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• Day 2 - Game Design Documentation

  - by dapostolov

  So yesterday I didn't cut any code for my game but I was able to do a tiny bit of research on the XNA Game Development Technology and the communities out there and do you know what? I feel I'm a bit closer to my goal. The bad news is today I didn't cut code either. However, not all is lost because I wanted to get my ideas on paper and today I just did that.  Today, I began to jot down notes about the game and how I felt the visual elements would interact with each other. Unlike my workplace, my personal level of documentation is nothing more than a task list or a mind map of my ideas; it helps me streamline my solutions quiet effectively and circumvent the long process of articulating each thought to the n-th degree. I truly dislike documentation (because I have an extremely hard time articulating my thought and solutions); however, because I tend to do a really good job with documentation I tend to get stuck writing the buggers. But as a generalist remark: 'No Developer likes documentation.' For now let's stick with my basic notes and call this post a living document. Here are my notes, fresh, from after watching the new first episode of Merlin second season! Actually, a quick recommendation to anyone who is reading this (if anyone is): I truly recommend you envelope yourself in the medium or task you're trying to tackle. Be one with moment and feel it! For instance: Are you writing a fantasy script / game? What would the music of the genre sound like? For me the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack by Basil Poledouris is frackin awesome. There are many other good CD's out there, which I listen to (some who even use medival instruments, but Conan I keep returning to. It's a creative trigger for me. Ask yourself what would the imagery look like? Time to surf google for artist renditions of fantasy! What would the game feel like? Start playing some of your favorite games that inspire you, be wary though, have some self control and don't let it absorb your time. Anyhow, onto the documentation... Screens, Scenes, and Sprites. Oh My! (groan...) The first thing that came to mind were the screens, I thought the following would suffice: Menu Screen Character Customisation Screen Loading Screen? Battle Ground The Menu Screen Ok. So, the thought here is when the game loads a huge title is displayed: Wizard Wars. The player is prompted with 3 menu items: 1 Player Game, 2 Player Game, and Exit. Since I'm targetting the PC platform, as a non-networked game to start, I picture myself running my mouse over each menu option and the visual element of the menu item changes, along with a sound to indicate that I am over a curent menu item. And as I move my mouse away, it changes back, and possibly an exit mouse sound. Maybe on the screen somewhere is a brazier alit with a magical tome open right beside it, OR, maybe the tome is the menu! I hear the menu music as mellow, not obtrusive or piercing. On a menu item select, a confirmation sound bellows to indicate the players selection. The Esc key will always return me to the previous screens or desktop. The menu screen must feel...dark, like a really important ritual is about to happen and thus the music should build up. 1 Player Game - > Customize Character(s) 2 Player Game - > Customize Character(s) Exit - > Back to Windows Notes: So the first thing I pick up here are a couple things: First and foremost, my artistic abilities suck crap, so I may have to hire an artist (now that i've said that, lets get techy) graphical objects will be positioned within a scene on each screen / window. Menu items will be represented grapically, possibly animated, and have sound / animation effects triggered by user input or a time line. I have an animated scene involving a brazier or fire on a stick IF I was to move this game to the xbox, I'd have to track which menu item is currently selected (unless I do a mouse pointer type thing.) WindowObject has a scene A Scene has many GameObjects GameObject has a position graphic or animation MenuObject is a GameObject which has a mouse in, mouse out, and click event which either does something graphically (animation), does something with sound, or moves to another screen.  Character Customisation Screen With either the 1 or 2 player option selected, both selections will come to this screen; a wizard requires a name, powers, and vestements of course! Player one will configure his character first and then player two. I considered a split screen for PC but to have two people fighting over a keyboard would probably suck. For XBox, a split screen could work; maybe when I get into the networking portion (phase 2 blog?) of this game I will remove the 2 player option for PC and provide only multiplayer and I will leave 2 player for xbox...hmm... Anyhow...I picture the creation process as follows: Name: (textbox / keyboard entry) - for xbox, this would have to be different. Robe Color: (color box, or something) Stats: Speed, Oomph, and Health. (as sliders) 1 as minimum and 10 as maximum. Ok, Back, and Cancel buttons / options. Each stat has a benefit which are listed below. The idea is the player decides if he wants his wizard to run fast, be a tank and ... hit with a purse.Regardless, the player will have a pool of 12 points to use. Ideally, A balanced wizard will have 5 in each attribute. Spells? The only spell of choice is a ball of fire which comes without question. The music and screen should still feel like a ritual. The Character Speed Basically, how fast your character moves and casts. Oomph (Best Monster Truck Voice): PURE POWAH!!! The damage output of your fireball. Health How much damage you can take. Notes: I realise the game dynamics may sound uninteresting at the moment; but I think after a couple releases, we could have some other grand ideas such as: saved profiles, gold to upgrade arsenal of spells, talents, etc...but for now...a vanilla fireball thrower mage will suffice for this experiment. OK. So... a MenuObject  may need to be loosely coupled to allow future items such as networking? may be a button? a CharacterObject has a name speed oomph health and a funky robe color. cap on the three stats (1-10) an arsenal of 1 spell (possibly could expand this) The Loading Screen As is. The Battleground Screen For now, I'm keeping the screen as max resolution for the PC. The screen isn't going to move or even be a split screen. I'm not aiming high here because I want to see what level of change is involved when new features / concepts are added to game content. I'm interested to find out if we could apply techniques such as MVC or MVVM to this type of development or is it too tightly coupled? This reminds me when when my best friend and I were brainstorming our game idea (this is going back a while...1994, 6?) and he cringed at the thought of bringing business technology into games, especially when I suggested a database to store character information and COM / DCOM as the medium, but it seems I wasn't far off (reflecting); just like his implementation of a xml "config file" for dynamic direct-x menus back before .net in 1999...anyhow...i digress... The Battle One screen, two characters lobing balls of fire at each other...It doesn't get better than that. Every so often a scroll appears...and the fireballs bounce off walls, or the wizard has rapid fire, or even scrolls of healing! The scroll options are endless. Two bars at the top, each the color of the wizard (with their name beside the bar) indicate how much health they have. Possibly the appearance of the scrolls means the battle is taking too long? I'm thinking 1 player controls: up, down, left, right and space to fire the button. Or even possibly, mouse click and shift - mouse button to fire a spell in the direction they are facing. Two player controls: a, s, d, f and space AND arrows (up, down, left, right) and Del key or Crtl. The game ends when a player has 0 health and a dialog box appears asking for a rematch / reconfigure / exit. Health goes down when a fireball (friendly or not), connects with a wizard. When a wizard connects with a scroll, a countdown clock / icon appears near the health bar and the wizard begins to glow. For the most part, a wizard can have only scroll 1 effect on him at a time. Notes: Ok, there's alot to cover here. a CharacterObject is a GameObject it travels at a set velocity it travels in a direction it has sounds (walking, running, casting, impact, dying, laughing, whistling, other?) it has animations (walking, running, casting, impact, dying, laughing, idle, other?) it has a lifespan (determined by health) it is alive or dead it has a position a ScrollObject is a GameObject it carries a transferance of points "damage" (or healing, bad scroll effect?) (determinde by caster) it carries a transferance of "other" it is stationary it has a sound on impact it has a stationary animation it has an impact animation / or transfers an impact animation it has a fade animation? it has a lifespan (determined by game) it is alive or dead it has a position a WallObject is a GameObject it has a sound on fireball impact? it is a still image / stationary it has an impact animation / or transfers an impact animation it is dead it has a position A FireBall is a GameObject it carries a transferance of poinst "damage" (or healing, bad scroll effect?) (determinde by caster) it travels at a set velocity it travels in a direction it has a sound it has a travel animation it has an impact animation / or transfers an impact animation it has a fade animation? it has a lifespan (determined by caster) it is alive or dead it has a position As I look at this, I can see some common attributes in each object that I can carry up to the GameObject. I think I'm going to end the documentation here, it's taken me a bit of time to type this all out, tomorrow. I'll load up my IDE and my paint studio to get some good old fashioned cowboy hacking going!   D.

