The Bridge

thethinman

8:00 PM

There must be some game devs on here right?

As in with us right now?

Mana

I made the world's worst Astroids game in Python, so for very small values of dev, you'd be right.

thethinman

Hah

Well I can respect Python

I had a metaprogramming Q

tzenes

I've written a number of educational games for children with disabilities

thethinman

Because I'm too lazy to scrap google for an answer.

Does anyone know C#?

tzenes

yes

thethinman

8:03 PM

Have you looked at metaprogramming in C#?

Feeds

0

Q: Is Final Fantasy X the only game in the franchise where you can swap characters in mid-battle?

I'm fairly sure that Final Fantasy X is the first game in the series where you were able to swap characters in and out during a fight, but I'm not certain if it's the only one. Are there any other games in the series where swapping in "inactive" characters during a battle is possible?

final-fantasy

tzenes

in what sense? templating?

C# has anonymous functions, why do you need to metaprogram?

thethinman

Yes, templating, but I guess a little more.

Well, let me explain briefly.

So, to make it clear I'm working with XNA 4.0, just for XBOX dev.

Arda Xi

I know C# too

tzenes

sure

thethinman

8:05 PM

Now there's the whole content pipeline, basically serializing data for you and handling textures, models, etc.

tzenes

sure

thethinman

So for some object in-game, I'd like to use files with plain text data to describe what they do in-game.

Using whatever format I please, it's not really important. We're talking JSON or YAML style

tzenes

"what they do" is a little vague

thethinman

Getting there.

So I don't just want the text data to describe variables within a class or things like that, I want the text file to describe exactly what the class IS

So, for example, you could interpret parts of the text file as saying a class needs a method with a certain name.

tzenes

let's back up for a second

thethinman

8:09 PM

K

tzenes

normally a game works as follows: You have a graphics engine, you have a physics engine, and you have an input controller

thethinman

Yes.

tzenes

and then you have something which ties these all together

now your world objects are largely controlled by the physics engine and map to a component in the graphics engine

so they don't actually have methods of their own

thethinman

sure

hmmmmm

tzenes

in fact, usually you can just represent them as structs

thethinman

8:11 PM

good point, let me think of an example

tzenes

(not that you can't add methods to structs, but you know what I mean)

thethinman

of course, i understand

sorry you're going to have to be patient for a moment

well, couldn't it be valuable to have methods in world objects that organized some result for the physics engine or game engine or whatever?

tzenes

that kind of violates the abstraction of having a physics engine

thethinman

say, the world object itself only knows how to consolidate its values into something usable by something else

well, this is probably apart from the physics engine

tzenes

I understand that's tempting from an object oriented perspective, but the reality is you don't need it

thethinman

8:14 PM

true, i know to keep that in mind

tzenes

things shouldn't be playing with their own state

thethinman

aha, agreed

tzenes

rather state is something you need to perserve across the game

thethinman

but it has one interesting application, and that is for dynamic updates

tzenes

remember, a game is a very stateful system

thethinman

8:15 PM

yes, but consider you have a data manager, or metadata manager

basically something that everyone goes through when they want to access data

tzenes

@thethinman sure, you can load object definitions (usually people use XML), but usually not class definitions. Usually these definitions are just the values for a given object

thethinman

and the reason you have that is that if some backend file that describes an object changes, the manager can transparently reload things without having to take down any part of the system

tzenes

@thethinman I think you're getting a little ivory tower on me

thethinman

:)

tzenes

essentially then you're writing a program to write a game

thethinman

8:16 PM

i'm not doing anything new here, just a thought about its applciations

tzenes

which isn't actually writing a game

thethinman

well, i'm still writing the game.

tzenes

well, not really

thethinman

what i'm doing is making the game dynamic enough that live changes to data do not break it down

tzenes

because you won't end up with a game

you'll still have to also write the game

thethinman

8:17 PM

yes i know that

i'm okay with that

this is the backend for a game

tzenes

so what you've really done is double your workload for no profit

thethinman

the data support

tzenes

its not the backend, its the interpreter

thethinman

okay, can i give a use case then look at your points again?

tzenes

in any regard you don't want to do this in C#

thethinman

8:18 PM

and i agree it's the interpreter, so to say

tzenes

that's an abuse of the statically typed language

you want something more like javascript or perl

thethinman

But from what I've heard C# devs are getting very interested in this stuff

tzenes

where you don't have objects as much as you have hashes

C. Ross

I've been playing with Groovy lately and have been very pleased

tzenes

@thethinman I haven't heard much of that, and if they are they aren't worth listening to

