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• How does a game developer get feedback from gamers (not developers) or start a forum community without paying for advertising or hiring Q&A teams?

  - by Carter81

  I am familiar with a lot of game developer forums, but I'd assume this is much less likely to attract more casual commentators. I also fear that feedback from a gamer's perspective would often be tainted by their game dev perspective. For example, if I were making a RTS game and wanted to get feedback from "The RTS gamers" where would I go? Is there a general idea of what type of website or forum to go to? Do you go to specific game websites, to try to "steal" attention? Would this not equate to spam or inappropriate posting? What is considered appropriate and inappropriate? I am not asking for specifics. I am asking how one "starts a community", or how one "gets feedback from gamers" without resorting to spamming forums or 'advertising' just to see what sticks. What TYPE OF PLACE does one go? Are there already sites designed for this purpose? I tried going to what was once a very popular forum for feedback from what I believed was a niche hardcore group of gamers in the genre, but its popularity seemed to have died significantly; Leaving only trolls and very young teenagers. The resulting feedback was quite disappointing, mainly for how little feedback it resulted. Many years ago, feedback would flood in by the hundreds so quickly. Without this website, I am at a loss as to where to go to see what people think of ideas, gather feedback from a gamer's perspective (not a developer's perspective), or where to pull from to start my own site's forum. I am out of ideas of what to do, short of going to various game forums to post in the off-topic sections there.

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• Is there a name for the Builder Pattern where the Builder is implemented via interfaces so certain parameters are required?

  - by Zipper

  So we implemented the builder pattern for most of our domain to help in understandability of what actually being passed to a constructor, and for the normal advantages that a builder gives. The one twist was that we exposed the builder through interfaces so we could chain required functions and unrequired functions to make sure that the correct parameters were passed. I was curious if there was an existing pattern like this. Example below: public class Foo { private int someThing; private int someThing2; private DateTime someThing3; private Foo(Builder builder) { this.someThing = builder.someThing; this.someThing2 = builder.someThing2; this.someThing3 = builder.someThing3; } public static RequiredSomething getBuilder() { return new Builder(); } public interface RequiredSomething { public RequiredDateTime withSomething (int value); } public interface RequiredDateTime { public OptionalParamters withDateTime (DateTime value); } public interface OptionalParamters { public OptionalParamters withSeomthing2 (int value); public Foo Build ();} public static class Builder implements RequiredSomething, RequiredDateTime, OptionalParamters { private int someThing; private int someThing2; private DateTime someThing3; public RequiredDateTime withSomething (int value) {someThing = value; return this;} public OptionalParamters withDateTime (int value) {someThing = value; return this;} public OptionalParamters withSeomthing2 (int value) {someThing = value; return this;} public Foo build(){return new Foo(this);} } } Example of how it's called: Foo foo = Foo.getBuilder().withSomething(1).withDateTime(DateTime.now()).build(); Foo foo2 = Foo.getBuilder().withSomething(1).withDateTime(DateTime.now()).withSomething2(3).build();

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• What is wrong with Unix/linux

  - by John Smith

  This is a genuine question motivated by Ideal Operating System When I moved from DOS to Linux in the late 90s it was an eye opener for me. Long file names, arbitrarily many extensions etc... Now I look at Linux and Unix and see all sorts of issues. Here are things I see which could be fixed. Too much depends on root, and rootly powers cannot be voluntarily delegated over several users. (I would love to give up my power to manager printers and delegate the job to another account) File permissions are very limited, and there is not much metadata to go with files. The "everything is a file" metaphor is not true, Plan 9 gets it right(er).

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• Where can I find "magic numbers" for classic game play mechanics?

  - by MrDatabase

  I'd like to find some "magic numbers" for the classic helicopter game. For example the numbers that determine how fast the helicopter accelerates up and down. Also perhaps the "randomness" of the obstacles (uniformly distributed? Gaussian?). Where can I find these numbers? p.s. I don't care about the particular platform... Flash on the desktop browser is just as good as some implementation on a mobile device.

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• Writing selenium tests, should I just get it done or get it right?

  - by Peter Smith

  I'm attempting to drive my user interface (heavy on javascript) through selenium. I've already tested the rest of my ajax interaction with selenium successfully. However, this one particular method seems to be eluding me because I can't seem to fake the correct click event. I could solve this problem by simply waiting in the test for the user to click a point and then continuing with the test but this seems like a cop out. But I'm really running out of time on my deadline to have this done and working. Should I just get this done and move on or should I spend the extra (unknown) amount of time to fix this problem and be able to have my selenium tests 100% automated?