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• Sign of a Good Game

  - by Matt Christian

  (Warning: This post contains spoilers about SILENT HILL 2.  If you haven't played this game, you are dumb) What is one sign of a great game? One of the signs I realized recently is when a game continues to stun and surprise you years and years after you've played and beaten it.  As a major Silent Hill fan, I recently was reminded of Silent Hill 2 and even though see it as one of my favorite Silent Hill games, there are still things I'm learning about it that are neat little additions that add to the atmosphere (atmosphere also makes a great game!). For instance, when you start the game you are given a letter by your wife who has been deceased for years and years.  You are directed to Silent Hill and start treking through hell all by your lonesome (with the exception of a few psychos).  As you continue through the game, pieces of the letter begin to fade and disappear until eventually it is completely non-existent, thus implying the letter was never real and the letter was a delusion you created. Another example is the game's use of imagery the player knows about but might not notice at first.  For me, the most apparent of these was the dress you find near the start when you find the flashlight, which is the same dress you see Mary (your wife) wearing in the flashback sequences.  However, one thing I didn't know was that several deceased bodies you encounter laying around Silent Hill are actually the body of the main character (James) which invokes an idea you've seen that body before but can't pinpoint where... It's amazing to see a game go to such unique lengths to provide a psychological horror game.  Sure, all the dead bodies could be randomly modelled and the dress could be any ol' dress, but just the idea of your brain knowing something deep down but you can't pinpoint it is a really unique idea.  In my opinion, it ties less into subconscious and more into natural tendencies, it taps into the fear hidden inside us all.

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• Day 6 - Game Menuing Woes and Future Screen Sneak Peeks

  - by dapostolov

  So, after my last post on Day 5 I dabbled with my game class design. I took the approach where each game objects is tightly coupled with a graphic. The good news is I got the menu working but not without some hard knocks and game growing pains. I'll explain later, but for now...here is a class diagram of my first stab at my class structure and some code...   Ok, there are few mistakes, however, I'm going to leave it as is for now... As you can see I created an inital abstract base class called GameSprite. This class when inherited will provide a simple virtual default draw method:        public virtual void DrawSprite(SpriteBatch spriteBatch)         {             spriteBatch.Draw(Sprite, Position, Color.White);         } The benefits of coding it this way allows me to inherit the class and utilise the method in the screen draw method...So regardless of what the graphic object type is it will now have the ability to render a static image on the screen. Example: public class MyStaticTreasureChest : GameSprite {} If you remember the window draw method from Day 3's post, we could use the above code as follows...         protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime)         {             GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue);             spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteBlendMode.AlphaBlend);             foreach(var gameSprite in ListOfGameObjects)            {                 gameSprite.DrawSprite(spriteBatch);            }             spriteBatch.End();             base.Draw(gameTime);         } I have to admit the GameSprite object is pretty plain as with its DrawSprite method... But ... we now have the ability to render 3 static menu items on the screen ... BORING! I want those menu items to do something exciting, which of course involves animation... So, let's have a peek at AnimatedGameSprite in the above game diagram. The idea with the AnimatedGameSprite is that it has an image to animate...such as ... characters, fireballs, and... menus! So after inheriting from GameSprite class, I added a few more options such as UpdateSprite...         public virtual void UpdateSprite(float elapsed)         {             _totalElapsed += elapsed;             if (_totalElapsed > _timePerFrame)             {                 _frame++;                 _frame = _frame % _framecount;                 _totalElapsed -= _timePerFrame;             }         }  And an overidden DrawSprite...         public override void DrawSprite(SpriteBatch spriteBatch)         {             int FrameWidth = Sprite.Width / _framecount;             Rectangle sourcerect = new Rectangle(FrameWidth * _frame, 0, FrameWidth, Sprite.Height);             spriteBatch.Draw(Sprite, Position, sourcerect, Color.White, _rotation, _origin, _scale, SpriteEffects.None, _depth);         } With these two methods...I can animate and image, all I had to do was add a few more lines to the screens Update Method (From Day 3), like such:             float elapsed = (float) gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds;             foreach (var item in ListOfAnimatedGameObjects)             {                 item.UpdateSprite(elapsed);             } And voila! My images begin to animate in one spot, on the screen... Hmm, but how do I interact with the menu items using a mouse...well the mouse cursor was easy enough... this.IsMouseVisible = true; But, to have it "interact" with an image was a bit more tricky...I had to perform collision detection!             mouseStateCurrent = Mouse.GetState();             var uiEnabledSprites = (from s in menuItems                                    where s.IsEnabled                                    select s).ToList();             foreach (var item in uiEnabledSprites)             {                 var r = new Rectangle((int)item.Position.X, (int)item.Position.Y, item.Sprite.Width, item.Sprite.Height);                 item.MenuState = MenuState.Normal;                 if (r.Intersects(new Rectangle(mouseStateCurrent.X, mouseStateCurrent.Y, 0, 0)))                 {                     item.MenuState = MenuState.Hover;                     if (mouseStatePrevious.LeftButton == ButtonState.Pressed                         && mouseStateCurrent.LeftButton == ButtonState.Released)                     {                         item.MenuState = MenuState.Pressed;                     }                 }             }             mouseStatePrevious = mouseStateCurrent; So, basically, what it is doing above is iterating through all my interactive objects and detecting a rectangle collision and the object , plays the state animation (or static image).  Lessons Learned, Time Burned... So, I think I did well to start, but after I hammered out my prototype...well...things got sloppy and I began to realise some design flaws... At the time: I couldn't seem to figure out how to open another window, such as the character creation screen Input was not event based and it was bugging me My menu design relied heavily on mouse input and I couldn't use keyboard. Mouse input, is tightly bound with graphic rendering / positioning, so its logic will have to be in each scene. Menu animations would stop mid frame, then continue when the action occured again. This is bad, because...what if I had a sword sliding onthe screen? Then it would slide a quarter of the way, then stop due to another action, then render again mid-slide... it just looked sloppy. Menu, Solved!? To solve the above problems I did a little research and I found some great code in the XNA forums. The one worth mentioning was the GameStateManagementSample. With this sample, you can create a basic "text based" menu system which allows you to swap screens, popup screens, play the game, and quit....basic game state management... In my next post I'm going to dwelve a bit more into this code and adapt it with my code from this prototype. Text based menus just won't cut it for me, for now...however, I'm still going to stick with my animated menu item idea. A sneak peek using the Game State Management Sample...with no changes made... Cool Things to Mention: At work ... I tend to break out in random conversations every-so-often and I get talking about some of my challenges with this game (or some stupid observation about something... stupid) During one conversation I was discussing how I should animate my images; I explained that I knew I had to use the Update method provided, but I didn't know how (at the time) to render an image at an appropriate "pace" and how many frames to use, etc.. I also got thinking that if a machine rendered my images faster / slower, that was surely going to f-up my animations. To which a friend, Sheldon,  answered, surely the Draw method is like a camera taking a snapshot of a scene in time. Then it clicked...I understood the big picture of the game engine... After some research I discovered that the Draw method attempts to keep a framerate of 60 fps. From what I understand, the game engine will even leave out a few calls to the draw method if it begins to slow down. This is why we want to put our sprite updates in the update method. Then using a game timer (provided by the engine), we want to render the scene based on real time passed, not framerate. So even the engine renders at 20 fps, the animations will still animate at the same real time speed! Which brings up another point. Why 60 fps? I'm speculating that Microsoft capped it because LCD's dont' refresh faster than 60 fps? On another note, If the game engine knows its falling behind in rendering...then surely we can harness this to speed up our games. Maybe I can find some flag which tell me if the game is lagging, and what the current framerate is, etc...(instead of coding it like I did last time) Sheldon, suggested maybe I can render like WoW does, in prioritised layers...I think he's onto something, however I don't think I'll have that many graphics to worry about such a problem of graphic latency. We'll see. People to Mention: Well,as you are aware I hadn't posted in a couple days and I was surprised to see a few emails and messenger queries about my game progress (and some concern as to why I stopped). I want to thank everyone for their kind words of support and put everyone at ease by stating that I do intend on completing this project. Granted I only have a few hours each night, but, I'll do it. Thank you to Garth for mailing in my next screen! That was a nice surprise! The Sneek Peek you've been waiting for... Garth has also volunteered to render me some wizard images. He was a bit shocked when I asked for them in 2D animated strips. He said I was going backward (and that I have really bad Game Development Lingo). But, I advised Garth that I will use 3D images later...for now...2D images. Garth also had some great game design ideas to add on. I advised him that I will save his ideas and include them in the future design document (for the 3d version?). Lastly, my best friend Alek, is going to join me in developing this game. This was a project we started eons ago but never completed because of our careers. Now, priorities change and we have some spare time on our hands. Let's see what trouble Alek and I can get into! Tonight I'll be uploading my prototypes and base game to a source control for both of us to work off of. D.

