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• Design: How to model / where to store relational data between classes

  - by Walker

  I'm trying to figure out the best design here, and I can see multiple approaches, but none that seems "right." There are three relevant classes here: Base, TradingPost, and Resource. Each Base has a TradingPost which can offer various Resources depending on the Base's tech level. Where is the right place to store the minimum tech level a base must possess to offer any given resource? A database seems like overkill. Putting it in each subclass of Resource seems wrong--that's not an intrinsic property of the Resource. Do I have a mediating class, and if so, how does it work? It's important that I not be duplicating code; that I have one place where I set the required tech level for a given item. Essentially, where does this data belong? P.S. Feel free to change the title; I struggled to come up with one that fits.

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• Rendering transparent textures in directX

  - by Vibhore Tanwer

  I am working with a directX application with WPF, I am facing a problem with videos and images that contains transparent pixels, I have to draw a color in background an then a video/image over it. What I expect is background color should be visible while playing video only non transparent pixels should be visible but what I get is a black background behind the video. I am using following settings on device to achieve alpha blending : device.RenderState.SourceBlend = Blend.SourceAlpha; device.RenderState.DestinationBlend = Blend.InvSourceAlpha; device.RenderState.AlphaBlendEnable = true; What am I missing here? What is the best approach to handle transparent videos? Any help will be of great value to me.

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• What library for octrees or kd-trees?

  - by Will

  Are there any robust performant libraries for indexing objects? It would need frustum culling and visiting objects hit by a ray as well as neighbourhood searches. I can find lots of articles showing the math for the component parts, often as algebra rather than simple C, but nothing that puts it all together (apart from perhaps Ogre, which has rather more involved and isn't so stand-alone). Surely hobby game makers don't all have to make their own octrees? (Python or C/C++ w/bindings preferred)

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• Need some help implementing VBO's with Frustum Culling

  - by Isracg

  i'm currently developing my first 3D game for a school project, the game world is completely inspired by minecraft (world completely made out of cubes). I'm currently seeking to improve the performance trying to implement vertex buffer objects but i'm stuck, i already have this methods implemented: Frustum culling, only drawing exposed faces and distance culling but i have the following doubts: I currently have about 2^24 cubes in my world, divided in 1024 chunks of 16*16*64 cubes, right now i'm doing immediate mode rendering, which works well with frustum culling, if i implement one VBO per chunk, do i have to update that VBO each time i move the camera (to update the frustum)? is there a performance hit with this? Can i dynamically change the size of each VBO? of do i have to make each one the biggest possible size (the chunk completely filled with objects)?. Would i have to keep each visited chunk in memory or could i efficiently remove that VBO and recreated it when needed?.

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• Multiplayer tile based movement synchronization

  - by Mars

  I have to synchronize the movement of multiple players over the Internet, and I'm trying to figure out the safest way to do that. The game is tile based, you can only move in 4 directions, and every move moves the sprite 32px (over time of course). Now, if I would simply send this move action to the server, which would broadcast it to all players, while the walk key is kept being pressed down, to keep walking, I have to take this next command, send it to the server, and to all clients, in time, or the movement won't be smooth anymore. I saw this in other games, and it can get ugly pretty quick, even without lag. So I'm wondering if this is even a viable option. This seems like a very good method for single player though, since it's easy, straight forward (, just take the next movement action in time and add it to a list), and you can easily add mouse movement (clicking on some tile), to add a path to a queue, that's walked along. The other thing that came to my mind was sending the information that someone started moving in some direction, and again once he stopped or changed the direction, together with the position, so that the sprite will appear at the correct position, or rather so that the position can be fixed if it's wrong. This should (hopefully) only make problems if someone really is lagging, in which case it's to be expected. For this to work out I'd need some kind of queue though, where incoming direction changes and stuff are saved, so the sprite knows where to go, after the current movement to the next tile is finished. This could actually work, but kinda sounds overcomplicated. Although it might be the only way to do this, without risk of stuttering. If a stop or direction change is received on the client side it's saved in a queue and the char keeps moving to the specified coordinates, before stopping or changing direction. If the new command comes in too late there'll be stuttering as well of course... I'm having a hard time deciding for a method, and I couldn't really find any examples for this yet. My main problem is keeping the tile movement smooth, which is why other topics regarding synchronization of pixel based movement aren't helping too much. What is the "standard" way to do this?

