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• What should a game have in order to keep humans playing it?

  - by Adam Davis

  In many entertainment professions there suggestions, loose rules, or general frameworks one follows that appeal to humans in one way or another. For instance, many movies and books follow the monomyth. In video games I find many types of games that attract people in different ways. Some are addicted to facebook gem matching games. Others can't get enough of FPS games. Once in awhile, though, you find a game that seems to transcend stereotypes and appeals almost immediately to everyone that plays it. For instance, Plants Versus Zombies seems to have a very, very large demographic of players. There are other games similar in reach. I'm curious what books, blogs, etc there are that explore these game types and styles, and tries to suss out one or more popular frameworks/styles that satisfy people, while keeping them coming back for more.

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• Need advice for approach for a web-based app that loads excel worksheet but exposes only the charts

  - by John

  I'm looking for suggestions on the Visual Studio approach to take for a web application that is in the conceptual stage. My environment has a lot of tools: Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard 64bit Visual Studio 2010 Professional Edition Sharepoint 2010 Server Enterprise Edition SQL Server 2008 R2 Office 2010 Professional I know I will need this app to retrieve data from a database (or a web service - not sure exactly at this point). The data needs to be placed in an Excel workbook dynamically. The app will need to have a nice user interface (standard web controls - perhaps with some Javascript effects). The Excel ribbon and worksheet grid will need to be hidden. Some web control(s) will cause the Excel chart(s) to be rendered. I am thinking this sounds like Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) so as to leverage .Net and hide Excel. Can you offer suggestions regarding: One ASP.Net Web App Project One Class Library Project for Excel or perhaps which one of the several different Excel 2010 project types (addin, template, document) Would Excel Services for Sharepoint be useful (or required) ? I am feeling a little overwhelmed with so many choices at this early stage of conceptualizing the app. Can you suggest some ideas for this sort of thing? Also, I am a bit more experienced with C# but I've read VB.Net is better for work with the Excel object model. What are general advises with regard to tool choice and overall approach tradeoffs?

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• When would you want two references to the same object?

  - by HCBPshenanigans

  In Java specifically, but likely in other languages as well; When would it be useful to have two references to the same object? Example: Dog a = new Dog(); Dob b = a; Is there a situation where this would be useful? Why would this be a preferred solution to using a whenever you want to interact with the object represented by a? Edit: Can I just say that all of your dog related examples are Delightful!

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• What cars on roads game engines are there?

  - by David Thielen

  What game engines are there that support laying out a map of roads and handle vehicle movement on the roads. Something similar to the basic functionality in Transport Tycoon/Locomotion. I don't care about looks (although prettier is better) and top down or isometric is fine. I just need a simple way to create maps and move cars on it. And preferably the cars do take time to speed up and slow down as they go from stopped to full speed. Prefer in Windows (any API in Windows). I also prefer a free engine as this is just for internal use. I have found CarDriving 2D - does anyone know if it works well?

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• DDD and validation of aggregate root

  - by Mik378

  Suppose an aggregate root : MailConfiguration (wrapping an AddressPart object). The AddressPart object is a simple immutable value object with some fields like senderAdress, recipentAddress (to make example simple). As being an invariant object, AddressPart should logically wrap its own Validator (by the way of external a kind of AddressValidator for respecting Single Responsibility Principle) I read some articles that claimed an aggregateRoot must validate its 'children'. However, if we follow this principle, one could create an AddressPart with an uncohesive/invalid state. What are your opinion? Should I move the collaborator AddressValidator(used in constructor so in order to validate immediately the cohesion of an AddressPart) from AddressPart and assign it to aggregateRoot (MailConfiguration) ?

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• Searching for entity awareness in 3D space algorithm and data structure

  - by Khanser

  I'm trying to do some huge AI system just for the fun and I've come to this problem. How can I let the AI entities know about each other without getting the CPU to perform redundant and costly work? Every entity has a spatial awareness zone and it has to know what's inside when it has to decide what to do. First thoughts, for every entity test if the other entities are inside the first's reach. Ok, so it was the first try and yep, that is redundant and costly. We are working with real time AI over 10000+ entities so this is not a solution. Second try, calculate some grid over the awareness zone of every entity and test whether in this zones are entities (we are working with 3D entities with float x,y,z location coordinates) testing every point in the grid with the indexed-by-coordinate entities. Well, I don't like this because is also costly, but not as the first one. Third, create some multi linked lists over the x's and y's indexed positions of the entities so when we search for an interval between x,y and z,w positions (this interval defines the square over the spatial awareness zone) over the multi linked list, we won't have 'voids'. This has the problem of finding the nearest proximity value if there isn't one at the position where we start the search. I'm not convinced with any of the ideas so I'm searching for some enlightening. Do you people have any better ideas?

