24th March, 2009. 5:09 pm. Notes on the GDC2009 XNA Game Studio Developer Day(abovenyquist)

I'm at GDC this week; here are my notes from the XNA Game Studio Developer Day. (Please leave comments at the linked post so all the comments are in one spot.)

10th March, 2009. 12:26 pm. Qbasic question(akktri)

I would like help on a program.
I made a BASIC program which makes lines of random letters and consonants as sort of an "alien language," but I want the output on a text file so I can just copy and paste it.
How do I do this? What is the code for changing screen output to .txt files?

Read 4 Notes -Make Notes

12th August, 2008. 8:36 pm. The Black dawn project is here; bringing the RP back to MMORPG's(110679)

The Black dawn project is here; bringing the RP back to MMORPG's

Some time back a group of college gamers sat around lamenting the lack of Role Playing in MMORPG's. Most if not all of these games had little to no character interaction, no story telling of any significance, and generally revolved around dungeon raids that barely qualified as roll playing, much less role playing. Determined to see if they could improve on the situation they downloaded a copy of the eAthena Ragnarok emulator and got to work.

The result is RO Black Dawn. Started by a group of D&D players, it is focused on the Role Playing so many MMORPG's lack. In RO Black Dawn, the Admin and GM's are more like the DM's at a D&D table, running a story and using events to move the plot forward and backward. Most players are role playing their characters (though not always). The story revolves around a war between two factions, the "civilized" humans lead by the Defenders of Light and the "uncivilized" everyone else (elves, orcs, goblins, minotaurs), lead by the organization called SIN.

Sadly, we are desperately short of GM's and scripter's. In fact, we are down to one, the admin, who is close to a nervous breakdown under the work load. If setting a new standard for MMO's is something that interests you, please try the server for a while then e-mail the admin ([email protected]).

http://www.roblackdawn.com/index2.php

(my apologies to anyone who gets this multiple times, but we are hoping to make a major breakthrough in the MMORPG world, and start a trend of serious roleplay in MMO's)

Make Notes

27th June, 2008. 3:37 am. Spore on Tiger?(euphoriafish)

So, if you're like me (and I know I am), you have been dying to play the Spore Creature Creator demo but your only working machine is a Macbook running OS X Tiger v. 10.4.11. Your hopes were crushed when you tried to run the installer anyway and were told your computer (which still *feels* new) is outdated. Grrrr...

Today, I found an article that claims it is possible to run the game on Tiger after all

The explanation was a bit vague, but I was able to at least get the program to start on my machine after:
1. Downloading the installer.
2. Copying the installer to the Mac HD (not the Applications folder or home directory).
3. Ctrl-clicking the install app and choosing Show Package Contents in the menu.
4. Editing the tginstall.plist file like the linked article says to do to the demo app.
5. Running the installer.
6. Editing the plist of the demo app like the linked article says to do.

But alas, although the game starts up, it still isn't playable. Here's what I see: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3259/2614709887_aa5e2a3366_o.jpg
and if I click on anything it takes me out of the game program and loads the EA Store/Customer Service site in Firefox. Sigh.

So I'm posting all this here in hopes that someone who knows more about OS X than I do might muck around and figure out how to get the thing running on a pre-Leopard Macbook. Or at least that you guys can commiserate with me until I go home to my parents house and can download the PC version of the demo.
cross-posted in other relevant places

Make Notes

13th February, 2008. 12:53 pm. Class on "Multicore and GPU Programming for Video Games"(abovenyquist)

In Fall 2007, my colleague Sean Lee and I, along with some graduate students of David Bader (who covered the Cell processor part of the class), co-taught a special topics class called "ECE4893A/CS4803MPG: Multicore and GPU Programming for Video Games." Topics covered included the math underlying graphics pipelines, Direct3D, Cg/HLSL, multicore programming in XNA on the Xbox 360, along with a few lectures physics engines. The class website includes videos of the lectures, powerpoint slides, and the homework writeups, if anyone is interested in checking it out:

http://users.ece.gatech.edu/~lanterma/mpg

Feel free to spread around that URL, and contact me at lanterma at ece dot gatech dot edu if you have any feedback on the class.

Make Notes

10th June, 2007. 4:58 pm. Any BASIC programmers out there?(akktri)

I'm trying to save file space in my BASIC program, but I don't know how to do it properly.
I'm not trying to do anything super complicated.
I just want to make a SUB type "thing" that can store extra input statements and print statements, but when I tried to do this, BASIC just ignored it.
(For example, I tried adding a "LET A$="X" in my SUB, but when I tried putting print A$ in the regular program, nothing happened)
I've read that you can use other files, but I want my program to be streamlined in a single program instead of a collection of files.
Does anyone know how I can do this?

Read 2 Notes -Make Notes

12th September, 2006. 5:39 pm.(your_friend)

Hey guys. I've hit that horrible "Balance and Gameplay" portion of my current development cycle. You know, that wonderful spot where ideas that work on paper totally fall apart when applied to people.

The game itself is a blend of Civilization, Settlers of Catan, and Go. Completely browser-based -- I tried out that whole 'AJAX' thing with this.

Anyway, if you're bored I'd appreciate any feedback you could give.

The game: Vox Imperium

- Bill

Make Notes

5th February, 2006. 12:28 am. Mammal Games - a new LJ(mammal_games)

Hi, I've just recently started a new LJ, and am currently finding other people with similar interests who may benefit and/or contribute to it. The main reason is to document my learning and experimentation with development technology and processes, with the aim of keeping up with the larger requests made of games development as team sizes grow and the business matures.

There is also the desire to give graduates a head start when it comes to understanding and preparing for the games industry, so there are several threads of posting, that will alternate between development, musings, and advice.

My background is as a software engineer with 8 years in the industry, and 9 released games that I have made a contribution to.

[Mammal games] is the site. Thanks for any interest.

Make Notes

12th January, 2006. 2:10 am.(anderson_jag)

My OpenGL demo is "growing up"... ; )

I hope I can add some illumination and textures soon... : )



( LARGERCollapse )

Current mood: calm.

Make Notes

13th December, 2005. 5:09 am. (untitled) Game Engine(invader_dave)

I just finished the bare bones version of my game engine.

Game Engine

Features:
Multi-threading
3D audio
Multiple rendering windows
Simple image rendering
Input from mouse, keyboard, and joystick

It's not fully tested and I'm sure there are many bugs, but it's free for anyone that wants to use it.

The current version is built for the Windows (XP) platform using the beta version of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. I intend to make other modules for other operating systems, but at this point I just want to make some games and test the hell out of the engine. Theres a sample application (Console Test) that demonstrates how to use it.

It FULLY encapsulates Windows, so all that's involved is loading the modules and interfacing with them and or the engine.


Send questions, suggestions, or contributions to:

[email protected]


[EDIT]

I recently updated the modules to fix several serious memory and resource leaks.
I'll probably post further updates on my LJ, another new LJ, or a new website.

[/EDIT]

Read 5 Notes -Make Notes