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• Game ideas for a platformer

  - by user5925

  I have created a platformer which currently has the features listed below. I would greatly appreciate any further ideas which I could implement! (I don't play a lot of games which is why I require help) -- Walking/jumping/movement -- player can shoot lasers -- enemies also walk, fly, and shoot lasers -- water (you can swim in this) -- mud (slows you down on contact, and stops you from jumping) -- ladders -- damage when falling from a large height, unless falling into water -- moving platforms -- springboards (jumping on them shoot you into the air) -- growing platforms (allow you to reach new places) -- key and door system -- gem and coin collection system

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• What makes games responsive to user input?

  - by zaftcoAgeiha

  Many games have been praised for its responsive gameplay, where each user action input correspond to a quick and precise character movement (eg: super meat boy, shank...) What makes those games responsive? and what prevents other games from achieving the same? How much of it is due to the game framework used to queue mouse/keyboard events and render/update the game and how much is attributed to better coding?

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• Changelog Management

  - by Gnial0id

  I'm currently developing a WinForm application. In order to inform the client about the improvements and corrections made during the last version, I would like to manage and display a changelog. I mostly found existing changelog on website (the term changelog is pretty used) or explanation on how to manage the release numbers, which I don't care. So, these are my questions: How do I manage a changelog (using XML, pure text in the app, etc.) in a desktop application? How do I present it to the user (external website, inside the winform application)?

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• Inheritance vs composition in this example

  - by Gerenuk

  I'm wondering about the differences between inheritance and composition examined with concrete code relevant arguments. In particular my example was Inheritance: class Do: def do(self): self.doA() self.doB() def doA(self): pass def doB(self): pass class MyDo(Do): def doA(self): print("A") def doB(self): print("B") x=MyDo() vs Composition: class Do: def __init__(self, a, b): self.a=a self.b=b def do(self): self.a.do() self.b.do() x=Do(DoA(), DoB()) (Note for composition I'm missing code so it's not actually shorter) Can you name particular advantages of one or the other? I'm think of: composition is useful if you plan to reuse DoA() in another context inheritance seems easier; no additional references/variables/initialization method doA can access internal variable (be it a good or bad thing :) ) inheritance groups logic A and B together; even though you could equally introduce a grouped delegate object inheritance provides a preset class for the users; with composition you'd have to encapsule the initialization in a factory so that the user does have to assemble the logic and the skeleton ... Basically I'd like to examine the implications of inheritance vs composition. I heard often composition is prefered, but I'd like to understand that by example. Of course I can always start with one and refactor later to the other.

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• Pattern for performing game actions

  - by Arkiliknam

  Is there a generally accepted pattern for performing various actions within a game? A way a player can perform actions and also that an AI might perform actions, such as move, attack, self-destruct, etc. I currently have an abstract BaseAction which uses .NET generics to specify the different objects that get returned by the various actions. This is all implemented in a pattern similar to the Command, where each action is responsible for itself and does all that it needs. My reasoning for being abstract is so that I may have a single ActionHandler, and AI can just queue up different action implementing the baseAction. And the reason it is generic is so that the different actions can return result information relevant to the action (as different actions can have totally different outcomes in the game), along with some common beforeAction and afterAction implementations. So... is there a more accepted way of doing this, or does this sound alright?

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• Explicitly pass context object versus injecting with IoC

  - by SonOfPirate

  I have a layered service application where the service layer delegates operations into the domain layer for execution. Many of these operations need to know the context under which they are operation. (The context included the identity of the current user, culture information, etc. received from the caller.) For example, I have an API method that returns a list of announcements. The list is based on the current user's role and each announcement is localized to their culture. The API is a thin-facade that delegates to an Application Service in my domain layer. The Application Service method obviously needs to know the context of the current request/operation as another call to the same API from another user should result in a different list. Within this method, we also have logging that uses some of the context information so we a clear understanding of the context when the operation was performed (this is especially useful if something goes wrong.) While this is a contrived example, in the real world, my Application Services will coordinate operations with many collaborative components, any number of them also needing the context information. My choice is to pass the context to the Application Service which would then pass it with any calls to collaborators or have the IoC container satisfy the dependency the Application Service and any collaborators have on the context. I am wondering if it is considered good/bad, best practices/code smell, etc. if I pass the context object as a parameter to the domain methods or if injecting the context via an IoC container is preferred. (EDIT: I should mention that the context object is instantiated per-request.)

