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  • Does concurrency inherently introduce "randomness" into a game?

    - by Jeff
    When a game is implemented with concurrency (as most games are), does this necessarily, by its very nature, introduce an element of randomness into the game that is outside of the players' control? Note that when I use the word "random", I'm not meaning to launch into a philosophical debate about the deterministic nature of the system. I understand that concurrency is deterministic in the sense that the operating system decides which processes to allow time on the CPU and in what order (or the JVM controls which Thread's turn it is to execute, etc). But my understanding of this is that there is no way to control or predict whether one thread's next command will execute before or after another. The reason I'm asking is because this seems like a fundamental difficulty for game development where a game is supposedly designed around a player's skill. Consider a game like League of Legends. Assume that two players are battling it out. It's a very close contest between the two and it's coming down to the wire -- so much so that whoever gets their last attack off will be the one to kill the other and win the game for their team. If the players are implemented using concurrency and the situation really was like this, is it essentially out of the players' hands at this point? Is the outcome of this match all up to whatever system is arbitrarily deciding which player's thread/process will execute next? If not, what am I misunderstanding about concurrency? If so, is there any way around this problem so that a game of skill can always be a game of skill, especially in those most crucial moments?

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  • How does an Engine like Source process entities?

    - by Júlio Souza
    [background information] On the Source engine (and it's antecessor, goldsrc, quake's) the game objects are divided on two types, world and entities. The world is the map geometry and the entities are players, particles, sounds, scores, etc (for the Source Engine). Every entity has a think function, which do all the logic for that entity. So, if everything that needs to be processed comes from a base class with the think function, the game engine could store everything on a list and, on every frame, loop through it and call that function. On a first look, this idea is reasonable, but it can take too much resources, if the game has a lot of entities.. [end of background information] So, how does a engine like Source take care (process, update, draw, etc) of the game objects?

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  • Accessing Repositories from Domain

    - by Paul T Davies
    Say we have a task logging system, when a task is logged, the user specifies a category and the task defaults to a status of 'Outstanding'. Assume in this instance that Category and Status have to be implemented as entities. Normally I would do this: Application Layer: public class TaskService { //... public void Add(Guid categoryId, string description) { var category = _categoryRepository.GetById(categoryId); var status = _statusRepository.GetById(Constants.Status.OutstandingId); var task = Task.Create(category, status, description); _taskRepository.Save(task); } } Entity: public class Task { //... public static void Create(Category category, Status status, string description) { return new Task { Category = category, Status = status, Description = descrtiption }; } } I do it like this because I am consistently told that entities should not access the repositories, but it would make much more sense to me if I did this: Entity: public class Task { //... public static void Create(Category category, string description) { return new Task { Category = category, Status = _statusRepository.GetById(Constants.Status.OutstandingId), Description = descrtiption }; } } The status repository is dependecy injected anyway, so there is no real dependency, and this feels more to me thike it is the domain that is making thedecision that a task defaults to outstanding. The previous version feels like it is the application layeer making that decision. Any why are repository contracts often in the domain if this should not be a posibility? Here is a more extreme example, here the domain decides urgency: Entity: public class Task { //... public static void Create(Category category, string description) { var task = new Task { Category = category, Status = _statusRepository.GetById(Constants.Status.OutstandingId), Description = descrtiption }; if(someCondition) { if(someValue > anotherValue) { task.Urgency = _urgencyRepository.GetById (Constants.Urgency.UrgentId); } else { task.Urgency = _urgencyRepository.GetById (Constants.Urgency.SemiUrgentId); } } else { task.Urgency = _urgencyRepository.GetById (Constants.Urgency.NotId); } return task; } } There is no way you would want to pass in all possible versions of Urgency, and no way you would want to calculate this business logic in the application layer, so surely this would be the most appropriate way? So is this a valid reason to access repositories from the domain?

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  • Why was Android's ContentProvider created?

    - by satur9nine
    The title sums up my question, but to elaborate basically what I want to understand is why the Android designers want apps that need to work with shared data to use a Content Provider rather than just accessing the SQLite database directly? The only reason I can think of is security because certain files can by accessed only be certain processes and in that way the Content Provider is the gatekeeper that ensures each app has the proper privileges before allowing read and/or write access to the database file. Is that the primary reason why ContentProvider was created?

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  • How much info can I store in a cookie?