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• RPG Item processing

  - by f00b4r

  I started working on an item system for my (first) game, and I'm having a problem conceptualizing how it should work. Since Items can produce a bunch of potentially non-standard actions (revive a character vs increasing some stat) or have use restrictions (can only revive if a character is dead). For obvious reasons, I don't want to create a new Item class for every item type. What is the best way to handle this? Should I make a handful of item types (field modifiers, status modifiers, )? Is it normal to script item usage? Could (should?) this be combined with the above mentioned solution (have a couple of different sub item types, make special case items usage scripted)? Thanks.

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• Improving the efficiency of my bloom/glow shader

  - by user1157885

  I'm making a neon style game where everything is glowing but the glow I have is kinda small and I want to know if there's an efficient way to increase the size of it other than increasing the pixel sample iterations. Right now I have something like this: float4 glowColor = tex2D(glowSampler, uvPixel); //Makes the inital lines brighter/closer to white if (glowColor.r != 0 || glowColor.g != 0 || glowColor.b != 0) { glowColor += 0.5; } //Loops over the weights and offsets and samples from the pixels based on those numbers for (int i = 0; i < 20; i++) { glowColor += tex2D(glowSampler, uvPixel + glowOffsets[i] + 0.0018) * glowWeights[i]; } finalColor += glowColor; for the offsets it moves up, down, left and right (5 times each so it loops over 20 times) and the weights just lower the glow amount the further away it gets. The method I was using before to increase it was to increase the number of iterations from 20 to 40 and to increase the size of the offset/weight array but my computer started to have FPS drops when I was doing this so I was wondering how can I make the glow bigger/more vibrant without making it so CPU/Gcard intensive?

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• Why does my VertexDeclaration apparently not contain Position0?

  - by Phil

  I'm trying to get my code from calling each individual draw call down to using at least a VertexBuffer, and preferably an indexBuffer, but now that I'm attempting to test my code, I'm getting the error: The current vertex declaration does not include all the elements required by the current vertex shader. Position0 is missing. Which makes absolutely no sense to me, as my VertexDeclaration is: public readonly static VertexDeclaration VertexDeclaration = new VertexDeclaration( new VertexElement(0, VertexElementFormat.Vector3, VertexElementUsage.Position, 0), new VertexElement(sizeof(float) * 3, VertexElementFormat.Color, VertexElementUsage.Color, 0), new VertexElement(sizeof(float) * 3 + 4, VertexElementFormat.Vector3, VertexElementUsage.Normal, 0) ); Which clearly contains the information. I am attempting to draw with the following lines: VertexBuffer vb = new VertexBuffer(GraphicsDevice, VertexPositionColorNormal.VertexDeclaration, c.VertexList.Count, BufferUsage.WriteOnly); IndexBuffer ib = new IndexBuffer(GraphicsDevice, typeof(int), c.IndexList.Count, BufferUsage.WriteOnly); vb.SetData<VertexPositionColorNormal>(c.VertexList.ToArray()); ib.SetData<int>(c.IndexList.ToArray()); GraphicsDevice.DrawIndexedPrimitives(PrimitiveType.TriangleList, 0, 0, vb.VertexCount, 0, c.IndexList.Count/3); Where c is a Chunk class containing an 8x8x8 array of boxes. Full code is available at https://github.com/mrbaggins/Box/tree/ProperMeshing/box/box. Relevant locations are Chunk.cs (Contains the VertexDeclaration) and Game1.cs (Draw() is in Lines 230-250). Not much else of relevance to this problem anywhere else. Note that large commented sections are from old version of drawing.

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• Must all AI states be able to react to any event?

  - by Prog

  FSMs implemented with the State design pattern are a common way to design AI agents. I am familiar with the State design pattern and know how to implement it. How is this used in games to design AI agents? Consider a simplified class Monster, representing an AI agent: class Monster { State state; // other fields omitted public void update(){ // called every game-loop cycle state.execute(this); } public void setState(State state){ this.state = state; } // irrelevant stuff omitted } There are several State subclasses implementing execute() differently. So far, classic State pattern. AI agents are subject to environmental effects and other objects communicating with them. For example, an AI agent might tell another AI agent to attack (i.e. agent.attack()). Or a fireball might tell an AI agent to fall down. This means that the agent must have methods such as attack() and fallDown(), or commonly some message receiving mechanism to understand such messages. With an FSM, the current State of the agent should be the one taking care of such method calls - i.e. the agent delegates to the current state upon every event. Is this correct? If correct, how is this done? Are all states obligated by their superclass to implement methods such as attack(), fallDown() etc., so the agent can always delegate to them on almost every event? Or is it done in some other way?