DEATH TO GROOVY

C. Ross

8:19 PM

lol

Arda Xi

I haven't been following the conversation, but C# is definitely becoming more and more dynamic.

tzenes

Groovy is the single worst thing to happen to my life

ok, second worst

Arda Xi

What with the DLR and all.

tzenes

but still, bad

hey look guys, we can write our rails code in java, let's use that to COMPLETELY VIOLATE OUR SERVICE ABSTRACTION

2

nothing bad could possibly come of that

Arda Xi

Erm, guys? Programming is that way... points towards SO

@badp Where are you?

tzenes

8:22 PM

speaking of, I have to go fix some grails code

Mana

@tzenes I assume that the "brilliant" programmer you were describing yesterday is a mere blot on this record of worst things?

tzenes

@mana Who do you think wrote the Grails code?

Mana

...oh.

Arda Xi

still points towards SO My arm is starting to hurt.

Mana

maaaaaaan why can't we talk about programming-things in here

I don't understand. We talk about so much non-gaming related stuff.

Arda Xi

8:25 PM

I don't mind you guys talking about it, but when it's like three or four pages worth of stuff only three or four people in here understand, it might be useful to go to SO chat.

Feeds

Stack Overflow Blog: Community Conference Sponsorships

Posted by Jeff Atwood on February 10th, 2011

In A Recipe to Promote your Site we noted that we would match community effort with funds:

Any community that shows sufficient effort and innovative ideas to promote their site will be offered a budget and resources to make those ideas happen. Think of it as matching funds — except we’re matching effort, innovation, resources, and ideas from the community. And it has to come from within your community. You’re the experts, not us!

We’re still in the early phases of figuring this stuff out, but we know that sponsoring community leaders to attend interesting, relevant, useful conferences is strongly reflective of our core values, and we want to get started now. …

tzenes

I don't think this place has any real rules about topics of conversation

the idea is that its less structured on purpose

thethinman

sorry, back

so it's advanced templating, where classes and methods for them are constructed based on data

and that data is transparently resolved is some file it was based on changes

sjohnston

@Tzenes that depends on if you're badp or not. He likes to have a different room for every topic. You're lucky you haven't been moved already

thethinman

meaning live updates without your game even flinching

it's extremely powerful

Mana

8:26 PM

> If this sounds exciting to you, get started on your own community! Open a meta question asking which conferences it would make sense for someone from your community to attend — so that we can all benefit from their experience.

tzenes

@sjohnston I have italics in here

@thethinman sure, in a dynamically typed language

sjohnston

oh snap. italics :)

tzenes

but in a staticly typed language like C# you're talking about reflection

and that's almost always a bad idea

first you lose the ability to gaurantee data quality

next you lose the ability to debug problems

thethinman

@tzenes well, it's not always a bad idea. If C# supports it they were implying something about what I can do.

Powerlord

@Feeds So wait, does this Gaming mods can attend E3? ;)

tzenes

8:28 PM

@thethinman Just because a language supports something doesn't mean you should do it... C supports 'goto'

thethinman

@tzenes If they support metaprogramming then they must support debugging for it, although I honestly don't know if that's true or not. Just seems reasonable.

Ha, don't get me started on goto.

sjohnston

@Feeds So does this mean we can get funding to send Tzenes to starcraft tourneys?

tzenes

@thethinman they support reflection, which isn't the same as supporting metaprogramming

@sjohnston I lost my last one :(

thethinman

@tzenes I guess the two are different. But reflection seems silly without the metaprogramming.

sjohnston

@tzenes I guess it would be more like gaming conferences, e.g. PAX, E3

thethinman

8:30 PM

@tzenes I mean, this isn't Python we're talking about. But there's still potential.

Mana

Obviously you guys should send me. I'm in the best league. Bronze league.

thethinman

And it's important that it's C# because I need that for dev on a lot of systems.

tzenes

@thethinman they support reflection as an interface into the underlying .NET framework, it isn't exactly built into the language

Arda Xi

feels seriously ignored

tzenes

@sjohnston don't get me wrong, I'd love to head out to MLG and compete, I just dont' think I"d stand a chance

thethinman

8:31 PM

@tzenes Fair enough. I guess I shall play with it.

@tzenes Have you fought the top 200 yet?

