Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 30, 2016

Monopoly has been around since 1933 and it’s been grandfathered into every store and every closet. Most people I know have at least two copies of some kind of novelty Monopoly that they don’t remember receiving. When you tell someone that you’re into board games, they often ask, “oh, you mean like Monopoly ” before you instinctively cringe. Currently rocking a sold 4.4 on BoardGameGeek , Monopoly is the kind of game that board gamers love to hate.

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Asset Games Mechanics Game Design 130

The GameDev Guru

JULY 22, 2016

Lately I have been working during my free time in a rogue-like game prototype and one key aspect of such games is the procedural generation…

Prototyping 100

Prototyping Games 100

Mircosoft Game Dev

DECEMBER 30, 2016

Introduction. It's been a month since the second progress report , and progress continues towards the new Godot renderer. This milestone was (and will likely be) the most difficult, due to the techniques that had to be implemented. As a result, many of the goals for it were not met (will have to be moved to a new Milestone 4), but hopefully everything that remains is simpler.

Render 52

Render Baking Lightmap Shaders 52

Tom Francis

DECEMBER 21, 2016

Surprising news! I made a new video showing off John Roberts’ excellent new art for the game’s four factions! (Not that surprising). I’m looking for a programmer in the Seattle area to help me finish the game! (Seattle part seems surprising). … because I’m moving to Bellevue to work on the game at Valve’s offices!

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Beta Art Games Game Development 52

Sirlin

NOVEMBER 14, 2016

My team and I have been working on Fantasy Strike for almost a year and half now. It's a fighting game featuring the same characters as my Yomi card game and it's unusually easy to play. Here's a diagram of the simple controls: It started out as an experiment to see if we stripped away massive amounts of stuff from the genre, would it still be fun? Even in its early prototype state, it was.

Fantasy 52

Fantasy Alpha Fighting Prototyping 52

Rindoku

OCTOBER 7, 2016

Showing your game to strangers for the first time can be a little nerve wracking. After months of toiling in a secluded attic, the last weeks of which were particularly grueling, we finally took Second Hand to its first public showings: first to Dev-Play in Bucharest and shortly thereafter to Clujotronic in our very own Cluj. It was scary, thrilling, amazing and… we won the Dev-Play Indie Pitch!

Point and Click 52

Point and Click Dev Demo Playtesting 52

Game Design Advice

SEPTEMBER 29, 2016

Here’s a game I like to play. Next time you are in an art gallery, turn away from the paintings and look at the people. Look at them as if that was the show. Look at the other visitors in the gallery exactly the same way you would look at the art, as if they had been put there to be seen, admired, analyzed, and understood. This game is harder than it looks.

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Art Code Communications Media 40

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 16, 2016

At the geriatric age of seventeen years old, Carcassonne is one of the elder games of the recent board game renaissance. It remains one of the most enduring, nuanced board games on shelves today. It’s the kind of game even your grandmother can learn to play (and also beat you at). Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators.

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Tile Feature Build Dev 130

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 12, 2016

Much like theme vs. mechanics , separating people into gateway gamers and hardcore gamers is another persistent dichotomy in the board game community. Unlike theme and mechanics, though, I think this distinction is much more useful. The board game industry is growing at a rate of 29% according to ICv2 , which is a clear indicator that the community is experiencing an influx of people who are just realizing how badass this recent board game renaissance has been.

Build 130

Build Mechanics Art Concepts 130

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 5, 2016

Game development is extremely iterative by nature. Many game developers create dozens (or even hundreds) of versions of their game before it is finally complete. Simple games need to be played at least 100 times before they’re considered complete. For more complicated games, that number is closer to 1,000 or more. Creative work isn’t a path from A to B.