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• Can I use copyrighted images and music in my game? [duplicate]

  - by Aman Grover

  This question already has an answer here: Using modified copyrighted music in non-commercial games 3 answers I am working on my first ever project , and I have used some copyrighted images(images taken from some other well recognized games). Is it even possible that I edit the images a little bit and then use them as royalty free images? If not, then can anyone tell me some web links from where I can get royalty free images?

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• What causes the iOS OpenGLES driver to allocate extra memory?

  - by Martin Linklater

  I'm trying to optimize the memory usage of our iOS game and I'm puzzled about when/why the iOS GLES driver allocates extra memory at runtime... When I run our game through Instruments with the OpenGL ES Driver instrument the gartUsedBytes value can fluctuate quite wildly. We preload all our textures and build the buffer objects up front, so it's not the game engine requesting extra memory from GL. Currently we are manually requesting around 50MB of GL memory, yet the gartUsedBytes value sits at around 90MB most of the time, peaking at 125MB from time to time. It seems to be linked to what you are rendering that frame - our PVS only submits VBO's for visible meshes. Can anyone shed some light on what the driver is doing in the background ? Like I said earlier, all our game engine allocations are done on level load, so in theory there shouldn't be any fluctuation on GL memory usage while the level is running. Thanks.

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• two-part dice pool mechanic

  - by bythenumbers

  I'm working on a dice mechanic/resolution system based off of the Ghost/Echo (hereafter shortened to G/E) tabletop RPG. Specifically, since G/E can be a little harsh with dealing out consequences and failure, I was hoping to soften the system and add a little more player control, as well as offer the chance for players to evolve their characters into something unique, right from creation. So, here's the mechanic: Players roll 2d12 against the two statistics for their character (each is a number from 2-11, and may be rolled above or below depending on the nature of the action attempted, rolling your stat exactly always fails). Depending on the success for that roll, they add dice to the pool rolled for a modified G/E style action. The acting player gets two dice anyhow, and I am debating offering a bonus die for each success, or a single bonus die for succeeding on both of the statistic-compared rolls. One the size of the dice pool is set, the entire pool is rolled, and the players are allowed to assign rolled dice to a goal and a danger. Assigned results are judged as follows: 1-4 means the attempted goal fails, or the danger comes true. 5-8 is a partial success at the goal, or partially avoiding the danger. 9-12 means the goal is achieved, or the danger avoided. My concerns are twofold: Firstly, that the two-stage action is too complicated, with two rolls to judge separately before anything can happen. Secondly, that the statistics involved go too far in softening the game. I've run some basic simulations, and the approximate statistics follow: 2 dice (up to) 3 dice (up to) 4 dice failure ~33% ~25% ~20% partial ~33% ~35% ~35% success ~33% ~40% ~45% I'd appreciate any advice that addresses my concerns or offers to refine my simulation (right now the first roll is statistically modeled as sign(1d12-1d12), where 0 is a success).

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• How do you maintain content size vs. content quality in an application?

  - by PeterK

  I am developing my first Cocos2d iPhone/iPad game that includes quite a few sprites, I would need approximately 80 different. As this is for both normal and HD displays I have 2x of each sprite. I am using TexturePacker to optimize the thing. I would like to ask if there are any rules-of-thumb, tricks, ideas etc. to adjust to in regards to size of content, quality and how you maintain high-quality HD-based graphics due to its size vs. the device memory sizes? Also, is it a good idea to only have one copy of the sprites and scale it using code?

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• Non-unique display names?

  - by Davy8

  I know of at least big title game (Starcraft II) that doesn't require unique display names, so it would seem like it can work in at least some circumstance. Under what situations does allowing non-unique display names work well? When does it not work well? Does it come down to whether or not impersonation of someone else is a problem? The reasons I believe it works for Starcraft II is that there isn't any kind of in-game trading of virtual goods and other than "for kicks" there isn't much incentive to impersonate someone else in the game. There's also ladder rankings so even trying to impersonate a pro is easily detectable unless you're on a similar skill level. What are some other cases where it makes sense to specifically allow or disallow duplicate display names? (I have no idea what to tag this as. I went with game-design because I needed at least 1 tag and I don't have rep to create new ones yet.)

