Game Development

Carven

06:44

Are there any games that let players play their character inside a computer or an internet network? I'm trying to design a game of such but having trouble with how I should present the scene so that players can get the idea of where they are at. :/

ToddersLegrande

12:46

@Carven Megaman Battle Netowork (series)

jack

anybody there?

ToddersLegrande

@jack usually someone is. Just start talking about whatever you want and see if someone respondes :P

jack

thanks for your reply:) @ToddersLegrande

any cocos2d android developer?

ToddersLegrande

Not me :(

jack

thats okay:(

your working on?

ToddersLegrande

12:50

I've pretty much only done XNA to any serious extent and then dabbled in other things like Unity, UDK, and the likes

jack

oh nice:)

ToddersLegrande

It's fun :)

jack

13:10

hello buddies @GriffinHeart @TreDubZedd

Arrow

Hi guys, i know this is a hell of a conventional and probably noob question, yes i have googled the question many times and been to forums etc, but i wanna know from you guys where do i even begin to learn how to develop a game? ive read up about open gl and i have developed some easy stupid games in delphi 7 but if i knew nothing at all where would be the best place to start

especially for a beginner programmer

ToddersLegrande

@Arrow what part of development are you really interested in? Looking to learn the nitty gritty of it all or would your rather focus on making a game? Is programming something you want to do or are you interested in tools where a lot of the heavy lifting is done for you and you can focus on scripting core gameplay components?

Arrow

@ToddersLegrande at the moment im a novice web developer working with php and web languages, but its hell of a boring thing for me, i love games and i love design, especially when it comes to character, weapon, armor.. i wanna learn about the design aspect but at the same time know enough to be able to develop, a game from scratch, so yes core scripting, im not a an awesome programmer at all but im really willing to learn and put time into it

Amaan Cheval

13:27

@Arrow Making games using JavaScript and the HTML5 canvas tag is relatively easy

jack

what about other game engines like cocos2d-android and box2d ... easy or tough?@AmaanCheval

Amaan Cheval

I haven't used them much, so I don't really know

Box2D was simple enough with the docs

jack

even there is no much infomation on cocos2d-android, me feeling very tough without tutorials and solutions:(

Arrow

maybe i should start there as a base, but im talking about high end games like fsp's, such as halo, COD, etc

jack

Box2D and cocos2D are both similar na?

Alex M.

13:45

isn't box2d a physics engine?

afaik cocos2D is a framework like XNA

ToddersLegrande

13:59

@Arrow if you aren't looking to program everything I would highly recommend looking into making use of existing tools like Unity or UDK.

Code Assassin

14:24

@ToddersLegrande porting games is fun!

ToddersLegrande

Oh yeah?

Code Assassin

Yus

Although it's a challenge because I'm looking at GML code

(using MonoGame)

Alex M.

porting anything is hard, especially if you've been hired by someone who doesn't understand the meaning of "platform particularities" and "platform limitations"

Code Assassin

The game I am attempting to port is Gang Garrison 2. It should be interesting. I want the code to be "near-perfect" though :P and so far I am just slapping things on a temporary class

Alex M.

testing the app on the smallest possible screen; improbable for someone to have such a device but still, in the requirements

expecting the worst

hey, it's actually pretty decent!

Code Assassin

14:43

Pretty cool man

:-)

Alex M.

oh crap, I still need to Qt

I forgot.

2

Code Assassin

15:29

Snap.

Gajoo

@AlexM. still struggling?

Alex M.

well I'm not really struggling since I just remembered about it

I'll do it today I guess

Almo

16:05

@CodeAssassin Just get Snake to write it.

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

Writing in English all the time has a negative impact on my Danish typing. :P

Almo

hahah I bet

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

The Danish word for "Mother" is "Mor".

But because of all the English I type, I keep writing it "More".