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• High resolution graphical representation of the Earth's surface

  - by Simon

  I've got a library, which I inherited, which presents a zoomable representation of the Earth. It's a Mercator projection and is constructed from triangles, the properties of which are stored in binary files. The surface is built up, for any given view port, by drawing these triangles in an overlapping fashion to produce the image. The definition of each triangle is the lat/long of the vertices. It looks OK at low values of zoom but looks progressively more ragged as the user zooms in. The view ports are primarily referenced though a rectangle of lat/long co-ordinates. I'd like to replace it with a better quality approach. The problem is, I don't know where to begin researching the options as I am not familiar either with the projections needed nor the graphics techniques used to render them. For example, I imagine that I could acquire high resolution images, say Mercator projections although I'm open to anything, break them into tiles and somehow wrap them onto a graphical representation of a sphere. I'm not asking for "how do I", more where should I begin to understand what might be involved and the techniques I will need to learn. I am most grateful for any "Earth rendering 101" pointers folks might have.

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• Constructor should generally not call methods

  - by Stefano Borini

  I described to a colleague why a constructor calling a method can be an antipattern. example (in my rusty C++) class C { public : C(int foo); void setFoo(int foo); private: int foo; } C::C(int foo) { setFoo(foo); } void C::setFoo(int foo) { this->foo = foo } I would like to motivate better this fact through your additional contribute. If you have examples, book references, blog pages, or names of principles, they would be very welcome. Edit: I'm talking in general, but we are coding in python.

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• DOT implementation

  - by Denis Ermolin

  I have some DOT(damage over time) implementation problems. My game runs on 30 FPS speed. Current implementation is: let's say hero cast spell which make 1 damage per second. So on every frame i do (pseudo code): damage_done = getRandomDamage() * delta_time; I accumulate damage and when it becomes more then 0 then subtract rounded damage from current health and so on. With 30 FPS and 1 DPS it will be 1/33 = 0.05... We know that floats a not precise enough to sum 30 circulating decimals and have exact 1 in the end. But HP is discrete value and that's why 1 DPS will not have 1 damage after 1 second because value will be 0.9999..... It's not so big deal when you have 100000 DPS - +/- 1 damage will not be noticeable. But if i have 1, 5 DPS? How modern RPG's implemented DOT's?

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• Which is a better practice - helper methods as instance or static?

  - by Ilian Pinzon

  This question is subjective but I was just curious how most programmers approach this. The sample below is in pseudo-C# but this should apply to Java, C++, and other OOP languages as well. Anyway, when writing helper methods in my classes, I tend to declare them as static and just pass the fields if the helper method needs them. For example, given the code below, I prefer to use Method Call #2. class Foo { Bar _bar; public void DoSomethingWithBar() { // Method Call #1. DoSomethingWithBarImpl(); // Method Call #2. DoSomethingWithBarImpl(_bar); } private void DoSomethingWithBarImpl() { _bar.DoSomething(); } private static void DoSomethingWithBarImpl(Bar bar) { bar.DoSomething(); } } My reason for doing this is that it makes it clear (to my eyes at least) that the helper method has a possible side-effect on other objects - even without reading its implementation. I find that I can quickly grok methods that use this practice and thus help me in debugging things. Which do you prefer to do in your own code and what are your reasons for doing so?