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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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• Efficient way of detecting a touched object in a game?

  - by Pin

  Imagine a Sims-like 2D game for a touch based mobile phone where one can interact with virtually any object in the scene. How can I efficiently detect which object is being touched by the player? In my short experience, looping through all the visible objects in the scene and checking if they're touched has so far done the job, but when there may be many many moving objects in the screen that sounds kind of inefficient isn't it? Keeping the visible moving objects list can consume time in itself as one may have to loop through all of them each frame. Other solutions I've thought are: Spatial hashing. Divide the screen as a grid and place the visible objects in the corresponding bucket. Detection of the clicked object is fast but there's additional overhead for placing the objects in the correct bucket each frame. Maintaining a quad-tree. Moving objects have to be rearranged all the time, the previous solution looks better. What is usually done in this case?

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• HTML5 game programming style

  - by fnx

  I am currently trying learn javascript in form of HTML5 games. Stuff that I've done so far isn't too fancy since I'm still a beginner. My biggest concern so far has been that I don't really know what is the best way to code since I don't know the pros and cons of different methods, nor I've found any good explanations about them. So far I've been using the worst (and propably easiest) method of all (I think) since I'm just starting out, for example like this: var canvas = document.getElementById("canvas"); var ctx = canvas.getContext("2d"); var width = 640; var height = 480; var player = new Player("pic.png", 100, 100, ...); also some other global vars... function Player(imgSrc, x, y, ...) { this.sprite = new Image(); this.sprite.src = imgSrc; this.x = x; this.y = y; ... } Player.prototype.update = function() { // blah blah... } Player.prototype.draw = function() { // yada yada... } function GameLoop() { player.update(); player.draw(); setTimeout(GameLoop, 1000/60); } However, I've seen a few examples on the internet that look interesting, but I don't know how to properly code in these styles, nor do I know if there are names for them. These might not be the best examples but hopefully you'll get the point: 1: Game = { variables: { width: 640, height: 480, stuff: value }, init: function(args) { // some stuff here }, update: function(args) { // some stuff here }, draw: function(args) { // some stuff here }, }; // from http://codeincomplete.com/posts/2011/5/14/javascript_pong/ 2: function Game() { this.Initialize = function () { } this.LoadContent = function () { this.GameLoop = setInterval(this.RunGameLoop, this.DrawInterval); } this.RunGameLoop = function (game) { this.Update(); this.Draw(); } this.Update = function () { // update } this.Draw = function () { // draw game frame } } // from http://www.felinesoft.com/blog/index.php/2010/09/accelerated-game-programming-with-html5-and-canvas/ 3: var engine = {}; engine.canvas = document.getElementById('canvas'); engine.ctx = engine.canvas.getContext('2d'); engine.map = {}; engine.map.draw = function() { // draw map } engine.player = {}; engine.player.draw = function() { // draw player } // from http://that-guy.net/articles/ So I guess my questions are: Which is most CPU efficient, is there any difference between these styles at runtime? Which one allows for easy expandability? Which one is the most safe, or at least harder to hack? Are there any good websites where stuff like this is explained? or... Does it all come to just personal preferance? :)

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• Getting a texture from a renderbuffer in OpenGL?

  - by Rushyo

  I've got a renderbuffer (DepthStencil) in an FBO and I need to get a texture from it. I can't have both a DepthComponent texture and a DepthStencil renderbuffer in the FBO, it seems, so I need some way to convert the renderbuffer to a DepthComponent texture after I'm done with it for use later down the pipeline. I've tried plenty of techniques to grab the depth component from the renderbuffer for weeks but I always come out with junk. All I want at the end is the same texture I'd get from an FBO if I wasn't using a renderbuffer. Can anyone post some comprehensive instructions or code that covers this seemingly simple operation? EDIT: Linky to an extract version of the code http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9279501/fbo.cs Screeny of the Depth of Field effect + FBO - without depth(!) http://i.stack.imgur.com/Hj9Oe.jpg Screeny without Depth of Field effect + FBO - depth working fine http://i.stack.imgur.com/boOm1.jpg

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• How to blend the sprite into background?