Almo

More

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

:P

Almo

16:08

when i mine a lot in EVE, i often type "or" as "ore"

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

Haha

Almo

i call it "The Miner's Typo"

Code Assassin

@Almo where is snake

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

Gone if we're lucky. :P

Almo

he's been gone since someone made a comment that snake always writes perfect code and never ever needs to refactor, and it got like 7 stars

he had this weird attitude where anyone asking about how to write something so it could be modified later or was legible for future programmers to read was met with derision

one of the weirdest things I've seen from a programmer

that and the guy i worked with in 2003 who put no spaces between anything unless he had to.

Jimmy

16:16

but the spaces are slowing down the compiler, haven't you heard

Almo

hahaha

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

16:40

Theoretically it does slow it down doesn't it? I mean, the initial parsing of the text? :P But it's a pretty negligible amount

Jimmy

yes, it does slow down. That's why when I manually unroll all my loops I have to trim all the spaces inside because the code is already getting too large!

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

17:07

That's good. Snake Coding 101

CodeMonkeyAlx

17:28

Wut wut?

Alex M.

18:42

what's the deal with community wikis?

do they actually help in any way?

John McDonald

I end up hitting them with google

StarCraft II, Elder Scrolls, Portal

so... yes

Alex M.

no no, when a question here becomes community wiki

John McDonald

Oh, like here. I don't think you'll find any recent community wikis on gamedev

only historical questions

Alex M.

here's one

117

Q: How to prevent the "Too awesome to use" syndrome

When you give the player a rare but powerful item which can only be used once but is never really required to proceed, most players will not use it at all, because they are waiting for the perfect moment. But even when this moment comes, they will still be reluctant to use it, because there might...

I'm not sure what the community wiki part helps with

John McDonald

Auto Community Wiki: "Post Made Community Wiki by question having more than 30 answers" gamedev.stackexchange.com/posts/55558/revisions

Alex M.

18:46

just like closing something as too localized

it doesn't damage, nor does it benefit the site

it just is

Jimmy

back in the old days when a question had "no right answer" it would be CW

John McDonald

Auto-CW will also happen if the question is edited more than 10 times (or so)

Jimmy

nowadays when a question has no right answer it is sent to the guillotine

Alex M.

but aren't questions that cannot be answered against the rules of the site?

so they should be removed altogether

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

I actually found a good example of a "Too localized" question today.

1

Q: How do I convert my XNA game to Android without using MonoGame?

I want to convert my XNA Game to Android, but I don't want to use MonoGame or ExEn. How can I do this?

xna android xna-4.0 monogame

There's no reason to exclude MonoGame and ExEn from the answers. He should allow those and the request alternatives.

Jimmy

18:48

562

Q: Significant new inventions in computing since 1980

This question arose from comments about different kinds of progress in computing over the last 50 years or so. I was asked by some of the other participants to raise it as a question to the whole forum. The basic idea here is not to bash the current state of things but to try to understand some...

technologies innovation

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

But specifically excluding them, makes the question too localized in my opinion.

Alex M.

uhhh, no

it is a valid question that might be asked by many others who don't want to use those frameworks

you can get to the question by searching for something like "convert XNA game to android without monogame"

the most obvious localized question would be something like "my friend wrote this code that..."

John McDonald

I usually say "to localized" if it's a debugging issue, because nobody can help you debug it (other than debugging tips) and it won't help anybody else, ever

Alex M.

i.e. asking someone to fix your buggy code

@JohnMcDonald spot on

Jimmy

unless the debugging issue results in a specific cryptic error code that comes up frequently. Then the fact that future Googlers will find this particular question might be useful

but if it's like, "my code doesn't work will someone please look over this pastebin plz" yeah that's not worth it

John McDonald

18:53

yeah... I guess there's a line between: "my codez doesn't work" and "I'm getting error xyz, and I can't figure out what it means"

Alex M.

19:04

anyone here familiar with the vice city menu?

when you're changing the menu page, the four pivot points that define the black area change position

I'm wondering how I could achieve the same result, in an efficient way

was thinking about using masks, and drawing four lines

anything that's beyond the lines is black

Jimmy

could you not just render the background as a quad

and move the vertices

Alex M.

ooh, that could work too

Jimmy

assuming the UV coords are just the same as the position coords it wouldn't stretch the texture either

Alex M.

though that wouldn't work with HTML5's Canvas

I was looking for a 2D only solution

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

20:33

HTML Canvas with 2D context?