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• Speaking this week at Richmond SQL Server User Group

  - by drsql

  Thursday night, at 6:00 (or so) I will be speaking in Richmond ( http://richmondsql.org/cs2007/ ), talking about How to Implement a Hierarchy using SQL Server. The abstract is: One of the most common structures you will come across in the real world is a hierarchy (either a single parent "tree" or a multi-parent "graph"). Many systems will implement the obvious examples, such as a corporate managerial structure or a bill of materials. It turns out that almost any many-to-many relationship can be...(read more)

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• What is the difference between all-static-methods and applying a singleton pattern?

  - by shahensha

  I am making a database to store information about the users of my website (I am using stuts2 and hence Java EE technology). For the database I'll be making a DBManager. Should I apply singleton pattern here or rather make all it's methods static? I will be using this DBManager for basic things like adding, deleting and updating User profiles. Along with it, I'll use for all other querying purposes, for instance to find out whether a username already exists and to get all users for administrative purposes and stuff like that. My questions What is the benefit of singleton pattern? Which thing is most apt here? All static methods or a singleton pattern? Please compare both of them. regards shahensha P.S. The database is bigger than this. Here I am talking only about the tables which I'll be using for storing User Information.

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• Drawing large 2D sidescroller level terrain

  - by Yar

  I'm a relatively good programmer but now that it comes to add some basic levels to my 2D game I'm kinda stuck. What I want to do: An acceptable, large (8000 * 1000 pixels) "green hills" test level for my game. What is the best way for me to do this? It doesn't have to look great, it just shouldn't look like it was made in MS paint with the line and paint bucket tool. Basically it should just mud with grass on top of it, shaped in some form of hills. But how should I draw it, I can't just take out the pencil tool and start drawing it pixel per pixel, can I?

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• Is it bad practice to make an iterator that is aware of its own end

  - by aaronman

  For some background of why I am asking this question here is an example. In python the method chain chains an arbitrary number of ranges together and makes them into one without making copies. Here is a link in case you don't understand it. I decided I would implement chain in c++ using variadic templates. As far as I can tell the only way to make an iterator for chain that will successfully go to the next container is for each iterator to to know about the end of the container (I thought of a sort of hack in where when != is called against the end it will know to go to the next container, but the first way seemed easier and safer and more versatile). My question is if there is anything inherently wrong with an iterator knowing about its own end, my code is in c++ but this can be language agnostic since many languages have iterators. #ifndef CHAIN_HPP #define CHAIN_HPP #include "iterator_range.hpp" namespace iter { template <typename ... Containers> struct chain_iter; template <typename Container> struct chain_iter<Container> { private: using Iterator = decltype(((Container*)nullptr)->begin()); Iterator begin; const Iterator end;//never really used but kept it for consistency public: chain_iter(Container & container, bool is_end=false) : begin(container.begin()),end(container.end()) { if(is_end) begin = container.end(); } chain_iter & operator++() { ++begin; return *this; } auto operator*()->decltype(*begin) { return *begin; } bool operator!=(const chain_iter & rhs) const{ return this->begin != rhs.begin; } }; template <typename Container, typename ... Containers> struct chain_iter<Container,Containers...> { private: using Iterator = decltype(((Container*)nullptr)->begin()); Iterator begin; const Iterator end; bool end_reached = false; chain_iter<Containers...> next_iter; public: chain_iter(Container & container, Containers& ... rest, bool is_end=false) : begin(container.begin()), end(container.end()), next_iter(rest...,is_end) { if(is_end) begin = container.end(); } chain_iter & operator++() { if (begin == end) { ++next_iter; } else { ++begin; } return *this; } auto operator*()->decltype(*begin) { if (begin == end) { return *next_iter; } else { return *begin; } } bool operator !=(const chain_iter & rhs) const { if (begin == end) { return this->next_iter != rhs.next_iter; } else return this->begin != rhs.begin; } }; template <typename ... Containers> iterator_range<chain_iter<Containers...>> chain(Containers& ... containers) { auto begin = chain_iter<Containers...>(containers...); auto end = chain_iter<Containers...>(containers...,true); return iterator_range<chain_iter<Containers...>>(begin,end); } } #endif //CHAIN_HPP

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• How do we know to favour composition over generalisation is always the right choice?

  - by Carnotaurus

  Whether an object physically exists or not, we can choose to model it in different ways. We could arbitarily use generalisation or composition in many cases. However, the GoF principle of "favour composition over generalisation [sic]" guides us to use composition. So, when we model, for example, a line then we create a class that contains two members PointA and PointB of the type Point (composition) instead of extending Point (generalisation). This is just a simplified example of how we can arbitarily choose composition or inheritance to model, despite that objects are usually much more complex. How do we know that this is the right choice? It matters at least because there could be a ton of refactoring to do if it is wrong?