  - by optimisez

  I try to blend the character into game but I still cannot remove the blue color in the sprite sheet and discover that the white area of sprite is semi-transparent. Before that, the color D3DCOLOR_XRGB(255, 255, 255) is set in D3DXCreateTextureFromFileEx. You will see the fireball through the sprite. After I change the color to D3DCOLOR_XRGB(0, 255, 255), the result will be Now, I am trying to remove the blue color of the sprite sheet and my expected result is something like that Until now, I still cannot figure out how to do that. Any ideas? void initPlayer() { // Create texture. hr = D3DXCreateTextureFromFileEx(d3dDevice, "player.png", 169, 44, D3DX_DEFAULT, NULL, D3DFMT_A8R8G8B8, D3DPOOL_MANAGED, D3DX_DEFAULT, D3DX_DEFAULT, D3DCOLOR_XRGB(0, 255, 255), NULL, NULL, &player); } void renderPlayer() { sprite->Draw(player, &playerRect, NULL, &D3DXVECTOR3(playerDest.X, playerDest.Y, 0),D3DCOLOR_XRGB(255, 255, 255)); } void initFireball() { hr = D3DXCreateTextureFromFileEx(d3dDevice, "fireball.png", 512, 512, D3DX_DEFAULT, NULL, D3DFMT_A8R8G8B8, D3DPOOL_MANAGED, D3DX_DEFAULT, D3DX_DEFAULT, D3DCOLOR_XRGB(255, 255, 255), NULL, NULL, &fireball); } void renderFireball() { sprite->Draw(fireball, &fireballRect, NULL, &D3DXVECTOR3(fireballDest.X, fireballDest.Y, 0), D3DCOLOR_XRGB(255,255, 255)); }

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• Why my collision detection is not accurate?

  - by optimisez

  After trying and trying, I still cannot understand why the leg of character exceeds the wall but no clipping issue when I hit the wall from below. How should I fix it to make him standstill on the wall? void initPlayer() { // Create texture. hr = D3DXCreateTextureFromFileEx(d3dDevice, "player.png", 169, 44, D3DX_DEFAULT, NULL, D3DFMT_A8R8G8B8, D3DPOOL_MANAGED, D3DX_DEFAULT, D3DX_DEFAULT, D3DCOLOR_XRGB(255, 255, 255), NULL, NULL, &player); playerRect.left = playerRect.top = 0; playerRect.right = 29; playerRect.bottom = 36; playerDest.X = 0; playerDest.Y = 564; playerDest.length = playerRect.right - playerRect.left; playerDest.height = playerRect.bottom - playerRect.top; } void initBox() { hr = D3DXCreateTextureFromFileEx(d3dDevice, "brock.png", 330, 132, D3DX_DEFAULT, NULL, D3DFMT_A8R8G8B8, D3DPOOL_MANAGED, D3DX_DEFAULT, D3DX_DEFAULT, D3DCOLOR_XRGB(255, 255, 255), NULL, NULL, &box); boxRect.left = 33; boxRect.top = 0; boxRect.right = 63; boxRect.bottom = 30; boxDest.X = boxDest.Y = 300; boxDest.length = boxRect.right - boxRect.left; boxDest.height = boxRect.bottom - boxRect.top; } bool spriteCollide(Entity player, Entity target) { float left1, left2; float right1, right2; float top1, top2; float bottom1, bottom2; left1 = player.X; left2 = target.X; right1 = player.X + player.length; right2 = target.X + target.length; top1 = player.Y; top2 = target.Y; bottom1 = player.Y + player.height; bottom2 = target.Y + target.height; if (bottom1 < top2) return false; if (top1 > bottom2) return false; if (right1 < left2) return false; if (left1 > right2) return false; return true; } void collideWithBox() { if ( spriteCollide(playerDest, boxDest) && keyArr[VK_UP]) //playerDest.Y += 50; playerDest.Y = boxDest.Y + boxDest.height; else if ( spriteCollide(playerDest, boxDest) && !keyArr[VK_UP]) playerDest.Y = boxDest.Y - boxDest.height; }

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• How to set orthgraphic matrix for a 2d camera with zooming?

  - by MahanGM

  I'm using ID3DXSprite to draw my sprites and haven't set any kind of camera projection matrix. How to setup an orthographic projection matrix for camera in DirectX which it would be able to support zoom functionality? D3DXMATRIX orthographicMatrix; D3DXMATRIX identityMatrix; D3DXMatrixOrthoLH(&orthographicMatrix, nScreenWidth, nScreenHeight, 0.0f, 1.0f); D3DXMatrixIdentity(&identityMatrix); device->SetTransform(D3DTS_PROJECTION, &orthographicMatrix); device->SetTransform(D3DTS_WORLD, &identityMatrix); device->SetTransform(D3DTS_VIEW, &identityMatrix); This code is for initial setup. Then, for zooming I multiply zoom factor in nScreenWidth and nScreenHeight.