Alex M.

yup, that's the one

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

Doesn't it have a way for drawing polygons?

Alex M.

no idea, I'll have to look it up

it has the path thingy, yes, which will help me do what I initially planned

i.e. define lines

MarkR

I think you can define a pattern fill and just fill a polygon with that

Unfortunately there's no guarantee that that's an efficient operation on all your target platforms, so you'll need to test it

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

20:48

Isn't 2D context completely experimental?

Alex M.

would it not be simpler to

var c2 = canvas.getContext('2d');
c2.fillStyle = '#f00';
c2.beginPath();
c2.moveTo(0, 0);
c2.lineTo(100,50);
c2.lineTo(50, 100);
c2.lineTo(0, 90);
c2.closePath();
c2.fill();

this way I can separate the bits that the user can interact with and just fill the black parts, after drawing the background

MarkR

2d context works, to an extent, everywhere even on quite old browsers

unfortunately it is quite slow on some older devices, and its performance varies widely

Alex M.

I'm not exactly looking for releasing anything

was just thinking about how I could achieve it, and thought about HTML5 so I can embed it on my blog in an article

MarkR

Right, well 2d context works.

I found that some implementations suck at scaling

i.e. if you define width and height to be different in pixels than the size of the element in the page

btw, here's one I made earlier... red.vectrex.org.uk/js_rts_game

Alex M.

is that stuff from reiner's tilesets? :D

MarkR

20:53

Yes

I think I credited him?

Alex M.

awesome

MarkR

technically it's a bit "wrong", because the view I use is more oblique, and his are isometric

I was doing a "command and conquer" or "warcraft" type view

Reiner rendered those isometric, I just made a few minor adjustments and used them as-is, it doesn't look too bad

Alex M.

looks cool yeah

MarkR

Anyway, it uses canvas 2d

I haven't really tried it on many other devices

The input method does not work on touch devices

Alex M.

wouldn't stop the development just because there might be issues now

we'll be playing GTA 6 in a browser soon enough

okay, it was a joke but you get the point

actually with that WebGL stuff you never know lolz

MarkR

20:57

I don't think we'll see GTA 6, but I'm pretty sure I saw a tech demo similar to GTA 2

(GTA2 was the last top-down one)

Alex M.

GTA 3 was too, if you toggled it

MarkR

It is here: (this is not mine!) niklasvh.github.io/WebGL-GTA

Shotgun Ninja

blarg

everything is dying

Alex M.

where?

Shotgun Ninja

Missed deployment goal for a website at work today

Alex M.

21:00

:O :O

Shotgun Ninja

Did pretty badly on the C# final exam, which my grade is dependent on.

MarkR

by Niklas von Hertzen

Shotgun Ninja

AND

The summer course I need to take to graduate before 2014 summer vacation?

The guy who was teaching it is having family issues, and I have to find a different professor to deliver the course.

Alex M.

and I though my qt assignment is crap

Shotgun Ninja

not to mention it'll cost about $3000 just for the one course, as a directed study.

and did I mention my senior design project is now officially late?

John McDonald

21:02

@MarkR ahh, that brings back some good memories

Alex M.

oh yeah schooling is expensive like hell in the USA

in a worst case scenario, you get to pay $600 here in Romania

Shotgun Ninja

@AlexM. Well, this is a directed study, one-on-one with a professor, so I have to pay 3x the regular cost per credit.

Alex M.

at a top tier college

Shotgun Ninja

but yeah, it is super fucking expensive.

Alex M.

we also have completely free (i.e. no debts after college) programs offered by the state

at all but the private institutions

Shotgun Ninja

21:04

@AlexM. That's fucking bullshit, man. I'm so jealous.

Alex M.

the best colleges are state colleges too

Shotgun Ninja

I was born in the wrong part of the world. I knew it.

Can we swap?

Alex M.

private colleges are not that great here, and are usually appreciated by people who want to get in quick and get out fast with a diploma in their backpack

lol, after I'm done with college yeah :P

Shotgun Ninja

In the US, it's mostly the other way around.