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• Breakout ball collision detection, bouncing against the walls [solved]

  - by Sri Harsha Chilakapati

  I'm currently trying to program a breakout game to distribute it as an example game for my own game engine. http://game-engine-for-java.googlecode.com/ But the problem here is that I can't get the bouncing condition working properly. Here's what I'm using. public void collision(GObject other){ if (other instanceof Bat || other instanceof Block){ bounce(); } else if (other instanceof Stone){ other.destroy(); bounce(); } //Breakout.HIT.play(); } And here's by bounce() method public void bounce(){ boolean left = false; boolean right = false; boolean up = false; boolean down = false; if (dx < 0) { left = true; } else if (dx > 0) { right = true; } if (dy < 0) { up = true; } else if (dy > 0) { down = true; } if (left && up) { dx = -dx; } if (left && down) { dy = -dy; } if (right && up) { dx = -dx; } if (right && down) { dy = -dy; } } The ball bounces the bat and blocks but when the block is on top of the ball, it won't bounce and moves upwards out of the game. What I'm missing? Is there anything to implement? Please help me.. Thanks EDIT: Have changed the bounce method. public void bounce(GObject other){ //System.out.println("y : " + getY() + " other.y + other.height - 2 : " + (other.getY() + other.getHeight() - 2)); if (getX()+getWidth()>other.getX()+2){ setHorizontalDirection(Direction.DIRECTION_RIGHT); } else if (getX()<(other.getX()+other.getWidth()-2)){ setHorizontalDirection(Direction.DIRECTION_LEFT); } if (getY()+getHeight()>other.getY()+2){ setVerticalDirection(Direction.DIRECTION_UP); } else if (getY()<(other.getY()+other.getHeight()-2)){ setVerticalDirection(Direction.DIRECTION_DOWN); } } EDIT: Solved now. See the changed method in my answer.

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• Confusion with Libgdx UI

  - by BrotherJack

  I've started with Libgdx and am currently stumbling about trying to understand how to set up the interface. I have generated the base projects in Eclipse ( < proj-name ,< proj-name -android, < proj-name -desktop, < proj-name -html), and can get the program to display a simple background, play a looping sound file, and draw a tank. I have been having some problems implementing the UI though. I want to make a collapsible interface bar at the bottom of the screen that would contain buttons for movement, and selecting weapons. I'm confused since there appears to be several ways of doing this and the documentation (or tutorials explaining it) tend to be obsolete. How would one go about this? Use a stage for the bar and actors for the widgets? I'm a little lost on this.

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• How should I handle "real time" events in an online strategy game?

  - by Hojat Taheri

  Some online strategy games have real time events. For example when you send troops to attack somewhere, the attack happens at the right time in the future. Checking the database again and again to get the list of attacks happening each second would cause heavy load. Is there any technique to achieve this goal? Another example: You want to attack a village 3 hours away, you send troops and the attack occurs 3 hours later. Should there be an script to check the database at each second to run the query at the specified time?

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• Dealing with bad/incomplete/unclear specifications?

  - by eagerMoose

  I'm working on a project where our dev team gets the specifications from the business part of the company. Both the business management and the IT management require estimates and deadline projections, as they should. The good thing is that estimates are mostly made by the actual developers who get to do the required features. The bad thing is that the specifications are usually either too simple (it turns out you're left with a lot of question marks over your head because a lot of information seems to be missing) or too complex(up to the point that you can't even visualize where everything would "fit" in the app). More often than not, the business part of the specs are either incomplete or unaware of what can and can't be done (given the previously implemented business logic). Dev team is given about a day per new spec to give an estimate and we do try to clear uncertainties, usually by meeting up with whoever did the spec. Most of the times it turns out that spec writers haven't really thought everything through, and it's usually only when we start designing and developing that we end up in trouble, as a lot of the spec seems to have holes. How do you deal with this? Are you generous on estimates in advance?

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• Single or multiple return statements in a function [on hold]

  - by Juan Carlos Coto

  When writing a function that can have several different return values, particularly when different branches of code return different values, what is the cleanest or sanest way of returning? Please note the following are really contrived examples meant only to illustrate different styles. Example 1: Single return def my_function(): if some_condition: return_value = 1 elif another_condition: return_value = 2 else: return_value = 3 return return_value Example 2: Multiple returns def my_function(): if some_condition: return 1 elif another_condition: return 2 else: return 3 The second example seems simpler and is perhaps more readable. The first one, however, might describe the overall logic a bit better (the conditions affect the assignment of the value, not whether it's returned or not). Is the second way preferable to the first? Why?