@tzenes I'm guessing you're the top of your diamond league :)

tzenes

@thethinman I've played them, and even taken a game here and there, but its not the same as being able to compete

Mana

Tournaments are so much different from ladders.

thethinman

@tzenes Agreed. I have a friend who is roughly in the same spot but by no measure ready. He plays Protoss and all of the Terran in top 200 crush him.

@tzenes It would be cool though, you should definitely try.

tzenes

I think Dallas is already registered, so it'd have to be Columbus in June

thethinman

@Mana Isn't a ladder an indication of how you'll perform in a tournament? I mean if you're not at the top of your ladder then you're probably screwed but if you are then maybe you should be considering it.

tzenes

8:35 PM

@thethinman oh god no

Mana

@thethinman No.

thethinman

@tzenes Haha, alright.

tzenes

ladder and tournament are completely different

ladder is largely a function of how often you play

Josh

Hello fellow Gaming.SE users. Please accept my apologies for the delayed Town Hall "Digest"!!! I am finishing this up now and will be posting the digest to Meta shortly. Thanks for your patience!

tzenes

not to mention that in person events are tough

Mana

8:36 PM

For one there's the fact that tournaments are best of 3 or 5 or 7 or whatever

tzenes

nothing is the same as the pressure of people actually watching you there in person

thethinman

Hmm, change in pressure

Mana

whereas ladders are just one game and done

tzenes

I think my last tourney we had a couple dozen spectators and even that was rough

cost me game 2

Mana

Lots of things change in the second game in a row you play against a person.

thethinman

8:36 PM

Oh, so you have competed.

tzenes

only in small things

nothing a big as MLG

anyway, I need to get back to work

I'll talk to you all later

thethinman

I thought you were avoiding. But I definitely get how there is no smooth transition from any tournie to MLG.

caio

Mana

Cheers.

Josh

in Town Hall Discussion on Meta Stack Overflow Chat, 30 secs ago, by The Renamed Exception

I am going to combine the two Gaming town halls into one giant Meta Town hall Digest post. If anyone objects, please let me know!

Brant

@Feeds Sweet, let's send tzenes to MLG!

Free PAX trips for all!

C. Ross

8:52 PM

@Brant on the surface that seems like a good idea. I might be missing something

sjohnston

@CRoss Probably a lot cheaper to register than any tech conferences, too

C. Ross

@sjohnston meh, I think B-sides is pretty cheap, they're local events

they have one or more a month according to the other Hacker News

Mana

I'd open up a new meta-topic for this discussion but I can't think of how to put it.

The conference stuff I mean

Noctrine

"What gaming events would best allow us to evangelize Gaming.SE?"

Seems a bit word-y

C. Ross

that's pretty good ...

we talked about it a lot on RPG (they have a huge conference scene), but we didn't get it together, and honestly I think the business didn't want to do it for a beta site. Not sure I blame them

Noctrine

8:58 PM

I've never watched MLG stuff. Could SO-Inc get giant banners that say "Go here for all your Gaming questions?"

:O Oak didn't nominate himself

sjohnston

@Noctrine Thus making the election interesting

C. Ross

you still think there's question of who will get it ?

Mana

That third spot, maaaaan.

sjohnston

@CRoss At the very least, it made the primary more interesting. I make no predictions of final result.

C. Ross

true, true

hmmm, @IvoFlipse tied me

Noctrine

9:05 PM

More interesting as in one of the three users who probably would have been named pro-tempore mods had the current pro-tempore mods not been elected getting it?

Powerlord

Maybe I've said this before, but... I'm bored. Entertain me!

Dumb question, when does the primary end?

Josh

@Powerlord Tomorrow?

Mana

Tomorrow.

Josh

Which is why I feel so bad that the digest is so late! :-(

Mana

It's cool bro, it's just a website.

Josh

9:10 PM

haha

But it's an awesome website!

Mana

hi-fives

Powerlord

@YiJiang: Oh, hey, I just noticed that I earned one of the badges on Gaming that the tracker watches for, but it doesn't list it on your election site.

sjohnston

Gah, NetHack is taunting me. Whenever I play Valkyrie, I end up having to kill a dozen dwarves to get mithril armor. When I play a monk, I invariably find them just lying around on level 2.

Arda Xi

@sjohnston Err, duh. It's an AI, what do you expect?

sjohnston

SkyNetHack?

Powerlord

9:17 PM

@ArdaXi A malicious AI. :P

sjohnston

While the RNG is cruelly indifferent, I do not believe it to be outright malicious.

