Andy J Design
Game Development, Design, Programming, and Marketing
Common Pitfalls in Your Game Loop
Jan 5th
Putting actor logic in your game loop
It’s important to remember that we put things into objects for a reason. One of the greatest reasons is to keep the logic in our code cleanly separated. If you want the enemies to act one way, you change the code in the enemy object. At a later point if you change your mind you simply pop some new logic into the object. More >
Multiplayer Game Design: Server-Side Models and Distributed Models
Sep 1st
I recently posted about using the MVC pattern in games and provided a very quick and dirty pseudocode model of our hero in MVC. It showed a nice separation of concerns and had the display removed from the logic of the game. Shortly after I was prompted by one of my readers about using the Model View Controller pattern distributed over a multiplayer environment. There are a lot of opinions out there and I’ll cover a few here. I’m curious if you all have feedback on these methods and their use in browser-based games specifically. More >
Free Game Hotness: Spelunky
Aug 21st
So I’ve been throwing away tons of time trying to get this tiny pixelated Indiana Jones character through endless random dungeons. Can I be honest and say I haven’t made it past the 4th floor? Okay.
I’m having vivid recollections of my early NetHack days. “Don’t touch the cockatrice. You’ll die.” Check. “Don’t trip on the cockatrice while blind and die.” Check. “Don’t zap a monster with an unidentified wand, polymorph it into a cockatrice, run into a dead end, and die.” More >
Game Programming with Patterns: Model View Controller
Aug 19th
For those of you new to Flash programming – or any kind of programming – you might not have thought about object oriented programming beyond just trying to get the stupid stuff to compile. When people think about OOP it drudges up ideas of classes, inheritance, methods, abstract members, and a bunch of other stuff that sounds great but how do we apply this to our great game idea? When you’re learning object oriented programming the most important thing you can take away is how to use object patterns to quickly prototype your ideas. More >
Tuning Facebook Apps: Apache and MySQL Performance
Aug 18th
Facebook apps are getting hugely popular. Once you’ve got a great idea to implement on a social network it can be tough getting it off the ground. The Facebook team says that one of the best indicators of an apps success is its speed and responsiveness. We’ve already seen the Facebook site grow a little too big for its britches – it’s performance can be downright discouraging on some older machines and browsers. But what can you do to increase app responsiveness and performance. Here are some tricks to get you app, your Apache server, and your MySQL database ready for the big time. More >
Kick Your Game Development Up A Notch With Subversion, Trac, and Harvest
Aug 17th
Trac works great with Subversion and can help you finish your game project
When you’re writing a game it’s easy to lose track of your time, ideas, and the fun of it all. You’ve gotta figure out your goals, sketch out your ideas, build prototypes, iterate, and take feedback on a project. I know you’ve all got those legal pads with the next great game scribbled down on them. Time to think like a project manager and get that stuff done.