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• Updating an Entity through a Service

  - by GeorgeK

  I'm separating my software into three main layers (maybe tiers would be a better term): Presentation ('Views') Business logic ('Services' and 'Repositories') Data access ('Entities' (e.g. ActiveRecords)) What do I have now? In Presentation, I use read-only access to Entities, returned from Repositories or Services, to display data. $banks = $banksRegistryService->getBanksRepository()->getBanksByCity( $city ); $banksViewModel = new PaginatedList( $banks ); // some way to display banks; // example, not real code I find this approach quite efficient in terms of performance and code maintanability and still safe as long as all write operations (create, update, delete) are preformed through a Service: namespace Service\BankRegistry; use Service\AbstractDatabaseService; use Service\IBankRegistryService; use Model\BankRegistry\Bank; class Service extends AbstractDatabaseService implements IBankRegistryService { /** * Registers a new Bank * * @param string $name Bank's name * @param string $bik Bank's Identification Code * @param string $correspondent_account Bank's correspondent account * * @return Bank */ public function registerBank( $name, $bik, $correspondent_account ) { $bank = new Bank(); $bank -> setName( $name ) -> setBik( $bik ) -> setCorrespondentAccount( $correspondent_account ); if( null === $this->getBanksRepository()->getDefaultBank() ) $this->setDefaultBank( $bank ); $this->getEntityManager()->persist( $bank ); return $bank; } /** * Makes the $bank system's default bank * * @param Bank $bank * @return IBankRegistryService */ public function setDefaultBank( Bank $bank ) { $default_bank = $this->getBanksRepository()->getDefaultBank(); if( null !== $default_bank ) $default_bank->setDefault( false ); $bank->setDefault( true ); return $this; } } Where am I stuck? I'm struggling about how to update certain fields in Bank Entity. Bad solution #1: Making a series of setters in Service for each setter in Bank; - seems to be quite reduntant, increases Service interface complexity and proportionally decreases it's simplicity - something to avoid if you care about code maitainability. I try to follow KISS and DRY principles. Bad solution #2: Modifying Bank directly through it's native setters; - really bad. If you'll ever need to move modification into the Service, it will be pain. Business logic should remain in Business logic layer. Plus, there are plans on logging all of the actions and maybe even involve user permissions (perhaps, through decorators) in future, so all modifications should be made only through the Service. Possible good solution: Creating an updateBank( Bank $bank, $array_of_fields_to_update) method; - makes the interface as simple as possible, but there is a problem: one should not try to manually set isDefault flag on a Bank, this operation should be performed through setDefaultBank method. It gets even worse when you have relations that you don't want to be directly modified. Of course, you can just limit the fields that can be modified by this method, but how do you tell method's user what they can and cannot modify? Exceptions?

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• Victory rewards in digital CCG

  - by Nils Munch

  I am currently polishing a digital CCG where people can play against friend and random opponents in a classical Magic the Gathering-like duel CCG. I plan to award the players with 20 ingame currency units (lets call them gold) for each hour they are playing, 50 for each day they are playing and X for each victory. Now, the X is what I am trying to calculate here, since I would prefer keeping the currency to a certain value, but also with to entice the players to battle. I could go with a solid figure, say 25, for beating up an opponent. But that would result in experienced players only beating up newly started players, making the experience lame for both. I could also make a laddered tier, where you start at level 1, and raise in level as you defeat your opponents, where winning over a player awards you his level x 2 in gold. Which would you prefer if you were playing a game like this. There is no gold-based scoreboard, but the gold is used to purchase new cards along the way.

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• Code Smell: Inheritance Abuse

  - by dsimcha

  It's been generally accepted in the OO community that one should "favor composition over inheritance". On the other hand, inheritance does provide both polymorphism and a straightforward, terse way of delegating everything to a base class unless explicitly overridden and is therefore extremely convenient and useful. Delegation can often (though not always) be verbose and brittle. The most obvious and IMHO surest sign of inheritance abuse is violation of the Liskov Substitution Principle. What are some other signs that inheritance is The Wrong Tool for the Job even if it seems convenient?

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• What is the best wrapping strategy ?