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• Transition from 2D to 3D later in game development

  - by Axarydax

  Hi, I'd like to work on a game, but for rapidly prototyping it, I'd like to keep it as simple as possible, so I'd do everything in top-down 2D in GDI+ and WinForms (hey, I like them!), so I can concentrate on the logic and architecture of the game itself. I thinking about having the whole game logic (server) in one assembly, where the WinForms app would be a client to that game, and if/when the time is right, I'd write a 3D client. I am tempted to use XNA, but I haven't really looked into it, so I don't know if it won't take too much time getting up to speed - I really don't want to spent much time doing other stuff than the game logic, at least while I have the inspiration. But I wouldn't have to abandon everything and transfer to new platform when transitioning from 2D to 3D. Another idea is just to get over it and learn XNA/Unity/SDL/something at least to that level so I can make the same 2D version as I could in GDI+, and I won't have to worry about switching frameworks anymore. Let's just say that the game is the kind where you watch a dude from behind, you run around the gameworld and interact with objects. So the bird's eye perspective could be doable for now. Thanks.

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• Distributing an Android game with plugins via the market

  - by Peter Serwylo

  I'm new to Android development, and was wondering how the following could be achieved within the confines of the Android market as a distribution channel: One main application, which handles the main menu, networking, high scores, etc. Several games which can be launched from the main menu, which all work within the same eco system. The main application is not just a pseudo launcher for other games, these different games will share high scores and other achievements/preferences. In a traditional package management system such as apt, pacman or yum, this could be handled quite happily through dependencies. This does not appear to be possible via the Android market. The closest I've seen is when apps scan to check if the required app is installed, and if not, launches the market and asks the user to download the app. This sounds like a very messy solution. It also begs the question, would they download the game (plugin) first, which then downloads the main shell application? Or would they download the main shell application, and when they navigate to a menu item which says "Play game", then it scans for any installed games, and if none exist, redirects to the market? Also, I'm not even sure if it is possible to dig up the package from another application on the device, and start invoking classes from within (e.g. when you want to launch the game (plugin)) A final option is just to have a 3rd component which is a .jar that each game includes, which effectively contains the entire shell application. Then each game would appear to have the same menu, but it would become a nightmare as soon as you want to update the menu component and have to re-release each game. It would be especially worse if other people released games (plugins) based on the same framework and didn't update them. Is there any other options which I haven't thought of? Has anyone else solved this or seen a solution in any apps they've installed (doesn't have to be games)? cheers.