    - by Artemix
    Hi guys, Im developing a flash game and I'd like to know how much info can I store in a browser cookie. The game is simple, but it needs to store several variables in order to save all the details of your current progress. The game is only one swf file, no server, no nothing. I need to know how should I use the cookies to achieve this, and if they have the posibility of doing it, of course. (several = 200 variables i.e)

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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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  • Game window systems and internal frames

    - by 2080
    I don't know if this is a valid question, but: What kind of window manager do games use which have internal frames (Frames inside frames)? Does this differ between the programming languages (Are e.g. in Java the AWT/Swing libraries used to manage these and other graphical elements, such as buttons,or is this to restrictive (speed, graphical possibilities?)) A special example would be EVE Online, where the client can use the ingame windows like on a normal desktop.

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  • Caching strategies for entities and collections

    - by Rob West
    We currently have an application framework in which we automatically cache both entities and collections of entities at the business layer (using .NET cache). So the method GetWidget(int id) checks the cache using a key GetWidget_Id_{0} before hitting the database, and the method GetWidgetsByStatusId(int statusId) checks the cache using GetWidgets_Collections_ByStatusId_{0}. If the objects are not in the cache they are retrieved from the database and added to the cache. This approach is obviously quick for read scenarios, and as a blanket approach is quick for us to implement, but requires large numbers of cache keys to be purged when CRUD operations are carried out on entities. Obviously as additional methods are added this impacts performance and the benefits of caching diminish. I'm interested in alternative approaches to handling caching of collections. I know that NHibernate caches a list of the identifiers in the collection rather than the actual entities. Is this an approach other people have tried - what are the pros and cons? In particular I am looking for options that optimise performance and can be implemented automatically through boilerplate generated code (we have our own code generation tool). I know some people will say that caching needs to be done by hand each time to meet the needs of the specific situation but I am looking for something that will get us most of the way automatically.

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  • Why do iterators in Python raise an exception?

    - by NullUserException
    Here's the syntax for iterators in Java (somewhat similar syntax in C#): Iterator it = sequence.iterator(); while (it.hasNext()) { System.out.println(it.next()); } Which makes sense. Here's the equivalent syntax in Python: it = iter(sequence) while True: try: value = it.next() except StopIteration: break print(value) I thought Exceptions were supposed to be used only in, well, exceptional circumstances. Why does Python use exceptions to stop iteration?

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  • Sounds to describe the weather?

    - by Matthew
    I'm trying to think of sounds that will help convey the time of day and weather condition. I'm not even sure of all the weather conditions I would consider, and some are obvious. Like if it's raining, the sound of rain. But then I'm thinking, what about for a calm day? If it's morning time, I could do birds chirping or something. Night time could be an owl or something. What are some good combinations of sounds/weather/time to have a good effect?

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  • Alternatives to a leveling system

    - by Bane
    I'm currently designing a rough prototype of a mecha fighting game. These are the basics I came up with: Multiplayer (matchmaking for up to 10 people, for now) Browser based (HTML5) 2D (<canvas>) Persistent (as in, players have accounts and don't have to use a new mech each time they start a match) Players earn money upon destroying another mech, which is used to buy parts (guns, armor, boosters, etc) Simplicity (both of the game itself, and of the development of said game) No "leveling" (as in, players don't get awarded with XP) The last part is bothering me. At first, I wanted to have players gain experience points (XP) when destroying other mechs, but gaining two things at once (money and XP) seemed to be in conflict with my last point, which is simplicity. If I were to have a leveling system, that would require additional development. But, the biggest problem is that I simply couldn't fit it anywhere! Adding levels would require adding meaning to these levels, and most of the things that I hoped to achieve could already be achieved with the money mechanic I introduced. So I decided to drop leveling off completely. That, in turn, removed a fairly popular and robust mean of progression in games from my game (not that I would use it well anyway). Is there another way of progression in games, aside from leveling and XP points, that wouldn't get rendered redundant by my money mechanic, would be somehow meaningful (even on a symbolic level), and wouldn't be in conflict with my last point, which is simplicity?

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  • Is catching general exceptions really a bad thing?

    - by Bob Horn
    I typically agree with most code analysis warnings, and I try to adhere to them. However, I'm having a harder time with this one: CA1031: Do not catch general exception types I understand the rationale for this rule. But, in practice, if I want to take the same action regardless of the exception thrown, why would I handle each one specifically? Furthermore, if I handle specific exceptions, what if the code I'm calling changes to throw a new exception in the future? Now I have to change my code to handle that new exception. Whereas if I simply caught Exception my code doesn't have to change. For example, if Foo calls Bar, and Foo needs to stop processing regardless of the type of exception thrown by Bar, is there any advantage in being specific about the type of exception I'm catching?