Alex M.

yeah, afaik MIT and Stanford are both private

Shotgun Ninja

21:05

Private institutions are the ones which are trusted, and public or state schools are usually roach hotels.

Alex M.

there was this crappy new private college saying something like

Shotgun Ninja

it's the concept of "you get what you pay for", blown out of proportion.

that being said, there are a lot of smaller tech schools which are basically diploma factories.

Alex M.

"learn the stuff that's taught at other colleges in just one year!!! we have awesome new teaching techniques!!"

it was for a webdev program or something

Shotgun Ninja

^ Yeah, most definitely.

technical colleges here in the states are like that all the time.

and private universities, as well as chain universities.

Alex M.

I for one, think three years is too little for CS graduate level

Shotgun Ninja

21:08

@AlexM. Oh god.

Alex M.

we're basically rushing through the whole content, never emphasizing anything

Shotgun Ninja

My school crams so much into its super-expensive degree programs that most of the students drop out because of overwork or stress.

30% of our students get killer careers and make huge money. The other 70% drop out to go to business schools so they can learn how to not become homeless from all of the college debt.

Alex M.

yeah, business stuff is popular here in Romania too

Shotgun Ninja

I'm currently in the worst-case scenario: Looking at even more years just to earn my first degree.

Alex M.

several students dropped out last semester

I'm expecting a lot more to drop out this semester

so far the projects I had to do were okay, can't complain

I mean I can't complain about anything really

I just like not to do them and code other things

Shotgun Ninja

21:13

I'm complaining about my current C# course that I'm in.

John McDonald

Dropping out or switching programs is pretty common. Most people don't really know what they want to study

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

I wonder what kind of alternate setting the GTA gameplay could work in.

Alex M.

@JohnMcDonald I have this colleague who says she's in the CS class just because she wanted a back up job in case things go bad

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

Seems like Urban is the most fitting with free roaming people to run over and cars to steal.

Alex M.

she's at a 2 out of 10 level at the moment

Shotgun Ninja

21:14

@AlexM. What's her non-backup job?

John McDonald

@AlexM. heh, yeah

Alex M.

@ShotgunNinja I never asked her, but she really enjoys tourism stuff and climbing mountains lol

Shotgun Ninja

@AlexM. Sounds like someone that could either easily fit the role, or have it be horribly wrong for her.

Might be good in management.

Alex M.

she's good at drinking vodka

maybe there's a job for that too

vodka tester

overall though, I only have like one colleague who really likes CS (in my group)

all others just dream of huge salaries and that's about it

Jimmy

@Alex jsfiddle.net/92QAS

Alex M.

21:22

is it related to the vc menu?

because if it's code doing the thing, it's a spoiler, and I won't even look at it O_O

Jimmy

lol

Alex M.

luckily, with my internetz, it's still loading

alrighty, closed it just in time :D

ain't learning nothing if just looking at some code

Jimmy

not a single line of canvas on that page

there might be some SVG though :P

Alex M.

21:43

the most homework I have to do is for the English class

yes I am serious

I have to write 24 A4 papers by hand

and then make 2 CVs

and another letter thingy

it's no wonder there's no assignment for the math classes

you'd have no time left with the english stuff and all

Code Assassin

Yaey for College. enthusiastic clapping

Alex M.

it's better than high school :P

I have tons of time for myself

Gajoo

Alex M.

I only need to go on wednesday and thursday to college

Gajoo

it's the result of two hours of working :D

Alex M.

21:50

the rest of the week is free

@Gajoo what is it? :D

Gajoo

here is the problem: we do have tiles with 6 different sizes

and we want to cover a rectangle with some specific size.

place the tiles so that those tiles are not all aligned, they don't overlap, and there is no space left uncovered.

took me about 45 minutes developing an editor, and then 1:15 minutes placing tiles inside editor!

Code Assassin

@AlexM. I go to high-school + community college

Double whammy :P

snap

Alex M.

just ate a packet soup

packet soup is a student's best friend

Code Assassin

Ramen.