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• The danger of changing the domain of your portfolio

  - by Mervin

  So I have a online portfolio that is available at mervin-ux-portfolio.com but I am planning to change hosts since the current host I am hosting it with is hitting me with a very high yearly renewal rate. When I was inquiring about domain transfers ,,they told me that since I had not initiated the domain transfer within 14 days of the expiry of the domain ,they cannot do it immediately and it would take about two weeks to to release the domain name. Since I dont like the idea of my site being down for like 2 weeks ,I was wondering if I should start afresh with a new domain on a new host and what were the potential dangers of that ( I have the entire site backup,so creating a replica of the site on the new host wont be hard) I also wont be losing any business or work since I work full time currently but I was just wondering about the challenges in terms of getting my domain name back to the top of search results and basically getting it out there assuming I go the new domain name approach. I know this is strictly not an UX question but I was hoping people could give some suggestions on what I should do

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• What the best way to wire up Entity Framework database context (model) to ViewModel in MVVM WPF?

  - by hal9k2

  As in the question above: What the best way to wire up Entity Framework database model (context) to viewModel in MVVM (WPF)? I am learning MVVM pattern in WPF, alot of examples shows how to implement model to viewModel, but models in that examples are just simple classes, I want to use MVVM together with entity framework model (base first approach). Whats the best way to wire model to viewModel. Thanks for answers. //ctor of ViewModel public ViewModel() { db = new PackageShipmentDBEntities(); // Entity Framework generated class ListaZBazy = new ObservableCollection<Pack>(db.Packs.Where(w => w.IsSent == false)); } This is my usual ctor of ViewModel, think there is a better way, I was reading about repository pattern, not sure if I can adapt this to WPF MVVM

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• How to properly URL/domain forward

  - by NRGdallas

  No clue on a title for this, someone feel free to suggest an edit. I have a client that has a website. He owns around 200 domains, and wants each domain to contain content from the main website. The header, footer, and navigation bars will remain the same for each domain, but the actual page content will vary (obviously duplicate content issues, open to suggestions) He wants each individual page to be its own separate domain, rather than a url within the main domain. (page1.com page2.com etc - NOT site.com/page1.html, however the file is actually hosted at site.com/page1.html - all links will direct to site.com/whatever accordingly) What would be the best place to start reading / learning on how to do this, and what concerns/considerations should be taken into mind?

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• which style of member-access is preferable

  - by itwasntpete

  the purpose of oop using classes is to encapsulate members from the outer space. i always read that accessing members should be done by methods. for example: template<typename T> class foo_1 { T state_; public: // following below }; the most common doing that by my professor was to have a get and set method. // variant 1 T const& getState() { return state_; } void setState(T const& v) { state_ = v; } or like this: // variant 2 // in my opinion it is easier to read T const& state() { return state_; } void state(T const& v) { state_ = v; } assume the state_ is a variable, which is checked periodically and there is no need to ensure the value (state) is consistent. Is there any disadvantage of accessing the state by reference? for example: // variant 3 // do it by reference T& state() { return state_; } or even directly, if I declare the variable as public. template<typename T> class foo { public: // variant 4 T state; }; In variant 4 I could even ensure consistence by using c++11 atomic. So my question is, which one should I prefer?, Is there any coding standard which would decline one of these pattern? for some code see here

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• What browser do you build in? [closed]

  - by Ryan

  Lately I have been using Chrome, but I am starting to think I should use FF. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the various mainstream browsers (with an emphasis on Chrome and FF) when doing web development? Is it easier to start with clean code for a relatively conforming browser, and later add hacks/workarounds for acceptable display with less conforming browsers, or is it easier to work with a variety of browsers from the beginning, so we never have a page that's completely unacceptable with, for example, IE 6?

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• Any technical references for game-oriented icons and symbols?

  - by willc2

  To make localizing easier, I'm using icons to show in-game information like achievements and bonuses. Coming up with good designs isn't easy, especially when it has to be integrated into the rest of the game's art style. Can I do better than looking at some random selection of existing games? Are there any reference books or sites that cover game graphics specifically? I'm looking for more theory and best-practices rather than pre-made graphics.

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• What are some general guidelines for setting up an iOS project I will want to personally publish but sell in the future?