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• Snake Game Help

  - by MuhammadA

  I am making a snake game and learning XNA at the same time. I have 3 classes : Game.cs, Snake.cs and Apple.cs My problem is more of a conceptual problem, I want to know which class is really responsible for ... detecting collision of snake head on apple/itself/wall? which class should increase the snakes speed, size? It seems to me that however much I try and put the snake stuff into snake.cs that game.cs has to know a lot about the snake, like : -- I want to increase the score depending on size of snake, the score variable is inside game.cs, which means now I have to ask the snake its size on every hit of the apple... seems a bit unclean all this highly coupled code. or -- I DO NOT want to place the apple under the snake... now the apple suddenly has to know about all the snake parts, my head hurts when I think of that. Maybe there should be some sort of AppleLayer.cs class that should know about the snake... Whats the best approach in such a simple scenario? Any tips welcome. Game.cs : using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Design; namespace Snakez { public enum CurrentGameState { Playing, Paused, NotPlaying } public class Game1 : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game { private GraphicsDeviceManager _graphics; private SpriteBatch _spriteBatch; private readonly Color _niceGreenColour = new Color(167, 255, 124); private KeyboardState _oldKeyboardState; private SpriteFont _scoreFont; private SoundEffect _biteSound, _crashSound; private Vector2 _scoreLocation = new Vector2(10, 10); private Apple _apple; private Snake _snake; private int _score = 0; private int _speed = 1; public Game1() { _graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); Content.RootDirectory = "Content"; } /// <summary> /// Allows the game to perform any initialization it needs to before starting to run. /// This is where it can query for any required services and load any non-graphic /// related content. Calling base.Initialize will enumerate through any components /// and initialize them as well. /// </summary> protected override void Initialize() { base.Initialize(); } /// <summary> /// LoadContent will be called once per game and is the place to load /// all of your content. /// </summary> protected override void LoadContent() { _spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); _scoreFont = Content.Load<SpriteFont>("Score"); _apple = new Apple(800, 480, Content.Load<Texture2D>("Apple")); _snake = new Snake(Content.Load<Texture2D>("BodyBlock")); _biteSound = Content.Load<SoundEffect>("Bite"); _crashSound = Content.Load<SoundEffect>("Crash"); } /// <summary> /// UnloadContent will be called once per game and is the place to unload /// all content. /// </summary> protected override void UnloadContent() { Content.Unload(); } /// <summary> /// Allows the game to run logic such as updating the world, /// checking for collisions, gathering input, and playing audio. /// </summary> /// <param name="gameTime">Provides a snapshot of timing values.</param> protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { KeyboardState newKeyboardState = Keyboard.GetState(); if (newKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Escape)) { this.Exit(); // Allows the game to exit } else if (newKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Up) && !_oldKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Up)) { _snake.SetDirection(Direction.Up); } else if (newKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Down) && !_oldKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Down)) { _snake.SetDirection(Direction.Down); } else if (newKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Left) && !_oldKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Left)) { _snake.SetDirection(Direction.Left); } else if (newKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Right) && !_oldKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Right)) { _snake.SetDirection(Direction.Right); } _oldKeyboardState = newKeyboardState; _snake.Update(); if (_snake.IsEating(_apple)) { _biteSound.Play(); _score += 10; _apple.Place(); } base.Update(gameTime); } /// <summary> /// This is called when the game should draw itself. /// </summary> /// <param name="gameTime">Provides a snapshot of timing values.</param> protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(_niceGreenColour); float frameRate = 1 / (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; _spriteBatch.Begin(); _spriteBatch.DrawString(_scoreFont, "Score : " + _score, _scoreLocation, Color.Red); _apple.Draw(_spriteBatch); _snake.Draw(_spriteBatch); _spriteBatch.End(); base.Draw(gameTime); } } } Snake.cs : using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; namespace Snakez { public enum Direction { Up, Down, Left, Right } public class Snake { private List<Rectangle> _parts; private readonly Texture2D _bodyBlock; private readonly int _startX = 160; private readonly int _startY = 120; private int _moveDelay = 100; private DateTime _lastUpdatedAt; private Direction _direction; private Rectangle _lastTail; public Snake(Texture2D bodyBlock) { _bodyBlock = bodyBlock; _parts = new List<Rectangle>(); _parts.Add(new Rectangle(_startX, _startY, _bodyBlock.Width, _bodyBlock.Height)); _parts.Add(new Rectangle(_startX + bodyBlock.Width, _startY, _bodyBlock.Width, _bodyBlock.Height)); _parts.Add(new Rectangle(_startX + (bodyBlock.Width) * 2, _startY, _bodyBlock.Width, _bodyBlock.Height)); _parts.Add(new Rectangle(_startX + (bodyBlock.Width) * 3, _startY, _bodyBlock.Width, _bodyBlock.Height)); _direction = Direction.Right; _lastUpdatedAt = DateTime.Now; } public void Draw(SpriteBatch spriteBatch) { foreach (var p in _parts) { spriteBatch.Draw(_bodyBlock, new Vector2(p.X, p.Y), Color.White); } } public void Update() { if (DateTime.Now.Subtract(_lastUpdatedAt).TotalMilliseconds > _moveDelay) { //DateTime.Now.Ticks _lastTail = _parts.First(); _parts.Remove(_lastTail); /* add new head in right direction */ var lastHead = _parts.Last(); var newHead = new Rectangle(0, 0, _bodyBlock.Width, _bodyBlock.Height); switch (_direction) { case Direction.Up: newHead.X = lastHead.X; newHead.Y = lastHead.Y - _bodyBlock.Width; break; case Direction.Down: newHead.X = lastHead.X; newHead.Y = lastHead.Y + _bodyBlock.Width; break; case Direction.Left: newHead.X = lastHead.X - _bodyBlock.Width; newHead.Y = lastHead.Y; break; case Direction.Right: newHead.X = lastHead.X + _bodyBlock.Width; newHead.Y = lastHead.Y; break; } _parts.Add(newHead); _lastUpdatedAt = DateTime.Now; } } public void SetDirection(Direction newDirection) { if (_direction == Direction.Up && newDirection == Direction.Down) { return; } else if (_direction == Direction.Down && newDirection == Direction.Up) { return; } else if (_direction == Direction.Left && newDirection == Direction.Right) { return; } else if (_direction == Direction.Right && newDirection == Direction.Left) { return; } _direction = newDirection; } public bool IsEating(Apple apple) { if (_parts.Last().Intersects(apple.Location)) { GrowBiggerAndFaster(); return true; } return false; } private void GrowBiggerAndFaster() { _parts.Insert(0, _lastTail); _moveDelay -= (_moveDelay / 100)*2; } } } Apple.cs : using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; namespace Snakez { public class Apple { private readonly int _maxWidth, _maxHeight; private readonly Texture2D _texture; private readonly Random random = new Random(); public Rectangle Location { get; private set; } public Apple(int screenWidth, int screenHeight, Texture2D texture) { _maxWidth = (screenWidth + 1) - texture.Width; _maxHeight = (screenHeight + 1) - texture.Height; _texture = texture; Place(); } public void Place() { Location = GetRandomLocation(_maxWidth, _maxHeight); } private Rectangle GetRandomLocation(int maxWidth, int maxHeight) { // x and y -- multiple of 20 int x = random.Next(1, maxWidth); var leftOver = x % 20; x = x - leftOver; int y = random.Next(1, maxHeight); leftOver = y % 20; y = y - leftOver; return new Rectangle(x, y, _texture.Width, _texture.Height); } public void Draw(SpriteBatch spriteBatch) { spriteBatch.Draw(_texture, Location, Color.White); } } }

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• AndEngine Box2d game

  - by OneMoreVladimir

  I'm developing a 2d survival shooter using Box2d extension and I've got some questions: I have two AnalogOnScreenControls. Their listeners modify both sprites and bodies. I receive TouchEventPool was exhausted and as their number grows the game crashes accidently. I've tried to put the modification of the bodies and sprites on the UpdateThread but that does not solve the problem. What could be the cause? I have a class that at the beginnig of the game loads all the textures. After I relaunch the game activity several times I receive Unable to find Phys Addr for and "green color" interface. But that doesn't happen if I clear the memory manually through the Task Manager before relaunch What could be the cause? I unload my atlas at the end of the game. The game sometimes crashes at start with NullPointerException in onResumeGame. The solution suggested is to set android:configChanges="orientation|screenSize" but my device is API 10 so it doesn't have screenSize property and orientation only does not seem to help, because the game starts in portrait mode at times (though landscape is set in the code)

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• Android: how do I switch between game scenes in a game? Any tutorials?

  - by Flavio

  I am trying to create a simple game using the Android SDK without using AndEngine (or any other game engine). I have plenty of experience designing games from the past, but I'm having lots of trouble trying to use the Android SDK to make my game. By far my biggest hurdle right now is switching between views. That is, for example, going from the menu to the first level, etc. I am using a traditional model I learned (I think it's called a scene stack or something?) in which you push the current scene onto a stack and the game's main loop runs the top item of the stack. This model seems non-trivial to implement in the Android SDK, mostly because Android seems to be picky about which thread instantiates which view. My issue is that I want the first level to show up when you press a button on the main menu, but when I instantiate the first level (the level class extends SurfaceView and implements SurfaceHolder.Callback) I get a runtime error complaining that the thread that runs the main menu can't instantiate this class. Something about calling Looper.prepare(). I figured at this point I was probably doing things wrong. I'm not sure how to specifically phrase my issue into a question, so maybe I should leave it as either 1) Does anybody know a good way (or the 'proper' way) to switch between scenes in an Android game? or 2) Are there any tutorials out there which show how to create a game that doesn't take place entirely in one scene? (I have googled for a while to no avail... maybe someone else knows of one?) Thanks!

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• Application toolkits like QT versus traditional game/multimedia libraries like SFML

  - by Aaron

  I currently intend to use SFML for my next game project. I'll need a substantial GUI though (RPG/strategy-type) so I'll either have to implement my own or try to find an appropriate third party library, which seem to boil down to CEGUI, libRocket, and GWEN. At the same time, I do not anticipate doing that many advanced graphical effects. My game will be 2D and primarily sprite-based with some sprite animations. I've recently discovered that QT applications can have their appearance styled so that they don't have to look like plain OS apps. Given that, I am beginning to consider QT a valid alternative to SFML. I wouldn't have to implement the GUI functionality I'd need, and I may not be taking advantage of SFML's lower-level access anyway. The only drawbacks I can think of immediately are the learning curve for QT and figuring out how to fit game logic inside such a framework after getting used to the input/update/render loop of traditional game libraries. When would an application toolkit like QT be more appropriate for a game than a traditional game or multimedia library like SFML?