Alex M.

nah it's not that sophisticated

we ain't full jap here

Code Assassin

21:57

XD

Alex M.

I have packets of...

beef soup

chicken soup

Code Assassin

Lol. Got any real food :P

Alex M.

tomato soup

Code Assassin

Like stuff you make from scratch

Alex M.

no, I don't have an oven

and it takes me 2 hours to boil an egg

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

21:58

@Gajoo, Weren't you supposed to do it programatically rather than manually? :P

Code Assassin

R U JOKING

@William'MindWorX'Mariager hai

Alex M.

no I am not joking

next year I'll move somewhere else

Code Assassin

@AlexM. :-( woah, thats rough

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

@CodeAssassin, Heya. :)

Alex M.

it's a smaller place, but there's a kitchen

it's just as nice though

but the kitchen is shared with other tenants

Code Assassin

21:59

ah

Alex M.

but the most important thing: it's twice as cheap (the rent), so I will be able to pay it on my own

Gajoo

@William'MindWorX'Mariager implementing such an algorithm would take much more time compared to placing them manually

but I might implement it in future, maybe in about 4 months

still I did a neat job, didn't I?

:( my temporary filter bypassing solution is not working anymore (at least not tonight)

Jimmy

22:14

@Alex is Ramen not a Thing in Romania?

in USA we mostly associate instant Ramen with "10c per packet of noodles" super cheap-eats rather than real Japanese-style fresh ramen

Code Assassin

I eat real ramen :P

I eat real things

In fact my brand is real

:P

Jimmy

yeah but real ramen is actually somewhat hard to find. Like here in Chicago we have at most like 3 ramen shops

Code Assassin

Not if you're.... part japanese!

Benjamin Danger Johnson

I'm sure they have some sort of cup noodles in Romania

Code Assassin

Plot - Twist

Jimmy

22:16

compared to say, 28349182374447413824 sushi places

Benjamin Danger Johnson

I think in Europe they just call it pot noodles

Jimmy

are you part japanese?

I thought you were black for some reason

Code Assassin

I am black. Nothing Japanese about me

^______^b but I do have a Japanese person within my immediate family

Jimmy

judging by that smiley you also have an inner Japanese person

Code Assassin

Lol

Looooooooool. I see what you did there

>_______>

Benjamin Danger Johnson

22:18

I don't think Japanese poeople use those emoticons

I always see crap like o(^-^)o

Code Assassin

r.o.f.l

Alex M.

22:38

I'm pretty sure noodles were first found (by us) in China, and not in Japan

we definitely have noodle soup, but our traditional soups are made with longer noodles that look like spaghetti

Ramen is not a thing in Romania, no

noodle soup is, though

I can't imagine Romanians calling noodle soup "Ramen"

we already have our own "supa cu taietei" or "supa cu taitei" translating roughly as noodle soup

Jimmy

ramen will usually refer to instant noodles

Alex M.

isn't that a bit wrong?

Jimmy

since Americans eat noodles by way of Italy

Alex M.

afaik Ramen is a traditional Japanese meal

Jimmy

yes, but that's how American vernacular works

Alex M.

22:44

now that you brought it up

I haven't seen any japanese restaurant in my city

need to take a closer look

there are certainly lots of chinese restaurants

I was a bit weary to try chinese food, it looks rather...

interesting

Jimmy

in US, especially suburban US, Chinese restaurants serve pretty cheap buffet-style stir-fried meat-and-vegetables type food.

and it is strongly tailored towards American taste

Alex M.

yeah, we've got a lot of chinese stews here, containing all kinds of stuff (which is one of the reasons I don't like them that much)

Jimmy

and Japanese is almost synonymous with sushi

Alex M.

e.g. I don't like mushrooms that much

@Jimmy yup. not sure if they're allowed to sell uncooked fish though

in Romania that is

or raw fish, as it's better said

Open Source Browser
Hourly - Est. Time: Less than 1 month, 40 hrs/week - Posted 40 minutes ago
Need to build a browser with Open Source. I need someone who's done this before and can implement quickly.

heard of this new awesome framework?

it's called "Open Source"

Benjamin Danger Johnson

@AlexM. by us? who is us?