Powerlord

@sjohnston Have you looked at the code to see if really is random? :)

sjohnston

As they say, Nethack doesn't care if you live or die, but SLASH'EM wants you dead.

Arda Xi

@Mana I did that just for you.

sjohnston

@Powerlord No, I have (mostly) avoided looking at source code. Down that road lies madness

Mana

9:19 PM

@Arda Dilbert did it better but that was one of the better XKCDs

I was a pretty big fan of XKCD for about the first 400 comics

Powerlord

I have 3 XKCD comics hanging in my office. That's not one of them.

Arda Xi

@Mana I am inclined to agree with you. Some gems have been in the mud since then, however.

Powerlord

Lets see if I can find my favorite 3.

Arda Xi

@Powerlord Hmm, that was the moment I started to realise xkcd was declining.

Powerlord

Arda Xi

9:22 PM

I think one of my favourites is this one

sjohnston

@ArdaXi I honestly feel it's rather unreasonable to expect someone to be amazing 3 days a week. A good comic once in a while is all I expect from prolific web-comickers

Powerlord

Of course, the last is the best, and likely most well-known.

Arda Xi

Err.

Great minds think alike.

Powerlord

Those are the 3 hanging in my office. :D

Brant

http://xkcd.stackexchange.com/

Mana

9:23 PM

@sjohnston If that's the case then Randall shouldn't be posting comics 3 days a week.

Arda Xi

I also like the inescapable cloverleaf. I have a vectorised print of it somewhere.

Powerlord

The middle one is only funny if you realize they're referring to computer programming...

Mana

I think the quality of XKCD would improve greatly if he took a break or changed his schedule.

Arda Xi

@Mana s/XKCD/xkcd/g (I know, I'm pedantic)

sjohnston

@Mana Yes, well, if you post once a week or less, you get considerably less traffic. I don't blame him for trying to make a living. Even the worst comic in the world only takes 30 seconds of my time

Arda Xi

9:25 PM

I do like others like SMBC better though.

Powerlord

girlgeniusonline.com <-- Speaking of comics, am I the only one who reads this one?

Ivo Flipse

did I @CRoss?

then someone must have been on a downvote spree

Mana

@Powerlord I'm aware of it and read a few panels sometimes but don't follow it

Powerlord

@Mana Really? Why not? >:O

Mana

@Powerlord shrug I find it more entertaining keeping up with mspaintadventures.com

Ivo Flipse

9:29 PM

they only reason to send anyone from Gaming to a game conference is to tell others about it on Meta or a blog post, which would be a good thing for traffic

Powerlord

@Mana Are you knocking Phil Foglio's Magnum Opus?! >:O

Mana

7 days a week, consistently funny/shocking/interesting

Ivo Flipse

but since we're in competition with just about every other game site out there... I don't think there's much to gain from advertising

Arda Xi

What the hell, why do I have 19 upvotes in the election?

Ivo Flipse

because it would be sad if you had less than your age?

Powerlord

9:31 PM

@ArdaXi I could go home really quickly and downvote you if it'd make you happy.

Arda Xi

@IvoFlipse :-(

Mana

@Ivo I don't get what you mean by we wouldn't gain much from advertising because of being in competition.

Ivo Flipse

because who would spread the word?

Arda Xi

Wait... my upvotes:age ratio is better than pretty much anyone else's here, except Grace Note that is.

Powerlord

@ArdaXi Hey wait, being the oldest person in the mod election (I think), that puts me at a major disadvantage in that equation.

Ivo Flipse

9:32 PM

if we want word of mouth advertisement, you have to get retweeted or mentioned on Reddit (and be worth it!)

Arda Xi

@Powerlord Aye.

Powerlord

@ArdaXi GET OFF MY LAWN!

Arda Xi

Grace's ratio is somewhere between 2 and 3, and mine is 1.18

Powerlord

Just because I'm twice your age, you're inventing calculations to make me look bad.

C. Ross

►

Powerlord

9:35 PM

(Actually, I don't remember Arda's age)

Arda Xi

@Powerlord That's enough thinking for one day, old man.

@Powerlord 16

Powerlord

Yeah, I'll be 32 in... 3 weeks and 2 days.

badp

@ArdaXi pizza.

Ivo Flipse

Man @ArdaXi makes me feel old...

Arda Xi

@Powerlord Well then, close enough to be precisely twice my age.

@badp I don't get it.

@IvoFlipse Glad to help.

badp

9:37 PM

@ArdaXi what's not to get about pizza.