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• Game Asset Management

  - by user964123

  I am making my first small mobile game in C# XNA. Lets say I have 3 screens, the main menu, options and game screen. A single game session usually lasts for 1 min, so the user will alternate frequently between the main menu and game screen. Therefore, once I load the textures for either screen, I want to keep them in memory to avoid frequent reloading. Both screens share some assets like their background textures, but differ in others. The first solution I came up with is making 2 texture factory classes, MainScreenAssetFactory and GameScreenAssetFactory, each with their own content manager, and ill store them in a globally accessible point so that they persist after either screen is destroyed. There is also a OptionsScreenAssetFactory, but that I dont want to cache it since the options screen is rarely visited. A typical Factory would look something like this public class MainScreenAssetFactory { private readonly ContentManager contentManager; public MainScreenAssetFactory(IServiceProvider serviceProvider, string rootDirectory) { contentManager = new ContentManager(serviceProvider) { RootDirectory = rootDirectory }; } public Texture2D ListElementBackground { get { return return contentManager.Load<Texture2D>("UserTab"); } } public Texture2D ListElementBulletPoint { get { return return contentManager.Load<Texture2D>("TabIcon"); } } public Texture2D LoggedOutUser { get { return return contentManager.Load<Texture2D>("LoggedOutUser"); } } } Since both Main, Options and Game Screen share some common resources, instead of loading them more than once, I created another class CommonAssetTexFactory which holds the common stuff and stays in-memory during the app lifetime. For example, this class gets passed to the options screen when it is created. However, given my small game with its few assets, I am already finding this solution cumbersome and inflexible. Changing anything would require looking to see if its already in the common factory, and if not, modifying existing factories and so on. And this is just considering textures currently, i didnt add sound files yet. I cant imagine bigger games with thousands of resources using this approach. A better idea must exist. Would someone please enlighten me?

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• Game Development

  - by Sundareswaran Senthilvel

  I'm planning to write a game from scratch (a BIG Game, for commercial purpose). I'm aware that there are certain compute libraries like OpenCL, AMD APP SDK, C++ AMP as well as DirectCompute - both from MS (NOT interested in CUDA) are available in the market. I'm planning to write the game from the scratch, which includes the following engines... 1.Physics Engine 2.AI Engine 3.Main Game Engine (... and if anything is missed). I'm aware that, there are some free physics engine libraries in the market. Not sure about free AI engine libraries. I'm bit confused in choosing between the OpenCL, AMD APP SDK, and C++ AMP libraries (as already mentioned i'm NOT interested in CUDA). I want my game to be published in Windows/Android/Mac OSX. It means it should be a cross-platform game. I will be having "one source code" that i'll compile for various platforms like Windows/Android/Mac OSX, and any others if i missed. Note: Since I'm NOT a Java guy, kindly do NOT suggest me the Java Language. For Graphics language should i use OpenGL or DirectX 11? I have heard that OpenGL runs on a single core, and not sure of DirectX 11. Between OpenGL and DirectX which one should i follow? or else, are there any other graphics language that i need to start with? I want to make use of the parallelism in GPU as well as CPU.

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• A* PathFinding Poor Performance

  - by RedShft

  After debugging for a few hours, the algorithm seems to be working. Right now to check if it works i'm checking the end node position to the currentNode position when the while loop quits. So far the values look correct. The problem is, the farther I get from the NPC, who is current stationary, the worse the performance gets. It gets to a point where the game is unplayable less than 10 fps. My current PathGraph is 2500 nodes, which I believe is pretty small, right? Any ideas on how to improve performance? struct Node { bool walkable; //Whether this node is blocked or open vect2 position; //The tile's position on the map in pixels int xIndex, yIndex; //The index values of the tile in the array Node*[4] connections; //An array of pointers to nodes this current node connects to Node* parent; int gScore; int hScore; int fScore; } class AStar { private: SList!Node openList; SList!Node closedList; //Node*[4] connections; //The connections of the current node; Node currentNode; //The current node being processed Node[] Path; //The path found; const int connectionCost = 10; Node start, end; ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// void AddToList(ref SList!Node list, ref Node node ) { list.insert( node ); } void RemoveFrom(ref SList!Node list, ref Node node ) { foreach( elem; list ) { if( node.xIndex == elem.xIndex && node.yIndex == elem.yIndex ) { auto a = find( list[] , elem ); list.linearRemove( take(a, 1 ) ); } } } bool IsInList( SList!Node list, ref Node node ) { foreach( elem; list ) { if( node.xIndex == elem.xIndex && node.yIndex == elem.yIndex ) return true; } return false; } void ClearList( SList!Node list ) { list.clear; } void SetParentNode( ref Node parent, ref Node child ) { child.parent = &parent; } void SetStartAndEndNode( vect2 vStart, vect2 vEnd, Node[] PathGraph ) { int startXIndex, startYIndex; int endXIndex, endYIndex; startXIndex = cast(int)( vStart.x / 32 ); startYIndex = cast(int)( vStart.y / 32 ); endXIndex = cast(int)( vEnd.x / 32 ); endYIndex = cast(int)( vEnd.y / 32 ); foreach( node; PathGraph ) { if( node.xIndex == startXIndex && node.yIndex == startYIndex ) { start = node; } if( node.xIndex == endXIndex && node.yIndex == endYIndex ) { end = node; } } } void SetStartScores( ref Node start ) { start.gScore = 0; start.hScore = CalculateHScore( start, end ); start.fScore = CalculateFScore( start ); } Node GetLowestFScore() { Node lowest; lowest.fScore = 10000; foreach( elem; openList ) { if( elem.fScore < lowest.fScore ) lowest = elem; } return lowest; } //This function current sets the program into an infinite loop //I still need to debug to figure out why the parent nodes aren't correct void GeneratePath() { while( currentNode.position != start.position ) { Path ~= currentNode; currentNode = *currentNode.parent; } } void ReversePath() { Node[] temp; for(int i = Path.length - 1; i >= 0; i-- ) { temp ~= Path[i]; } Path = temp.dup; } public: //@FIXME It seems to find the path, but now performance is terrible void FindPath( vect2 vStart, vect2 vEnd, Node[] PathGraph ) { openList.clear; closedList.clear; SetStartAndEndNode( vStart, vEnd, PathGraph ); SetStartScores( start ); AddToList( openList, start ); while( currentNode.position != end.position ) { currentNode = GetLowestFScore(); if( currentNode.position == end.position ) break; else { RemoveFrom( openList, currentNode ); AddToList( closedList, currentNode ); for( int i = 0; i < currentNode.connections.length; i++ ) { if( currentNode.connections[i] is null ) continue; else { if( IsInList( closedList, *currentNode.connections[i] ) && currentNode.gScore < currentNode.connections[i].gScore ) { currentNode.connections[i].gScore = currentNode.gScore + connectionCost; currentNode.connections[i].hScore = abs( currentNode.connections[i].xIndex - end.xIndex ) + abs( currentNode.connections[i].yIndex - end.yIndex ); currentNode.connections[i].fScore = currentNode.connections[i].gScore + currentNode.connections[i].hScore; currentNode.connections[i].parent = &currentNode; } else if( IsInList( openList, *currentNode.connections[i] ) && currentNode.gScore < currentNode.connections[i].gScore ) { currentNode.connections[i].gScore = currentNode.gScore + connectionCost; currentNode.connections[i].hScore = abs( currentNode.connections[i].xIndex - end.xIndex ) + abs( currentNode.connections[i].yIndex - end.yIndex ); currentNode.connections[i].fScore = currentNode.connections[i].gScore + currentNode.connections[i].hScore; currentNode.connections[i].parent = &currentNode; } else { currentNode.connections[i].gScore = currentNode.gScore + connectionCost; currentNode.connections[i].hScore = abs( currentNode.connections[i].xIndex - end.xIndex ) + abs( currentNode.connections[i].yIndex - end.yIndex ); currentNode.connections[i].fScore = currentNode.connections[i].gScore + currentNode.connections[i].hScore; currentNode.connections[i].parent = &currentNode; AddToList( openList, *currentNode.connections[i] ); } } } } } writeln( "Current Node Position: ", currentNode.position ); writeln( "End Node Position: ", end.position ); if( currentNode.position == end.position ) { writeln( "Current Node Parent: ", currentNode.parent ); //GeneratePath(); //ReversePath(); } } Node[] GetPath() { return Path; } } This is my first attempt at A* so any help would be greatly appreciated.

