced than me and won't benefit much from this. For the rest of you, here's some tips on how to design a game, from start to finish, in 72 hours. You'll find that it's actually a generous amount of time.
Quick note: I've included a small list of tools useful for speed-dev at the bottom of the post. Go check them out, maybe.
1. Know the tools you're using, at least a little.
This is fairly obvious but worth stating. If you haven't used a language before, you're going to run into quirks. No exceptions.
As a start, build a platform engine or a shoot-em-up. Get an idea of how the structure would work.
Some things to know first:
Monday, February 13, 2012
Fix It : Post-Mortem
The competition ran for 72 hours but due to a big fancy school test and wasting time on an isometric pixel art house that I spent a full day on and then scrapped, the final product is just a little over 30 hours of work.
Despite some major glitches that include an impossible level, clunky physics, and the fact that it doesn't even run on some computers, the game received some pretty good reviews. People loved the concept but hated the execution. I'm fine with that and I agree with them for the most part.
Thanks to everyone at school and on the IRC who lent moral support and also thanks to Nocturne and the rest of the GMC community for another excellent jam. I always hate making games but you people pull me through it.
And now, some press.
Overanalyzing Hanging With Friends
Another strategy guide for Zynga's "etcetera With Friends" series. The first one was for Words With Friends here.
For those of you mountain-dwellers, Hanging With Friends is the next corporate installment by Zynga in an attempt to squeeze as much money as they can out of their word-based net framework. It's hangman. Over the Interwebs.
The idea is you're given a tray of 12 letters to make a word between 4-8 letters long for your opponent to guess. If he gets it wrong, he loses a balloon (i.e. one strike) and whoever gets five strikes first loses. Then your opponent makes a word and vice versa. Very simple.
This is just going to be a small guide of some tips I've picked up. I'm no master but there's a lot of things that no one seems to notice.
Also, if you're a total asshat, scroll down. I have a tip especially for you.
For those of you mountain-dwellers, Hanging With Friends is the next corporate installment by Zynga in an attempt to squeeze as much money as they can out of their word-based net framework. It's hangman. Over the Interwebs.
The idea is you're given a tray of 12 letters to make a word between 4-8 letters long for your opponent to guess. If he gets it wrong, he loses a balloon (i.e. one strike) and whoever gets five strikes first loses. Then your opponent makes a word and vice versa. Very simple.
This is just going to be a small guide of some tips I've picked up. I'm no master but there's a lot of things that no one seems to notice.
Also, if you're a total asshat, scroll down. I have a tip especially for you.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
ThatBlackout
This post has been blocked under the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act etc etc
For those of you uninformed this is a protest against the passage of SOPA and PIPA, two overly aggressive acts that target piracy sites but contain clauses that can also shut down pretty much any site whatsoever. Sites that rely on third parties (i.e. most social networks, YouTube, Mediafire, etc) will get shut down pretty much immediately and the acts give Congress the power to shut down any site they don't like.
Complaints to Congress about the act were received pretty much like this.
People: Hey this violates our freedom of speech.
Congress: Don't worry we're only targetting sites dedicated to piracy.
People: Then write that in the bill.
Congress: LOL don't worry we won't abuse our power we promise.
People: Why don't you write it in the bill then?
Congress: Because we know encroaching on your first amendment rights is wrong and we promise we won't do it, really. We promise.
PIPA was made as an "OKAY okay we know you don't like SOPA, here's a better act" but it still uses DNS blocking and other practices in SOPA and it's basically the same bill under a different name, so don't be fooled. Spread the word about them both.
I've drafted all of my posts to be invisible for the duration of the blackout and this site will be back up on the 19th of January.
Props to Wikipedia, Google, Ludum Dare, Equestria Daily (rofl), AndyGames, HackThisSite! and all the other sites/communities that set up protests; you guys rock. Going to try to keep a running list of blackouts.
EDIT: The MPAA made a statement. Interesting how they're still calling it an "anti-piracy" bill designed to "protect American jobs from foreign criminals" and not mention anything people are actually protesting against at all. Credits to a certain CaptainLepidus for showing me this.
BLACKOUT TIME
For those of you uninformed this is a protest against the passage of SOPA and PIPA, two overly aggressive acts that target piracy sites but contain clauses that can also shut down pretty much any site whatsoever. Sites that rely on third parties (i.e. most social networks, YouTube, Mediafire, etc) will get shut down pretty much immediately and the acts give Congress the power to shut down any site they don't like.
Complaints to Congress about the act were received pretty much like this.
People: Hey this violates our freedom of speech.
Congress: Don't worry we're only targetting sites dedicated to piracy.
People: Then write that in the bill.
Congress: LOL don't worry we won't abuse our power we promise.
People: Why don't you write it in the bill then?
Congress: Because we know encroaching on your first amendment rights is wrong and we promise we won't do it, really. We promise.
PIPA was made as an "OKAY okay we know you don't like SOPA, here's a better act" but it still uses DNS blocking and other practices in SOPA and it's basically the same bill under a different name, so don't be fooled. Spread the word about them both.
I've drafted all of my posts to be invisible for the duration of the blackout and this site will be back up on the 19th of January.
Props to Wikipedia, Google, Ludum Dare, Equestria Daily (rofl), AndyGames, HackThisSite! and all the other sites/communities that set up protests; you guys rock. Going to try to keep a running list of blackouts.
EDIT: The MPAA made a statement. Interesting how they're still calling it an "anti-piracy" bill designed to "protect American jobs from foreign criminals" and not mention anything people are actually protesting against at all. Credits to a certain CaptainLepidus for showing me this.
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