Powerlord

Pizza sounds good.

Arda Xi

@badp The actual edible part.

Powerlord

I think I'll eat pizza for dinner.

►

Grace Note

Juan, Ivo, badp, and C. Ross all have more upvotes than age.

Arda Xi

Hey @GraceNote. Help me, they're bullying me again :(

Grace Note

9:38 PM

@Arda It's hard for me to help you there when yesterday I had arda-makes-a-terrible-mod as a Favorite Tag.

Powerlord

@ArdaXi Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!

Arda Xi

THEY'RE ALL AGAINST ME!

Ivo Flipse

I just have a load of downvotes too :P

Powerlord

(bonus points if you can name the movie!)

Arda Xi

@Powerlord Is there someone else I can talk to?

@Powerlord Holy Grail, duh.

Ahem.

Damn, wrong one.

Oh, no, it isn't.

Powerlord

9:40 PM

@ArdaXi No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Mana

@Powerlord I did.

Powerlord

Speaking of which, I've never played Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time.

Arda Xi

Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time

Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time is a collection of minigames, screen savers, desktop wallpaper and icons for Mac OS System 7, DOS and Windows. The content is drawn primarily from the Monty Python's Flying Circus TV series. It also features specially-written and recorded interstitial and linking material created by some of the Python members and Secret Policeman's Ball producer Martin Lewis. Overall producer was Bob Ezrin. In 1995, it won the CODiE Award for "Best Strategy Program" from the Software Publishers Association. The CD-Rom was named after a line in Life of Brian, in whi...

Oh wow, it's even a real thing.

Powerlord

@ArdaXi You thought I was joking?

Arda Xi

@Powerlord Yes.

Powerlord

9:43 PM

Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail

Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail is an adventure game created by 7th Level in 1996 for Windows. The game is based on the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail and was the second of three Monty Python games created by 7th Level. Aesthetics The game aesthetics are a mixture of photo realistic rendering and the comic style of Terry Gilliam. The objective is to move through the world and collect a series of objects in order to cross the bridge of death. The game also contains a series of sketches and audio clips not present in the film, including an alternative reason for the ...

There was a Holy Grail game, too!

Arda Xi

Oh wow.

I'm still confused by how old this community is, on average. For a subject like gaming, you'd expect more youngsters.

Powerlord

I don't wanna grow up, I want to be a Toys 'R Us kid! (mmm, 80s references)

Noctrine

I think it's because of the relationship to Stack Overflow.

Arda Xi

@Powerlord What's an 80s?

Powerlord

@ArdaXi A long time ago, there was a time period known as the "1980s"

Arda Xi

9:47 PM

@Powerlord That was like a century ago, right.

Noctrine

The average age of the community is 29.

I wonder what the breakdown is

Powerlord

@Noctrine I could take that completely out of context and say "Red Ring of Death"

Arda Xi

Got to be a lot of old folk then.

Noctrine

data.stackexchange.com/gaming/s/559/user-breakdown-by-age

Arda Xi

I mean, anything over 20 has to be like... really old, right?

Noctrine

9:49 PM

Just some people that list their ages as like 90.

Powerlord

Everyone remember to Game On!

►

C. Ross

that video amuses the heck out of me

much better than "Date my Avatar"

Powerlord

@CRoss Really? I think I preferred Date my Avatar. And if people don't know what we're talking about...

►

The image they use for that is just wrong. :D

Josh

in Town Hall Discussion on Meta Stack Overflow Chat, 3 mins ago, by The Renamed Exception

I was having some trouble concentrating on the Gaming town hall chat digest. Music wasn't helping, in fact it was making it worse. Then I had an idea... now I'm listening to video game music and it's going much faster!

If anyone wants to follow my progress realtime, there's a google doc available

Powerlord

@Josh Why would you listen to anything but video game music?!

Noctrine

9:52 PM

I really doubt there are 15 90 year olds on this site.

C. Ross

linky?

Josh

in Town Hall Discussion on Meta Stack Overflow Chat, 2 days ago, by The Renamed Exception

Gaming Town Hall Google Doc

C. Ross

@Powerlord you mean you don't listen to Symphonic Rock while you game?

Feeds

0

Q: Trying to remember the name of an old game from the 90s

The game is about a kid whose dog was stolen by ?aliens? or something of the sort. And if my memory serves me right, there was something about a tree house and having a bucket as a helmet and some other toy guns. So the kid sets out to search for his lost dog and ends up deep in the ocean where I...