  - by RLH

  I have an idea for a personal iOS project that I would like to write and release to the iOS store. I'm the type of developer who enjoys developing and publishing. I want to write quality software and take care of my customers. Assuming that I wrote an application that had reasonable success, there is a fair chance that I would want to sell the ownership rights of the app to another party and I'd use the proceeds to develop my next personal project which, in turn, I'd probably want to sell in the future. With that said, what are some general guidelines for creating, making and publishing an iOS project that I will eventually want to transfer to another company/developer? I know this is a bit of a broad question, but I request that the given advice be a general list of tips, suggestions and pitfalls to avoid. If any particular bullet point on your list needs more explanation, I'll either search for the answer or post a new question specific to that requirement. Thank you! Note Regarding this Question I am posting this question on Programmers.SO because I think that this is an issue of software architecting, seeking advice for setting a new application project and publishing a project to the Apple iOS store-- all within the requirements for questions on this site.

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• Is it a good idea to use a formula to balance a game's complexity, in order to keep players in constant flow?

  - by user1107412

  I read a lot about Flow theory and its applications to video games, and I got an idea sticking in my mind. If a number of weight values are applied to different parameters of a certain game level (i.e. the size of the level, the number of enemies, their overal strength, the variance in their behavior, etc), then it should be technically possible to find an overal score mechanism for each level in the game. If a constant ratio of complexity increase were empirically defined, for instance 1,3333, or say, the Golden Ratio, would it be a good idea to arrange the levels in such an order that the increase of overal complexity tends to increase that much? Has somebody tried it?

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• Where to Start?

  - by freemann098

  my name is Chase. I've been programming for over 3 years now and I've made very little progress towards game development. I blame myself for it due to reasons. I have experience in many languages such as C++, C#, and Java. I have a little bit of knowledge in JavaScript/HTML and Python. My question is where to start on actually understanding jumping into game development. Whenever I watch game development tutorials it mostly makes sense until points of things like OpenGL or advanced topics that make no sense at all. An example is something like glOrhho Matrix or whatever. Videos either don't explain things like this or they're not explained very well. Do I not know enough basics? I find myself always copying code from a video but understanding very little of it. It's like i'm memorizing things I don't understand which makes it hard to program at all. If I were to want to get to the point where I could write my own game engine or just a game by myself in general in C++ using at the most documentation how would I start at mastering to that level. Should I learn C first, or get really good at basics in general with C++. I know there is a similar posted question on this site but it's not the same due to the fact the person asking the question has a well knowledge level in programming. I'm stuck in a loop of learning the same things but if I go farther I don't understand. I'm stuck in the same spot and need to make progress.

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• Are there any concerns with using a static read-only unit of work so that it behaves like a cache?

  - by Rowan Freeman

  Related question: How do I cache data that rarely changes? I'm making an ASP.NET MVC4 application. On every request the security details about the user will need to be checked with the area/controller/action that they are accessing to see if they are allowed to view it. The security information is stored in the database. For example: User Permission UserPermission Action ActionPermission A "Permission" is a token that is applied to an MVC action to indicate that the token is required in order to access the action. Once a user is given the permission (via the UserPermission table) then they have the token and can therefore access the action. I've been looking in to how to cache this data (since it rarely changes) so that I'm only querying in-memory data and not hitting a database (which is a considerable performance hit at the moment). I've tried storing things in lists, using a caching provider but I either run in to problems or performance doesn't improve. One problem that I constantly run in to is that I'm using lazy loading and dynamic proxies with EntityFramework. This means that even if I ToList() everything and store them somewhere static, the relationships are never populated. For example, User.Permissions is an ICollection but it's always null. I don't want to Include() everything because I'm trying to keep things simple and generic (and easy to modify). One thing I know is that an EntityFramework DbContext is a unit of work that acts with 1st-level caching. That is, for the duration of the unit of work, everything that is accessed is cached in memory. I want to create a read-only DbContext that will exist indefinitely and will only be used to read about permission data. Upon testing this it worked perfectly; my page load times went from 200ms+ to 20ms. I can easily force the data to refresh at certain intervals or simply leave it to refresh when the application pool is recycled. Basically it will behave like a cache. Note that the rest of the application will interact with other contexts that exist per request as normal. Is there any disadvantage to this approach? Could I be doing something different?

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