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• Conway's Game of Life - C++ and Qt

  - by Jeff Bridge

  I've done all of the layouts and have most of the code written even. But, I'm stuck in two places. 1) I'm not quite sure how to set up the timer. Am I using it correctly in the gridwindow class? And, am I used the timer functions/signals/slots correctly with the other gridwindow functions. 2) In GridWindow's timerFired() function, I'm having trouble checking/creating the vector-vectors. I wrote out in the comments in that function exactly what I am trying to do. Any help would be much appreciated. main.cpp // Main file for running the grid window application. #include <QApplication> #include "gridwindow.h" //#include "timerwindow.h" #include <stdexcept> #include <string> #include <fstream> #include <sstream> #include <iostream> void Welcome(); // Welcome Function - Prints upon running program; outputs program name, student name/id, class section. void Rules(); // Rules Function: Prints the rules for Conway's Game of Life. using namespace std; // A simple main method to create the window class and then pop it up on the screen. int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { Welcome(); // Calls Welcome function to print student/assignment info. Rules(); // Prints Conway's Game Rules. QApplication app(argc, argv); // Creates the overall windowed application. int rows = 25, cols = 35; //The number of rows & columns in the game grid. GridWindow widget(NULL,rows,cols); // Creates the actual window (for the grid). widget.show(); // Shows the window on the screen. return app.exec(); // Goes into visual loop; starts executing GUI. } // Welcome Function: Prints my name/id, my class number, the assignment, and the program name. void Welcome() { cout << endl; cout << "-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------" << endl; cout << "Name/ID - Gabe Audick #7681539807" << endl; cout << "Class/Assignment - CSCI-102 Disccusion 29915: Homework Assignment #4" << endl; cout << "-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------" << endl << endl; } // Rules Function: Prints the rules for Conway's Game of Life. void Rules() { cout << "Welcome to Conway's Game of Life." << endl; cout << "Game Rules:" << endl; cout << "\t 1) Any living cell with fewer than two living neighbours dies, as if caused by underpopulation." << endl; cout << "\t 2) Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding." << endl; cout << "\t 3) Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation." << endl; cout << "\t 4) Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell." << endl << endl; cout << "Enjoy." << endl << endl; } gridcell.h // A header file for a class representing a single cell in a grid of cells. #ifndef GRIDCELL_H_ #define GRIDCELL_H_ #include <QPalette> #include <QColor> #include <QPushButton> #include <Qt> #include <QWidget> #include <QFrame> #include <QHBoxLayout> #include <iostream> // An enum representing the two different states a cell can have. enum CellType { DEAD, // DEAD = Dead Cell. --> Color = White. LIVE // LIVE = Living Cell. ---> Color = White. }; /* Class: GridCell. A class representing a single cell in a grid. Each cell is implemented as a QT QFrame that contains a single QPushButton. The button is sized so that it takes up the entire frame. Each cell also keeps track of what type of cell it is based on the CellType enum. */ class GridCell : public QFrame { Q_OBJECT // Macro allowing us to have signals & slots on this object. private: QPushButton* button; // The button inside the cell that gives its clickability. CellType type; // The type of cell (DEAD or LIVE.) public slots: void handleClick(); // Callback for handling a click on the current cell. void setType(CellType type); // Cell type mutator. Calls the "redrawCell" function. signals: void typeChanged(CellType type); // Signal to notify listeners when the cell type has changed. public: GridCell(QWidget *parent = NULL); // Constructor for creating a cell. Takes parent widget or default parent to NULL. virtual ~GridCell(); // Destructor. void redrawCell(); // Redraws cell: Sets new type/color. CellType getType() const; //Simple getter for the cell type. private: Qt::GlobalColor getColorForCellType(); // Helper method. Returns color that cell should be based from its value. }; #endif gridcell.cpp #include <iostream> #include "gridcell.h" #include "utility.h" using namespace std; // Constructor: Creates a grid cell. GridCell::GridCell(QWidget *parent) : QFrame(parent) { this->type = DEAD; // Default: Cell is DEAD (white). setFrameStyle(QFrame::Box); // Set the frame style. This is what gives each box its black border. this->button = new QPushButton(this); //Creates button that fills entirety of each grid cell. this->button->setSizePolicy(QSizePolicy::Expanding,QSizePolicy::Expanding); // Expands button to fill space. this->button->setMinimumSize(19,19); //width,height // Min height and width of button. QHBoxLayout *layout = new QHBoxLayout(); //Creates a simple layout to hold our button and add the button to it. layout->addWidget(this->button); setLayout(layout); layout->setStretchFactor(this->button,1); // Lets the buttons expand all the way to the edges of the current frame with no space leftover layout->setContentsMargins(0,0,0,0); layout->setSpacing(0); connect(this->button,SIGNAL(clicked()),this,SLOT(handleClick())); // Connects clicked signal with handleClick slot. redrawCell(); // Calls function to redraw (set new type for) the cell. } // Basic destructor. GridCell::~GridCell() { delete this->button; } // Accessor for the cell type. CellType GridCell::getType() const { return(this->type); } // Mutator for the cell type. Also has the side effect of causing the cell to be redrawn on the GUI. void GridCell::setType(CellType type) { this->type = type; redrawCell(); } // Handler slot for button clicks. This method is called whenever the user clicks on this cell in the grid. void GridCell::handleClick() { // When clicked on... if(this->type == DEAD) // If type is DEAD (white), change to LIVE (black). type = LIVE; else type = DEAD; // If type is LIVE (black), change to DEAD (white). setType(type); // Sets new type (color). setType Calls redrawCell() to recolor. } // Method to check cell type and return the color of that type. Qt::GlobalColor GridCell::getColorForCellType() { switch(this->type) { default: case DEAD: return Qt::white; case LIVE: return Qt::black; } } // Helper method. Forces current cell to be redrawn on the GUI. Called whenever the setType method is invoked. void GridCell::redrawCell() { Qt::GlobalColor gc = getColorForCellType(); //Find out what color this cell should be. this->button->setPalette(QPalette(gc,gc)); //Force the button in the cell to be the proper color. this->button->setAutoFillBackground(true); this->button->setFlat(true); //Force QT to NOT draw the borders on the button } gridwindow.h // A header file for a QT window that holds a grid of cells. #ifndef GRIDWINDOW_H_ #define GRIDWINDOW_H_ #include <vector> #include <QWidget> #include <QTimer> #include <QGridLayout> #include <QLabel> #include <QApplication> #include "gridcell.h" /* class GridWindow: This is the class representing the whole window that comes up when this program runs. It contains a header section with a title, a middle section of MxN cells and a