January 28, 2009
So I've been reading the book "Game Design Workshop". Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Game-Design-Workshop-Second-Playcentric/dp/0240809742/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233184029&sr=8-1
It's a pretty good book; I'd definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the topic of Ga…
http://www.amazon.com/Game-Design-Workshop-Second-Playcentric/dp/0240809742/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233184029&sr=8-1
It's a pretty good book; I'd definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the topic of Ga…
January 23, 2009
"Microsoft feels the pain, announces first companywide layoffs"
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/microsoft/2008661458_microsoft23.html
But not on me.
As you may or may not know (and most likely don't even care too much), my day job is a vendor at Microsoft, working on cell-phone/music stuff. So, …
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/microsoft/2008661458_microsoft23.html
But not on me.
As you may or may not know (and most likely don't even care too much), my day job is a vendor at Microsoft, working on cell-phone/music stuff. So, …
January 21, 2009
So I was thinking about piracy and DRM the other day, valid concerns for any indie PC developer. Piracy of straight-up PC games is rampant nowadays, even more so than when I was a kid copying games from my friends. Indie developers in particular don't have the resources to implement complex DRM sch…
January 15, 2009
Shamus Young, in his "Twenty Sided" blog, talks about auto-adjusting difficulty in his post "Auto-Adjusting Frustration":
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=2071
He's specifically talking about where games have a difficulty level setting that gets automatically set based on how well the pl…
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=2071
He's specifically talking about where games have a difficulty level setting that gets automatically set based on how well the pl…
January 12, 2009
Rampant Coyote talks about Intra-Party Conflict and Drama here:
http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/2009/01/its-my-party-whom-ill-defy-if-i-want-to.html
For Untitled SENG Game, party conversations are a required feature, and as yet unimplemented. For those who haven't paid attention, Untitled SENG Game …
http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/2009/01/its-my-party-whom-ill-defy-if-i-want-to.html
For Untitled SENG Game, party conversations are a required feature, and as yet unimplemented. For those who haven't paid attention, Untitled SENG Game …
January 07, 2009
So, I was browsing around some forum or other, and I stumbled across a link to "John H. Kim's Role-Playing Game Page":
http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/index.html
I haven't gotten a chance to really dig into the content yet, but it looks neat. I'm especially interested in the "RPG Theory" and "Sys…
http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/index.html
I haven't gotten a chance to really dig into the content yet, but it looks neat. I'm especially interested in the "RPG Theory" and "Sys…
January 05, 2009
Well, "update", or perhaps more accurately, "lack of update".
So I had two weeks off from work, and I was hoping to get all sorts of work done on Untitled SENG Project. Not only did I not come up with a title, but I made _very_ little progress.
I had been in the process of adding in the "powers" syst…
So I had two weeks off from work, and I was hoping to get all sorts of work done on Untitled SENG Project. Not only did I not come up with a title, but I made _very_ little progress.
I had been in the process of adding in the "powers" syst…
December 13, 2008
Today I'm going to move on with the SENG Game Engine design discussion. You can see the first part of the series here: https://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=503512&reply_id=3346098 In this article I'll move on to the bottom of the engine, the RPG Engine itself.
The …
The …
November 28, 2008
So, I don't actually _play_ pencil-and-paper role playing games anymore. In fact it's probably been a good twenty or twenty five years since I have. However, I do still enjoy reading RPG material; I can claim that I do so to do "research" for my indie game efforts, but really I just enjoy reading t…
November 06, 2008
Well, for the next few articles of "RPG Anvil", I thought I'd take a shot at describing my SENG game engine and its architecture. I don't claim that it is the one true way to architect a game engine or anything like that. But whatever my faults (just ask my kids!), I am a fairly experienced program…
October 28, 2008
So, I released the first version of "To The World Tree" (http://www.prankster.com/ttwt) about a year ago. I initially announced it on a few websites, and entered it in the Independent Games Festival (http://www.igf.com). Since then I haven't really done much with it (though I did make a few new ver…
October 21, 2008
So, how many times have you hit this in an RPG: You're the latest in a long, familial line of butt-kicking heroes. Roegner Smashfist the Fourth, or what have you. You complete a character-specific quest, and win your ancestral sword, wielded through the years by your completely awesome paternal for…
October 04, 2008
Wow, has it really been two weeks since I posted? I guess I really am busy with working a full time job!