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• Algorithm to simplify building/structural meshes

  - by morpheus

  I am looking for an algorithm to simplify the meshes of buildings or similar structures. EDIT: I had made a comment that Hoppe's algorithm tends to make meshes more and more spherical with simplification. But, I am not sure about it, so am deleting the comment. Buildings in contrast should tend to become more and more rectangular with increasing simplification. The D3DX extensions for D3D in version 9.0 (d3dx9.lib) used to have classes to do progressive mesh simplification. See: http://doc.51windows.net/Directx9_SDK/?url=/directx9_sdk/graphics/reference/d3dx/functions/mesh/d3dxgeneratepmesh.htm http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb281243(v=vs.85).aspx

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• How many achievements should I include, and of what challenge?

  - by stephelton

  I know this question is fairy broad and subjective, but I'm wondering if there's been any published research into what an optimal number of achievements is and what kind of challenge they should present. The game this question directly relates to is a shoot-em-up, but an ideal answer is fairly theoretical. If there are there are too few achievements, or they are not challenging, I would expect they would fail in their goal to keep people playing. If there are too many, or they are unreasonably difficult, I would expect people to quickly give up. I personally witnessed the latter happening in Starcraft 2; a section of the achievements would have you win hundreds of games against their AI opponents (boring!)

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• What game systems exist which uses camera input?

  - by Marc Pilgaard

  The group and I is in the middle of a semester project where we are currently researching on which game systems are using camera as input or as an interactive medium? We would like some help listing some of the game systems which uses camera input, as it seems hard to find other examples. Currently we know that webcam browser games uses camera input (Newgrounds webcam games), as well as the xbox kinect. I know this questions seems rather vague, though I still hope some people is capable of helping.

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• How to apply effects that occur (or change) over time to characters in a game?

  - by Joshua Harris

  So assume that I have a system that applies Effects to Characters like so: public class Character { private Collection<Effect> _effects; public void AddEffect (Effect e) { e.ApplyTo(this); _effects.Add(e); } public void RemoveEffect (Effect e) { e.RemoveFrom(this); _effects.Remove(e); } } public interface Effect { public void ApplyTo (Character character); public void RemoveFrom (Character character); } Example Effect: Armor Buff for 5 seconds. void someFunction() { // Do Stuff ... Timer armorTimer = new Timer(5 seconds); ArmorBuff armorbuff = new ArmorBuff(); character.AddEffect(armorBuff); armorTimer.Start(); // Do more stuff ... } // Some where else in code public void ArmorTimer_Complete() { character.RemoveEffect(armorBuff); } public class ArmorBuff implements Effect { public void applyTo(Character character) { character.changeArmor(20); } public void removeFrom(Character character) { character.changeArmor(-20); } } Ok, so this example would buff the Characters armor for 5 seconds. Easy to get working. But what about effects that change over the duration of the effect being applied. Two examples come to mind: Damage Over Time: 200 damage every second for 3 seconds. I could mimic this by applying an Effect that lasts for 1 second and has a counter set to 3, then when it is removed it could deal 200 damage, clone itself, decrement the counter of the clone, and apply the clone to the character. If it repeats this until the counter is 0, then you got a damage over time ability. I'm not a huge fan of this approach, but it does describe the behavior exactly. Degenerating Speed Boost: Gain a speed boost that degrades over 3 seconds until you return to your normal speed. This is a bit harder. I can basically do the same thing as above except having timers set to some portion of a second, such that they occur fast enough to give the appearance of degenerating smoothly over time (even though they are really just stepping down incrementally). I feel like you could get away with only 12 steps over a second (maybe less, I would have to test it and see), but this doesn't seem very elegant to me. The only other way to implement this effect would be to change the system so that the Character checks the _effects collection for effects that alter any of the properties any time that they are being used. I could handle this in functions like getCurrentSpeed() and getCurrentArmor(), but you can imagine how much of a hassle it would be to have that kind of overhead every time you want to do a calculation with movement speed (which would be every time you move your character). Is there a better way to deal with these kinds of effects or events?

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