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Game Developer Game Development Dev Development 130

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 2, 2016

Twilight Struggle is the golden child of the board game community, having reigned at the top of the Board Game Geek’s ranking system for an extremely long time before being dethroned by Pandemic Legacy. Despite being a brilliant game, Twilight Struggle is a bit of an oddity for top choice considering its complex rules and byzantine strategy. Its complexity has left it on many board gamers’ shelves, with players waiting for the right person to come along to finally challenge them in this lo

Mechanics 130

Mechanics Dev Games Game Developer 130

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 25, 2016

Game development is iterative. Making a great game requires soliciting and intelligently processing feedback. It seems easy enough from the outside. Write down what people say, update your game, and save a new copy. While that method will work, I’d argue it’s not ideal. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators.

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Playtesting Data Communications Writing 130

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” – Jean-Paul Sartre. Jean-Paul Sartre, looking for the exit. (Spoiler: there is no exit.). Even having written many posts for this blog and a novel’s worth of lore for War Co. , the blankness of the unmarked page still gives me the chills. That blank page could be anything.

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Horror Writing Film Internet 130

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

Roll up your sleeves and go to the nearest CVS for your flu shot. Today’s breakdown is for Pandemic , one of my favorite board games of all time. In fact, this is the one for me – the one that opened my eyes to the larger board game community. It is the one that broke me out of the prison of Monopoly , Yahtzee , and other games that many hardcore board gamers love to hate with an irrational vigor.

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Fighting Balance Communications Concepts 130

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 14, 2016

I’ve given some thought to the difficult question of why we play games , yet I believe there was an implicit question left unanswered: “what is a game?”. “Hmm…what is a game?” Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Oh, wise dictionary.com , elucidate us on this issue: game, noun 1. an amusement or pastime 2. the material or equipment used in playing certain games 3. a competitive activity involving skill,

Games 130

Games Game Design Game Designer Dev 130

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 7, 2016

Your to-do list is ever-growing. You need to play-test your game a few hundred times, commission some art, start a Twitter account, keep your blog up to date, fix that broken mechanic, tweak some minute detail you’re afraid you’ll forget about, all while holding down a 9-5 (or 6 or 7) job and raising kids and paying the bills…. #Relatable. Need help on your board game?

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Game Developer Game Development Mechanics Art 130

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 4, 2016

For the inaugural post in my series of Game Breakdowns, I want to talk about the perineal /r/boardgames choice for “2p game to play with my girlfriend.” I’m speaking, of course, about Uwe Rosenberg’s Patchwork. It’s the perfect game to share with someone who only has a tangential interest in board games, or a “gateway gamer”. Photo by Eric Yurko of “What’s Eric Playing?

Games 130

Games Mechanics Concepts Dev 130

Brand Game Development

OCTOBER 28, 2016

If there’s one piece of business advice I’d like to shout to the heavens, it would be “know your audience!” There are three parts to this: knowing your target audience, knowing your actual audience, and being able to tell where the two are different. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators.

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Indy Dev Game Developer Game Development 130

Brand Game Development

OCTOBER 24, 2016

Game development is a notoriously iterative process. Your final game will bear little resemblance to your first draft. The best way to make a good game is to play-test it to death, hammering out all the inconsistencies and problems. This is incredibly time-consuming and disheartening. Don’t let it bother you. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators.

Mechanics 130

Mechanics Art Game Developer Game Development 130

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 23, 2016

When I refer to “making a game plan”, I don’t mean a plan to create a board game. I mean a game plan for tackling big, hairy audacious goals. How do you go from a big dream like “I want to create a successful board game” to reality? What does it take to make dreams come true? Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators.

Writing 100

Writing Art Games Dev 100

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 19, 2016

Ignorance is bliss. No, really! Sure, ignorance is a state in which no person should gleefully wallow forever since it will ultimately be their undoing. Even still, ignorance is a reliable shield from the emotional strain of the trials and tribulations of starting a business or beginning game development. If you are a first time developer, you know less now than you ever will, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Fighting 100

Fighting Game Design Game Designer Dev 100

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 28, 2016

“Theme-first or mechanics-first” might be the most asked “big question” in the board game community. It’s a bit of silly question. The false dichotomy we use to discuss these two elements, however, is really useful. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Theme and mechanics are inseparable parts of board games as a whole.