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  • How to utilize miniMax algorithm in Checkers game

    - by engineer
    I am sorry...as there are too many articles about it.But I can't simple get this. I am confused in the implementation of AI. I have generated all possible moves of computer's type pieces. Now I can't decide the flow. Whether I need to start a loop for the possible moves of each piece and assign score to it.... or something else is to be done. Kindly tell me the proper flow/algorithm for this. Thanks

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  • Help in (re)designing my Swing application

    - by Harihar Das
    I have developed a Swing application that controls execution of several script like jobs. I need to display the interim output of the jobs concurrently. I have followed MVC while writing the application. The application is working as expected. But off late I have the following requirements in hand: A few of the script jobs need special user privileges to execute so as to access specialized resources. There seems to be now way in Java to impersonate as a different user while running an application.[examined in this question]. Also trying to run the Swing application as a scheduled task in windows is not helping. Once started the jobs should be running even if the user logs off after starting the jobs. I am thinking of separating the execution logic from the UI and run that as a service; and introduce JMS in between the two layers so as to store/retrieve the interim the output. Note: I need to run this application on windows Any ideas on meeting my requirements will be highly appreciated.

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  • When do you use a struct instead of a class?

    - by jkohlhepp
    What are your rules of thumb for when to use structs vs. classes? I'm thinking of the C# definition of those terms but if your language has similar concepts I'd like to hear your opinion as well. I tend to use classes for almost everything, and use structs only when something is very simplistic and should be a value type, such as a PhoneNumber or something like that. But this seems like a relatively minor use and I hope there are more interesting use cases.

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  • Gamification: designing cooperation in an RPG like game based on Scrum methodology

    - by Grzegorz Slawecki
    I have implemented with 3 friends a gamified system at my work (development company) which builds an fantasy rpg game over scrum project methodology. Generally, the tasks are the missions, each player is represented by a character. They earn XPs for completing tasks and they advance to the next levels which gives them badges, titles and (this is in planning phase) new privileges (e.g. priority in choosing tasks). Since the very beginning we try to do everything to avoid rivalisation between players because it would ruin the project if the players started to compete. There are no explicit leaderboards, we also plan to give bonuses for helping other players. I have a feeling that this is still not enough to really encourage cooperation. I would like to ask You for any ideas that come to Your mind that would help.

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  • First time android game development [on hold]

    - by Dave
    My friend and i are developing a android game. This is my first time develop android game, so we don't know how to code The game is 2d game and we develop it without 3rd party engine / framework. Now we got a few questions, hope you can help us. In game play, using 'Surfaceview' only to achieve it. Is it best practice? On 'Surfaceview', a lot of difference button(Menu, pause, game object..etc) is on it, but I don't know how to code it? (actually, i have already done, but...so stupid way. Detect the user touch position (x, y) to identify where they touch[rect(x1,y1,x2,y2).contain(x,y)] Is it right? Teach me how to do if wrong. View / Surfaceview / OpenGL, which is suitable for us? (if like Tetris) Thank you for your help. Ps: My english is not good, hope you can understand what i mean.

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  • Inventory Management concepts in XNA game

