Programming

This ties into my previous post, where I spoke about how to get your game or app on Xbox One. Microsoft unveiled quiet a bit of information regarding SmartGlass during BUILD 2012, and much of it is available **via this Power Point presentation.**Ignore most of the C++ in there; I never had to touch any of that. All of my work was done via JavaScript and it worked fine. I also spoke about SmartGlass development on this week’s Hanselminutes podcast. ...

“I want to get started with making games, but I don’t know how. Where should I start?” It can be overwhelming when you are starting off, because there are so many options available to you. I mean just look at plethora of game making tools at Pixel Prospetor, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. If you have zero programming experience, then I’d suggest starting with Construct2. Construct 2 allows you to create HTML5 games without ever having to write code. Everything is handled in the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) which has a GUI (Graphical User Interface) that anyone could use. You simply drag-and-drop objects into your scene, and can make changes to the objects properties by right clicking. Even better, it’s free! There are premium versions available, but if you’re just starting off, then the free version offers more than enough to get you going. ...

So now that November 15th has finally arrived, I can say what I’ve been working on lately; a new game with the Unreal Engine 4. I’m still under NDA, and I can’t post any screens just yet, but rest assured that the engine is vastly improved from what UDK was, in terms of both usability and performance. Epic has a number of videos available online, so you can see what the workflow is like. ...

Click here to play Super Rawr-Type Redux Source Code: https://github.com/DaveVoyles/Super-Rawr-Type-Redux I’ve spent the last 3 months working on the follow up to my previous game, Super Rawr-Type. It was a simple side scrolling 2D shmup, which I wrote in JavaScript and also ported to Windows 8. One bug prevents me from getting it into the store, and I’m not able to replicate it, so who knows if it will ever be released there. ...

For some time now I’ve been building HTML5 apps for Windows 8. I had previously done work in C# and XAML (Spell and Speak, Pizong, and two Unity games), but prefer HTML5 and JavaScript for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it allows me to build apps for multiple platforms while only having to make marginal tweaks for each one. Naturally, each platform comes with its own ups and downs, but I haven’t really had any issues with Windows 8 until I started integrating jQuery. ...

Loading Super Rawr-Type within the Win8 touch simulator For the last two weeks or so I’ve been working out bugs in Super Rawr-Type and integrating touch controls for the Windows 8 port. This is the first time I’ve ever created touch controls, so it took a bit to understand how they work, specifically with toggling the joystick for movement and stationary buttons for shooting, switching weapons, and activating powerups. What proved most difficult for me really was not having a machine to test my controls on. I’ve had to rely on the simulator thus far, which basically runs a virtual machine on your desktop, wrapped a shell that appears like a Win8 tablet. The buttons on the right hand side emulate figure gestures, so you can view and understand how your own touches will affect the game. ...

When building my Win8 port of Super Rawr-Type, I ran into all sorts of performance issues, due to lack of optimization. This was to be expected, as I on gave myself 1 month to complete the base game, then I would take the second and final month to port it to different platforms and worry about optimization. The design of my levels is where most of my issues came from. I explain it pretty well in this post here. The gist of it is this: When the map loads, it is filled with ~150 enemies, which are constantly being updated. Obviously this comes with quite a bit of overhead. The browser version played well, but on a dedicated OS it chugs. ...

[UPDATE] Clarified that I have two classes for my bullet. One which uses pooling, and another that does not use pooling. So my object pooling optimizations don’t seem to be working. I thought I would have seen some improvements in terms of my performance, but I’m just not seeing it. I think one issue is due to the fact that with more objects lying around, the garbage collector takes longer to run. Essentially, the pooling reduces how often the collector runs, but makes those runs more noticeable. ...

So I’m quickly progressing in my newest game, Super Rawr-Typeand am just about to put the finishing touches on it. I’ve given myself one month (30 days) to work on this bad boy. GDC and PAX took up quite a bit of time recently, so I’ve got a few days left to go. It’s far from perfect, but it’ll do. Next month, I’ll focus on publishing to The Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 Stores, as well as wrapping the code in the iOS wrapper. ...

The most difficult part of this project thus far has been understanding the idea behind MVVM, or Model-View-View Model. Wikipedia defines it as: “MVVM facilitates a clear separation of the development of the graphical user interface (either as markup language or GUI code) from the development of the business logic or back end logic known as the model (also known as the data model to distinguish it from the view model). The view model of MVVM is a value converter, meaning that the view model is responsible for exposing the data objects from the model in such a way that those objects are easily managed and consumed” ...