bottom section with buttons. */ class GridWindow : public QWidget { Q_OBJECT // Macro to allow this object to have signals & slots. private: std::vector<std::vector<GridCell*> > cells; // A 2D vector containing pointers to all the cells in the grid. QLabel *title; // A pointer to the Title text on the window. QTimer *timer; // Creates timer object. public slots: void handleClear(); // Handler function for clicking the Clear button. void handleStart(); // Handler function for clicking the Start button. void handlePause(); // Handler function for clicking the Pause button. void timerFired(); // Method called whenever timer fires. public: GridWindow(QWidget *parent = NULL,int rows=3,int cols=3); // Constructor. virtual ~GridWindow(); // Destructor. std::vector<std::vector<GridCell*> >& getCells(); // Accessor for the array of grid cells. private: QHBoxLayout* setupHeader(); // Helper function to construct the GUI header. QGridLayout* setupGrid(int rows,int cols); // Helper function to constructor the GUI's grid. QHBoxLayout* setupButtonRow(); // Helper function to setup the row of buttons at the bottom. }; #endif gridwindow.cpp #include <iostream> #include "gridwindow.h" using namespace std; // Constructor for window. It constructs the three portions of the GUI and lays them out vertically. GridWindow::GridWindow(QWidget *parent,int rows,int cols) : QWidget(parent) { QHBoxLayout *header = setupHeader(); // Setup the title at the top. QGridLayout *grid = setupGrid(rows,cols); // Setup the grid of colored cells in the middle. QHBoxLayout *buttonRow = setupButtonRow(); // Setup the row of buttons across the bottom. QVBoxLayout *layout = new QVBoxLayout(); // Puts everything together. layout->addLayout(header); layout->addLayout(grid); layout->addLayout(buttonRow); setLayout(layout); } // Destructor. GridWindow::~GridWindow() { delete title; } // Builds header section of the GUI. QHBoxLayout* GridWindow::setupHeader() { QHBoxLayout *header = new QHBoxLayout(); // Creates horizontal box. header->setAlignment(Qt::AlignHCenter); this->title = new QLabel("CONWAY'S GAME OF LIFE",this); // Creates big, bold, centered label (title): "Conway's Game of Life." this->title->setAlignment(Qt::AlignHCenter); this->title->setFont(QFont("Arial", 32, QFont::Bold)); header->addWidget(this->title); // Adds widget to layout. return header; // Returns header to grid window. } // Builds the grid of cells. This method populates the grid's 2D array of GridCells with MxN cells. QGridLayout* GridWindow::setupGrid(int rows,int cols) { QGridLayout *grid = new QGridLayout(); // Creates grid layout. grid->setHorizontalSpacing(0); // No empty spaces. Cells should be contiguous. grid->setVerticalSpacing(0); grid->setSpacing(0); grid->setAlignment(Qt::AlignHCenter); for(int i=0; i < rows; i++) //Each row is a vector of grid cells. { std::vector<GridCell*> row; // Creates new vector for current row. cells.push_back(row); for(int j=0; j < cols; j++) { GridCell *cell = new GridCell(); // Creates and adds new cell to row. cells.at(i).push_back(cell); grid->addWidget(cell,i,j); // Adds to cell to grid layout. Column expands vertically. grid->setColumnStretch(j,1); } grid->setRowStretch(i,1); // Sets row expansion horizontally. } return grid; // Returns grid. } // Builds footer section of the GUI. QHBoxLayout* GridWindow::setupButtonRow() { QHBoxLayout *buttonRow = new QHBoxLayout(); // Creates horizontal box for buttons. buttonRow->setAlignment(Qt::AlignHCenter); // Clear Button - Clears cell; sets them all to DEAD/white. QPushButton *clearButton = new QPushButton("CLEAR"); clearButton->setFixedSize(100,25); connect(clearButton, SIGNAL(clicked()), this, SLOT(handleClear())); buttonRow->addWidget(clearButton); // Start Button - Starts game when user clicks. Or, resumes game after being paused. QPushButton *startButton = new QPushButton("START/RESUME"); startButton->setFixedSize(100,25); connect(startButton, SIGNAL(clicked()), this, SLOT(handleStart())); buttonRow->addWidget(startButton); // Pause Button - Pauses simulation of game. QPushButton *pauseButton = new QPushButton("PAUSE"); pauseButton->setFixedSize(100,25); connect(pauseButton, SIGNAL(clicked()), this, SLOT(handlePause())); buttonRow->addWidget(pauseButton); // Quit Button - Exits program. QPushButton *quitButton = new QPushButton("EXIT"); quitButton->setFixedSize(100,25); connect(quitButton, SIGNAL(clicked()), qApp, SLOT(quit())); buttonRow->addWidget(quitButton); return buttonRow; // Returns bottom of layout. } /* SLOT method for handling clicks on the "clear" button. Receives "clicked" signals on the "Clear" button and sets all cells to DEAD. */ void GridWindow::handleClear() { for(unsigned int row=0; row < cells.size(); row++) // Loops through current rows' cells. { for(unsigned int col=0; col < cells[row].size(); col++) { GridCell *cell = cells[row][col]; // Grab the current cell & set its value to dead. cell->setType(DEAD); } } } /* SLOT method for handling clicks on the "start" button. Receives "clicked" signals on the "start" button and begins game simulation. */ void GridWindow::handleStart() { this->timer = new QTimer(this); // Creates new timer. connect(this->timer, SIGNAL(timeout()), this, SLOT(timerFired())); // Connect "timerFired" method class to the "timeout" signal fired by the timer. this->timer->start(500); // Timer to fire every 500 milliseconds. } /* SLOT method for handling clicks on the "pause" button. Receives "clicked" signals on the "pause" button and stops the game simulation. */ void GridWindow::handlePause() { this->timer->stop(); // Stops the timer. delete this->timer; // Deletes timer. } // Accessor method - Gets the 2D vector of grid cells. std::vector<std::vector<GridCell*> >& GridWindow::getCells() { return this->cells; } void GridWindow::timerFired() { // I'm not sure how to write this code. // I want to take the original vector-vector, and also make a new, empty vector-vector of the same size. // I would then go through the code below with the original vector, and apply the rules to the new vector-vector. // Finally, I would make the new vector-vecotr the original vector-vector. (That would be one step in the simulation.) cout << cells[1][2]; /* for (unsigned int m = 0; m < original.size(); m++) { for (unsigned int n = 0; n < original.at(m).size(); n++) { unsigned int neighbors = 0; //Begin counting number of neighbors. if (original[m-1][n-1].getType() == LIVE) // If a cell next to [i][j] is LIVE, add one to the neighbor count. neighbors += 1; if (original[m-1][n].getType() == LIVE) neighbors += 1; if (original[m-1][n+1].getType() == LIVE) neighbors += 1; if (original[m][n-1].getType() == LIVE) neighbors += 1; if (original[m][n+1].getType() == LIVE) neighbors += 1; if (original[m+1][n-1].getType() == LIVE) neighbors += 1; if (original[m+1][n].getType() == LIVE) neighbors += 1; if (original[m+1][n+1].getType() == LIVE) neighbors += 1; if (original[m][n].getType() == LIVE && neighbors < 2) // Apply game rules to cells: Create new, updated grid with the roundtwo vector. roundtwo[m][n].setType(LIVE); else if (original[m][n].getType() == LIVE && neighbors > 3) roundtwo[m][n].setType(DEAD); else if (original[m][n].getType() == LIVE && (neighbors == 2 || neighbors == 3)) roundtwo[m][n].setType(LIVE); else if (original[m][n].getType() == DEAD && neighbors == 3) roundtwo[m][n].setType(LIVE); } }*/ }