    - by user1332755
    I am trying to code the inventory system in my first real game so I have very little experience in both c# and game engine development. Basically, I need some general guidance and tips with how to structure and organize these sorts of systems. Please tell me if I am on the right track or not before I get too deep into making some badly structured system. It's fine if you don't feel like looking through my code, suggestions about general structure would also be appreciated. What I am aiming to end up with is some sort of system like Minecraft or Terraria. It must include: main inventory GUI (items can be dragged and placed in whatever slot desired Itembar outside of the main inventory which can be assigned to certain items the ability to use items from either location So far, I have 4 main classes: Inventory holds the general info and methods, inventoryslot holds info for individual slots, Itembar holds all info and methods for itself, and finally, ItemManager to manage interactions between the two and hold a master list of items. So far, my itembar works perfectly and interacts well with mousedragging items into and out of it as well as activating the item effect. Here is the code I have so far: (there is a lot but I will try to keep it relevant) This is the code for the itembar on the main screen: class Itembar { public Texture2D itembarfull, iSelected; public static Rectangle itembar = new Rectangle(5, 218, 40, 391); public Rectangle box1 = new Rectangle(itembar.X, 218, 40, 40); //up to 10 Rectangles for each slot public int Selected = 0; private ItemManager manager; public Itembar(Texture2D texture, Texture2D texture3, ItemManager mann) { itembarfull = texture; iSelected = texture3; manager = mann; } public void Update(GameTime gametime) { } public void Draw(SpriteBatch spriteBatch) { spriteBatch.Draw( itembarfull, new Vector2 (itembar.X, itembar.Y), null, Color.White, 0.0f, Vector2.Zero, 1.0f, SpriteEffects.None, 1.0f); if (Selected == 1) spriteBatch.Draw(iSelected, new Rectangle(box1.X-3, box1.Y-3, box1.Width+6, box1.Height+6), Color.White); //goes up to 10 slots } public int Box1Query() { foreach (Item item in manager.items) { if(box1.Contains(item.BoundingBox)) return manager.items.IndexOf(item); } return 999; } //10 different box queries It is working fine right now. I just put an Item in there and the box will query things like the item's effects, stack number, consumable or not etc...This one is basically almost complete. Here is the main inventory class: class Inventory { public bool isActive; public List<Rectangle> mainSlots = new List<Rectangle>(24); public List<InventorySlot> mainSlotscheck = new List<InventorySlot>(24); public static Rectangle inv = new Rectangle(841, 469, 156, 231); public Rectangle invfull = new Rectangle(inv.X, inv.Y, inv.Width, inv.Height); public Rectangle inv1 = new Rectangle(inv.X + 4, inv.Y +3, 32, 32); //goes up to inv24 resulting in a 6x4 grid of Rectangles public Inventory() { mainSlots.Add(inv1); mainSlots.Add(inv2); mainSlots.Add(inv3); mainSlots.Add(inv4); //goes up to 24 foreach (Rectangle slot in mainSlots) mainSlotscheck.Add(new InventorySlot(slot)); } //update and draw methods are empty because im not too sure what to put there public int LookforfreeSlot() { int slotnumber = 999; for (int x = 0; x < mainSlots.Count; x++) { if (mainSlotscheck[x].isFree) { slotnumber = x; break; } } return slotnumber; } } } LookforFreeSlot() method is meant to be called when I do AddtoInventory(). I'm kinda stumped about what other things I need to put in this class. Here is the inventorySlot class: (its main purpose is to check the bool "isFree" to see whether or not something already occupies the slot. But i guess it can also do other stuff like get item info.) class InventorySlot { public int X, Y; public int Width = 32, Height = 32; public Vector2 Position; public int slotnumber; public bool free = true; public int? content = null; public bool isFree { get { return free; } set { free = value; } } public InventorySlot(Rectangle slot) { slot = new Rectangle(X, Y, Width, Height); } } } Finally, here is the ItemManager (I am omitting the master list because it is too long) class ItemManager { public List<Item> items = new List<Item>(20); public List<Item> inventory1 = new List<Item>(24); public List<Item> inventory2 = new List<Item>(24); public List<Item> inventory3 = new List<Item>(24); public List<Item> inventory4 = new List<Item>(24); public Texture2D icon, filta; private Rectangle msRect; MouseState mouseState; public int ISelectedIndex; Inventory inventory; SpriteFont font; public void GenerateItems() { items.Add(new Item(new Rectangle(0, 0, 32, 32), icon, font)); items[0].name = "Grass Chip"; items[0].itemID = 0; items[0].consumable = true; items[0].stackable = true; items[0].maxStack = 99; items.Add(new Item(new Rectangle(32, 0, 32, 32), icon, font)); //master list continues. it will generate all items in the game; } public ItemManager(Inventory inv, Texture2D itemsheet, Rectangle mouseRectt, MouseState ms, Texture2D fil, SpriteFont f) { icon = itemsheet; msRect = mouseRectt; filta = fil; mouseState = ms; inventory = inv; font = f; } //once again, no update or draw public void mousedrag() { items[0].DestinationRect = new Rectangle (msRect.X, msRect.Y, 32, 32); items[0].dragging = true; } public void AddtoInventory(Item item) { int index = inventory.LookforfreeSlot(); if (index == 999) return; item.DestinationRect = inventory.mainSlots[index]; inventory.mainSlotscheck[index].content = item.itemID; inventory.mainSlotscheck[index].isFree = false; item.IsActive = true; } } } The mousedrag works pretty well. AddtoInventory doesn't work because LookforfreeSlot doesn't work. Relevant code from the main program: When I want to add something to the main inventory, I do something like this: foreach (Particle ether in ether1.ethers) { if (ether.isCollected) itemmanager.AddtoInventory(itemmanager.items[14]); } This turned out to be much longer than I had expected :( But I hope someone is interested enough to comment.