I was hoping to post some screenshots of the other two fighting styles I've coded up (with animations): "Two Handed Weapons" and "Dual Wield". I personally think that these add a lot of new optio…
I was hoping to post some screenshots of the other two fighting styles I've coded up (with animations): "Two Handed Weapons" and "Dual Wield". I personally think that these add a lot of new optio…
September 21, 2008
Question: How long does it take to get a contractor ready with an account, email, and a badge? Answer: For a certain large software company in the Northwest, one week and counting. So, thus far I haven't been able to do much at work (source code access is managed through accounts, so no account, no…
September 18, 2008
Well, I'm back to work full-time, doing some consulting for a large software company in the Pacific Northwest. Work on "Untitled SENG Project" will slow greatly at least through the Fall, though I still hope to keep some progress going in my free time. My next chance to get significant work done on…
September 10, 2008
So, as an indie RPG developer, I try to keep an eye on developments in other RPG arenas, and the release of Dungeons & Dragons Version 4 certainly qualifies as a development. While as an indie developer with many other commitments, I don't (God forbid) have time to _play_ D&D, the system is…
August 30, 2008
This summer my main goal for "Untitled SENG Project" was upgrading the game engine. The full-featured demo "To The World Tree" (http://www.prankster.com/ttwt) let me see the good parts and bad of the game engine, and before embarking on creating a full-fledged game, I wanted to make the engine upgr…
August 24, 2008
As I mentioned before (here in this very space), I've been focusing this summer on making code change to the SENG engine. I've just about wrapped up the user-interface changes, so I can share some screenshots here.
For historical purposes, UI v1 was an MFC-based UI, and as such, looked very "Windows…
For historical purposes, UI v1 was an MFC-based UI, and as such, looked very "Windows…
August 15, 2008
In Part 1 I described and recommended Mercurial. In Part 2 I gave a quick primer on installing and setting up Mercurial. Here I make my recommendations for setting up your repository and using Mercurial.
(Quick aside: does anyone know how to link to past posts in the journal? The "link" button nicel…
(Quick aside: does anyone know how to link to past posts in the journal? The "link" button nicel…
August 12, 2008
If you've been paying attention to Merry Prankster Games http://www.prankster.com (and frankly, who hasn't?), you've seen that my last release was the demo game To The World Tree http://www.prankster.com/ttwt. So, what have I been up to since?
In the spring, I was doing consulting programming work o…
In the spring, I was doing consulting programming work o…
August 08, 2008
In Part 1 (https://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=503512&3287731) I discussed source control, and gave a recommendation for using Mercurial. Here I discuss setting up Mercurial.
The main Mercurial website is http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/index.cgi, and a prec…
The main Mercurial website is http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/index.cgi, and a prec…
August 06, 2008
I'm starting a new blog "feature", "RPG Anvil", for discussion of topics related to the creation of a computer RPG, such as programming, design, writing, etc. Perhaps at some point I'll formally introduce what "RPG Anvil" is meant to accomplish, but for now I'm just going to dive right in.
Today's t…
Today's t…
August 04, 2008
Welcome to the Merry Prankster Games Blog. GameDev.net is my latest attempt to run an ongoing blog to chronicle my development efforts.
Introduction: I'm Geoff Dunbar, a long-time computer programmer with occasional indie-game flurries of interest. Merry Prankster Games (http://www.prankster.com) is…
Introduction: I'm Geoff Dunbar, a long-time computer programmer with occasional indie-game flurries of interest. Merry Prankster Games (http://www.prankster.com) is…
August 04, 2008
Welcome to the Merry Prankster Games Blog. GameDev.net is my latest attempt to run an ongoing blog to chronicle my development efforts.
Introduction: I'm Geoff Dunbar, a long-time computer programmer with occasional indie-game flurries of interest. Merry Prankster Games (http://www.prankster.com) is…
Introduction: I'm Geoff Dunbar, a long-time computer programmer with occasional indie-game flurries of interest. Merry Prankster Games (http://www.prankster.com) is…
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