  - by Riduidel

  Hi, I'm planning to integrate an external tool (ffmpeg in my particular case, but it could be anything, in fact, as lolng as its tasks are long running ones). This tool has a lot of command-line parameters. For now, I've done to simple things with it, already requiring me a good bunch of class writing, to embed all the information it can return to me. I now face the even more complex task of having to send it a bunch of parameters and to handle possible errors. So, what is a best way for that ? Create classes containing all possible options Relying upon a reverse equivalent of commons-cli / CliBuilder / OptionParser Directly write all options from user input Obiwan Kenobi powers (or anything I don't even know about) Please notice I do it in an uncommon language (for the sake of me, don't ask me what it is, as it looks like a desperate and sterile union between CoffeeScript and lua), as a consequence, there can be no framework doing what I want in the language I use.

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• Algorithmic Forecasting and Pattern Recognition

  - by Ryan King

  Say a user could enter project data into my software. Each project has 2 variables "size" and "work" and they're related but the relationship is not known. Is there a way to programmatically determine the relationship between the variables based on previous data and forecast the amount of work provided if only given the size of the project in the future? For Example, say the user had manually entered the following projects. Project 1 - Size:1, Work: 4 Project 2 - Size:2, Work: 7 Project 3 - Size:3, Work: 10 Project 4 - Size:4, Work: x What should I look into to be able to programmatically determine, that Work = Size*3+1 and therefor be able to say that x=13?

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• Techniques for separating game model from presentation

  - by liortal

  I am creating a simple 2D game using XNA. The elements that make up the game world are what i refer to as the "model". For instance, in a board game, i would have a GameBoard class that stores information about the board. This information could be things such as: Location Size Details about cells on the board (occupied/not occupied) etc This object should either know how to draw itself, or describe how to draw itself to some other entity (renderer) in order to be displayed. I believe that since the board only contains the data+logic for things regarding it or cells on it, it should not provide the logic of how to draw things (separation of concerns). How can i achieve a good partitioning and easily allow some other entity to draw it properly? My motivations for doing so are: Allow multiple "implementations" of presentation for a single game entity Easier porting to other environments where the presentation code is not available (for example - porting my code to Unity or other game technology that does not rely on XNA).

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• Should I use an interface when methods are only similar?

  - by Joshua Harris

  I was posed with the idea of creating an object that checks if a point will collide with a line: public class PointAndLineSegmentCollisionDetector { public void Collides(Point p, LineSegment s) { // ... } } This made me think that if I decided to create a Box object, then I would need a PointAndBoxCollisionDetector and a LineSegmentAndBoxCollisionDetector. I might even realize that I should have a BoxAndBoxCollisionDetector and a LineSegmentAndLineSegmentCollisionDetector. And, when I add new objects that can collide I would need to add even more of these. But, they all have a Collides method, so everything I learned about abstraction is telling me, "Make an interface." public interface CollisionDetector { public void Collides(Spatial s1, Spatial s2); } But now I have a function that only detects some abstract class or interface that is used by Point, LineSegment, Box, etc.. So if I did this then each implementation would have to to a type check to make sure that the types are the appropriate type because the collision algorithm is different for each different type match up. Another solution could be this: public class CollisionDetector { public void Collides(Point p, LineSegment s) { ... } public void Collides(LineSegment s, Box b) { ... } public void Collides(Point p, Box b) { ... } // ... } But, this could end up being a huge class that seems unwieldy, although it would have simplicity in that it is only a bunch of Collide methods. This is similar to C#'s Convert class. Which is nice because it is large, but it is simple to understand how it works. This seems to be the better solution, but I thought I should open it for discussion as a wiki to get other opinions.

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• Methods of ordering function definitions in code

  - by xralf

  When I work on some programming project (usually command line application in Python with many switches), I'm usually creating about 30 and more functions. Most of the functions are in one file (except some helpers that I utilize in more projects). Some of the functions are called on particular switch (like -p or --print) but many functions do some helper computations, print operations or database operations because I don't want to main functions be too large. When I have an idea for a new functionality I often put new functions randomly to the file. Should I think more about it and place it to some particular place? Are there some methods for this?

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• Keep user and user profile in different tables?

  - by Andrey

  I have seen in a couple of projects that developers prefer to keep essential user info in one table (email/login, password hash, screen name) and rest of the non essential user profile in another (creation date, country, etc). By non-essential I mean that this data is needed only occasionally. Obvious benefit is that if you are using ORM querying less fields is obviously good. But then you can have two entities mapped to same table and this will save you from querying stuff you don't need (while being more convenient). Does anybody know any other advantage of keeping these things in two tables?

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