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  • What are some good examples of exuberant in-game instructions for telling the player to repeatedly smash a button?

    - by Michael
    What are some good examples of exuberant in-game instructions for telling the player to repeatedly and quickly press a button or perform an action? I'm especially interested in examples in retro games (e.g., from the NES, SNES, and 1980-90s arcade eras), and I would love to see examples with text, graphics, or both. To illustrate, here are a few examples of the type of instructions that I'm thinking of: Smash the A button to lift something heavy! Toggle the joystick back and forth to break free! Quickly press the button to build power in a meter! I'm working on a 2D iOS game with retro-style pixel art, and there's a point where I want the player to quickly tap on a sprite to complete an action. I have a serviceable starting point -- the word "TAP" flashing with an arrow repeatedly moving downward beneath it: But it still doesn't feel quite right. I would love to see some actual examples from the golden days of 2D gaming to use as reference material. I know examples abound, but I'm just struggling to think of any concrete ones at the moment. Can you think of any examples of this type of thing in old games?

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  • Notifying a separate application of an event

    - by TomDestry
    I have an application that runs through various tasks as an automated process. My client would like me to create a file in a given folder for each task as a way to flag when each task completes. They prefer this to a database flag because they can be notified by the file system rather than continually polling a database table. I can do this but creating and deleting files as flags feels clunky. Is there a more elegant approach to notifying a third-party of an event?

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  • How to Set Background for Racing Game

    - by Nathiya
    I am new to game development and AndEngine. I have small query about racing game. I am going to develop a bike racing game. For bike racing game we will move the background or the player. I am tried with andengine autoparallax background. But I didn't got the correct answer. I need to do a background like these screenshots in SpeedMoto. Can anyone help me to set the background.

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  • Move Background in AndEngine for a Racing Game

    - by Nathiya
    I am new to game development and AndEngine. I have small query about racing game. I am going to develop a bike racing game. For bike racing game we will move the background or the player. I am tried with andengine autoparallax background. But I didn't got the correct answer. I need to do a background like these screenshots in SpeedMoto. Can anyone help me to set the background.

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  • NoSQL as file meta database

    - by fga
    I am trying to implement a virtual file system structure in front of an object storage (Openstack). For availability reasons we initially chose Cassandra, however while designing file system data model, it looked like a tree structure similar to a relational model. Here is the dilemma for availability and partition tolerance we need NoSQL, but our data model is relational. The intended file system must be able to handle filtered search based on date, name etc. as fast as possible. So what path should i take? Stick to relational with some indexing mechanism backed by 3 rd tools like Apache Solr or dig deeper into NoSQL and find a suitable model and database satisfying the model? P.S: Currently from NoSQL Cassandra or MongoDB are choices proposed by my colleagues.

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  • Android Development: MVC vs MVVM

    - by Mel
    I've started coding for android and I'm having difficulty trying to properly partition my code. I always end up with a very tight coupling between my UI logic and the actual controls I use to represent them. I have background in both WPF MVVM and ASP.net MVC so I'm familiar with those patterns. After some digging, I found Android Binding. It seems nice and fits nicely with my WPF background. However, it bugs me that its not built in. I'm pretty sure that the android makers have thought of this when designing the android programming interface. So my question is, what is the best practice pattern to use when developing in android, if any. I have looked and looked at their site but didn't find anything...

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  • Visual Basic link to SQL output to Word

    - by CLO_471
    I am in need of some advice/references. I am currently trying to develop a legal document interface. There are certain fields in which I need to query out of my sql db and have those fields output into a document that can be printed. I am trying to develop a user interface where people can enter fields that will output to a document template but at the same time I need the template to be able to pull data from the SQL database. This is the reason why I think that VB might be my best choice and because it is one of the only OOP languages I am familiar with presently. Does anyone know that best way to be able to handle this type of job?? I know that you can use VBA within MS Word and have the form output variables to a word template. But, is there a way to have the word document also pull information from the SQL db? Is the best option to use VB linked to SQL and run queries to get the information from the database and then have it output to a for within VB? Is it possible for VB to be linked to a SQL db and output variables and SQL fields to a Word Template? I have looked into Mail Merge and I see that it allows users to pull data from an Access query but I dont think it would be easy to automate and it seems that users would need to have an advanced knowledge of MS Word and Access to handle this. I am not finding much useful information online so I came here. Any advice or references would be greatly appreciated. If there is a better way please let me know.

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