Alex M.

22:48

westerners

Benjamin Danger Johnson

oh no

Alex M.

Asia was partly cut away from us for a very long while

Benjamin Danger Johnson

dude they had that forever

they didn't even see rice until like 1000 AD

Alex M.

isn't that what I'm saying?

noodle history starts with the Chinese

Jimmy

@Alex do Romanians eat Lángos?

Benjamin Danger Johnson

22:50

I guess, it sounds like you are saying the European countries taught them to make noodles

but I think it's the other way around

Alex M.

no

Jimmy

I went to I think a Hungarian restaurant once and now I'm addicted to lángos

Benjamin Danger Johnson

As for Ramen, that's Japans version of Chinese food

Alex M.

I am saying that it was the Chinese who first produced noodles

Benjamin Danger Johnson

ah okay

yeah my bad then

Alex M.

22:50

@Jimmy it is not our traditional meal, no

Benjamin Danger Johnson

I just remember living in China and everything has fucking noodles in it

Alex M.

not even in Transylvania

Benjamin Danger Johnson

I thought Transylvanias traditional food was blood

Jimmy

@BenjaminDangerJohnson Beijing?

Alex M.

maybe for the Hungarian people yeah

Benjamin Danger Johnson

22:52

@Jimmy Actually I lived in Shenzhen (a big city just north of Hong Kong) but people from all over China go there to make more money so you can get traditional food from everywhere

Alex M.

@BenjaminDangerJohnson well, come here and see for yourself :P

Benjamin Danger Johnson

@AlexM. I'd rather not

Jimmy

most Chinese places I've been to, rice is a more common crop than wheat

Benjamin Danger Johnson

It's pretty common now in the south

but they prefer noodles much more

rice is kind of a poor persons food

they only eat it to stretch out their other foods

Jimmy

aren't noodles more of a street food?

Alex M.

22:53

afaik, in Germany bread (and wheat) is very expensive and in low amount

Benjamin Danger Johnson

and they never eat plain rice

Alex M.

so they substitute it with potatoes

Jimmy

like, you can find noodle shops anywhere, but you would have rice with the main course at dinner

Benjamin Danger Johnson

@Jimmy Noodles are definately common in street food like friend noodles and such, but they put noodles in tons of other things, although mostly soups and stews

They are pretty interchangeable. I think rice is more common now because it is so cheap, but usually they seem to prefer noodles

or at least that is what my girlfriend tells me, but she is from the northern part of china

Alex M.

Romanian cuisine

Romanian cuisine is a diverse blend of different dishes from several traditions with which it has come into contact, but it also maintains its own character. It has been greatly influenced by Ottoman cuisine, while it also includes influences from the cuisines of other neighbours, such as Germans, Serbs, Bulgarians and Hungarians. Quite different types of dishes are sometimes included under a generic term; for example, the category ciorbă includes a wide range of soups with a characteristic sour taste. These may be meat and vegetable soups, tripe (ciorbă de burtă) and calf foot soups, o...

A plate of sărmăluţe cu mămăligă, a popular Romanian dish of stuffed cabbage rolls (sarmale), accompanied by sauerkraut and mămăligă.

my personal favorite

the stuffing my grandma makes is a mix of rice and pork + beef I believe

Benjamin Danger Johnson

22:58

oh bitchin, I love stuffed peppers

Alex M.

Mititei

Mititei () or mici (, both Romanian words meaning "small things") is a traditional Romanian dish of grilled ground meat rolls made from a mixture of beef, lamb and pork and spices such as garlic, black pepper, thyme, coriander, anise, savory and sometimes a touch of paprika. Sodium bicarbonate and broth or water are also added to the mixture. It is best served accompanied by mustard and beer. Ideally the mustard should not be overly tart, lest it interferes with the taste of the mititei. The dish is very popular in Romania. History Nowadays, they are sold both fresh in restaurants an...

if you go to a Romanian barbecue and there are no "mici", it's not a Romanian barbecue

Jimmy

interesting

skinless sausage

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