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• How will my Electronic Engineering degree be received in the Canadian Game Development market? [closed]

  - by Harikawashi

  I have a Electronic Engineering with Computer Science Degree from a reputable South African university. The EE with CS degree is basically Electronic Engineering, with some of the high voltage subjects thrown out and replaced with computer science subjects - mostly quite theoretical, but not in too much depth. I went on to earn a Masters Degree in Digital Signal Processing, focussing on Speech Recognition in Educational Applications. I have always loved programming - I taught myself QBASIC when I was in primary school, I learned Java at school, did some low level C at University, and taught myself C# and Python while doing my post graduate degree. C# is currently my strong suit, I think I am pretty capable with it. I have two years work experience in Namibia - working as a consulting electrical engineer (no software content whatsoever) and also developing C# desktop applications for the company I work for. I would like to move to Canada next year and work in the Game Development Industry as programmer or software engineer. My interests in particular are towards the more mathematical applications, like game and physics engines, or statistical disciplines like artificial intelligence. However, these are passions - not areas in which I have any work experience. So the question: How well will my BEngEE&CS and MScEng be received in the game industry? Seeing as it's not a pure software degree and I have no official software development work experience?

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• Embed Google’s Pac Man Game On Your Website

  - by Gopinath

  Google is celebrating the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man with a playable Pac Man game doodle on it’s home page. You can play the full game(255 levels) at http://google.com. This is the first time ever Google released an interactive doodle. How To Embed the Pac Man Game In Your Web Pages? I’m surprised to see this game being a non-flash version and it seems to be a pure javascript + html script. Michael at RustyBricks.com published an unofficial way of embedding Google’s Pac Man game in any website along with a link to demo page. Check out How To Get Google’s Pac Man Game On Your Page for a quick script to have this game for your website users. Join us on Facebook to read all our stories right inside your Facebook news feed.

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• Is it possible to extract textures or sprites from compiled game files?

  - by Brian Reindel

  For instance, every map in Portal has what appear to be sprites over a texture indicating the obstacles you'll face (see screenshot). Are these resources compiled into the source as byte code, or is it possible to extract them from installation files? Obviously I understand copyright implications, and I am only interested in using it for a recreational project. Instead of recreating them, I wonder if they can be extracted.

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• What are the cons of using DrawableGameComponent for every instance of a game object?

  - by Kensai

  I've read in many places that DrawableGameComponents should be saved for things like "levels" or some kind of managers instead of using them, for example, for characters or tiles (Like this guy says here). But I don't understand why this is so. I read this post and it made a lot of sense to me, but these are the minority. I usually wouldn't pay too much attention to things like these, but in this case I would like to know why the apparent majority believes this is not the way to go. Maybe I'm missing something.

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• Creating smooth lighting transitions using tiles in HTML5/JavaScript game

  - by user12098

  I am trying to implement a lighting effect in an HTML5/JavaScript game using tile replacement. What I have now is kind of working, but the transitions do not look smooth/natural enough as the light source moves around. Here's where I am now: Right now I have a background map that has a light/shadow spectrum PNG tilesheet applied to it - going from darkest tile to completely transparent. By default the darkest tile is drawn across the entire level on launch, covering all other layers etc. I am using my predetermined tile sizes (40 x 40px) to calculate the position of each tile and store its x and y coordinates in an array. I am then spawning a transparent 40 x 40px "grid block" entity at each position in the array The engine I'm using (ImpactJS) then allows me to calculate the distance from my light source entity to every instance of this grid block entity. I can then replace the tile underneath each of those grid block tiles with a tile of the appropriate transparency. Currently I'm doing the calculation like this in each instance of the grid block entity that is spawned on the map: var dist = this.distanceTo( ig.game.player ); var percentage = 100 * dist / 960; if (percentage < 2) { // Spawns tile 64 of the shadow spectrum tilesheet at the specified position ig.game.backgroundMaps[2].setTile( this.pos.x, this.pos.y, 64 ); } else if (percentage < 4) { ig.game.backgroundMaps[2].setTile( this.pos.x, this.pos.y, 63 ); } else if (percentage < 6) { ig.game.backgroundMaps[2].setTile( this.pos.x, this.pos.y, 62 ); } // etc... (sorry about the weird spacing, I still haven't gotten the hang of pasting code in here properly) The problem is that like I said, this type of calculation does not make the light source look very natural. Tile switching looks too sharp whereas ideally they would fade in and out smoothly using the spectrum tilesheet (I copied the tilesheet from another game that manages to do this, so I know it's not a problem with the tile shades. I'm just not sure how the other game is doing it). I'm thinking that perhaps my method of using percentages to switch out tiles could be replaced with a better/more dynamic proximity forumla of some sort that would allow for smoother transitions? Might anyone have any ideas for what I can do to improve the visuals here, or a better way of calculating proximity with the information I'm collecting about each tile? (PS: I'm reposting this from Stack Overflow at someone's suggestion, sorry about the duplicate!)

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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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• Conscience and unconscience from an AI/Robotics POV

  - by Tim Huffam

  Just pondering the workings of the human mind - from an AI/robotics point of view (either of which I know little about)..   If conscience is when you're thinking about it (processing it in realtime)... and unconscience is when you're not thinking about it (eg it's autonomous behaviour)..  would it be fair to say then, that:   - conscience is software   - unconscience is hardware   Considering that human learning is attributed to the number of neural connections made - and repetition is the key - the more the connections, the better one understands the subject - until it becomes a 'known'.   Therefore could this be likened to forming hard connections?  Eg maybe learning would progress from an MCU to FPGA's - therefore offloading realtime process to the hardware (FPGA or some such device)? t

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• Has an open console any chance to give more strength to the indie game world ?

  - by jokoon

  I have heard about the GPX, but i don't really think the embedded market is mature enough in terms of performance, but what about the home console market ? I'm not talking about last-generation graphics, because that would be economically impossible, but what about an hardware as fast as a playstation 2/Xbox 1/Gamecube ? For games, the trick would be to ask some editors to recompile their best sellers for the new machine: those games being from the PSX age or even older console generations, I think this would have a very low cost job and they could still make some good profit, but I need to know if this is doable technically, considering the architecture which can be quite exotic. Do you think it would be a viable project to talk about to investors ?

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• I need help with a timer for a text based game, i need to include a mysql query to it, but not sure how.

  - by Hijumper

  i would like to add a mysql query somewhere in my timer code so that everytime it restarts then 1 item would be added to the database, i can get it to show how many items you have gotten since the timer has been running, but im not quite sure how to add it into a mysql database, any help would be appreciated :D heres my timer code thus far: <head> <script type="text/javascript"> var c=10; var mineCount = 0; var t; var timer_is_on=0; function timedCount() { document.getElementById('txt').value = c; c = c - 1; if (c <= -1) { mineCount++; var _message = "You have mined " + mineCount + " iron ore" + (((mineCount > 1) ? "s" : "") + "!"); document.getElementById('message').innerHTML = _message; startover(); } } function startover() { c = 10; clearTimeout(t); timer_is_on=0; doMining(); } function doMining() { if (!timer_is_on) { timer_is_on = true; t = setInterval(function () { timedCount(); }, 1000); } } </script> <SPAN STYLE="float:left"> <form> <input type="button" value="Mining" onClick="doMining()"> <input type="text" id="txt"> </form> </SPAN> <html> <center> <div id='message'></div>

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• How do I best remove an entity from my game loop when it is dead?

  - by Iain

  Ok so I have a big list of all my entities which I loop through and update. In AS3 I can store this as an Array (dynamic length, untyped), a Vector (typed) or a linked list (not native). At the moment I'm using Array but I plan to change to Vector or linked list if it is faster. Anyway, my question, when an Entity is destroyed, how should I remove it from the list? I could null its position, splice it out or just set a flag on it to say "skip over me, I'm dead." I'm pooling my entities, so an Entity that is dead is quite likely to be alive again at some point. For each type of collection what is my best strategy, and which combination of collection type and removal method will work best?

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• Is the board game "Go" NP complete?

  - by sharkin

  There are plenty of Chess AI's around, and evidently some are good enough to beat some of the world's greatest players. I've heard that many attempts have been made to write successful AI's for the board game Go, but so far nothing has been conceived beyond average amateur level. Could it be that the task of mathematically calculating the optimal move at any given time in Go is an NP-complete problem?

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• 3D Character/Model Creator

  - by Click Ok

  I'm in a project to create a 3d game using XNA/C#, and the game will use a lot of 3d characters. Looking at the current 3d games, in some they create near to hundreds of characters, what lead me to think that there are some good 3d character/model creator. To narrow the sample, the game will have characters like the game "Grand Chase". There are some good (and easy) character model creator for to use in XNA development? Free is better, of course, but I will get payed versions too. EDIT: Another question is about the movements of the characters. The movements like walk, jump, sit, etc are "created" by the "character creator tool" or by the game?

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