Mechanics 100

Mechanics Playtesting Concepts Art 100

Brand Game Development

OCTOBER 31, 2016

Gaming is a mysterious hobby, isn’t it? In a world of so many opportunities (and distractions), what draws us to the gaming table week after week? To tell you the truth, I don’t really know! I have, however, gazed at my navel for long enough to come up with some fun theories. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators.

Games 100

Games Dev Game Developer Game Development 100

The GameDev Guru

MAY 26, 2016

While working in a project for one of our clients, I was asked about the difference between sprites (SpriteRenderer) and UI images…

Sprite 100

Sprite 100

The GameDev Guru

JUNE 13, 2016

In this entry I'll describe how to use the frame debugger and how to accomplish its limits with RenderDoc

Pixel 100

Pixel 100

Mircosoft Game Dev

DECEMBER 15, 2016

After the success of our previous games jams in March 2016 and June 2016 , and since the community seemed pretty motivated for a new one, we are organizing a new Godot Community Game Jam that will run from 16 December 2016 to 31 January 2017. As the previous one, it is an informal jam with relatively loose rules, and not much to gain apart from international fame within the Godot community and more experience with using our great engine!

Games 52

Games Asset Educational Education 52

Mircosoft Game Dev

DECEMBER 3, 2016

Introduction. It's been a month since the first progress report , and progress continues towards the new Godot renderer. Little by little every system falls into place, and rendering starts feeling a lot more mature. That said, there is still a lot missing. Unfortunately, some tasks initially planned for Milestone #2 could not be completed yet, so they will be pushed to the next milestone.

Render 52

Render Simulation Engine Engineering 52

Tom Francis

NOVEMBER 26, 2016

As well as the update above, I’ve been putting up some day-by-day logs of what I’m working on in Heat Signature. I’m only doing them for my own benefit, so they’re not mega interesting and I don’t do one every day I work – only when I think it’ll help.

Game Development 52

Game Development Game Developer Development Games 52

Mircosoft Game Dev

NOVEMBER 17, 2016

Errata: Nov 20, 2016 @ 18:40 UTC: Linux export templates were problematic when deploying games to Steam. If that's your case, you may want to redownload the export templates. Nov 19, 2016 @ 15:30 UTC: If you downloaded Godot 2.1.1 before this date, there were issues with the packaging of the HTML5 templates and with the libpng dependency of the X11 binaries.

Tile 52

Tile Scripting Bug Mobile Gaming 52

Mircosoft Game Dev

NOVEMBER 15, 2016

As already noticed by those of you who follow the development effort closely, we had a change of roadmap since what was announced when Godot 2.1 was released. Indeed, we decided to skip the planned 2.2 release and head on directly towards Godot 3.0 , the long-awaited upgrade that should bring brand new 2D and 3D renderers based on OpenGL ES 3.0 (mobile) and OpenGL 3.3 (desktop).

Render 52

Render Visual Scripting Scripting Feature 52

Mircosoft Game Dev

OCTOBER 31, 2016

Introduction. As many of you have probably heard, a new rendering backend is being worked on for Godot. One of the most common comments from potential users evaluating Godot is that, for 2D, Godot is awesome but for 3D it's pretty far from the mainstream alternatives. For Godot 3.0 (our upcoming release) we are working hard to change this. Our goal is to have a modern, clustered renderer that supports everything mainstream engines support, including PBR, global illumination and flexible shader e

Render 52

Render Shaders Texture Mesh 52

Mircosoft Game Dev

OCTOBER 31, 2016

After several months of waiting ( obligatory joke ) and more importantly of development, the web frontend to Godot's Asset Library finally reached the beta status ! What does it mean? That the Asset Lib frontend is now officially public and that the community can start using it extensively. It is still in development , but we have a pretty solid base that should allow you to create your account, submit and update your assets - as well of course as seeing the existing assets in the library.

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Asset Beta Editing Demo 52

Mircosoft Game Dev

OCTOBER 5, 2016

About shaders. For most game developers, shaders are this scary monster that presents itself with such a complexity that it seems out of reach. In reality, shaders are quite simple by default and just get more complex the more you add to them. To explain the idea of how shaders work, let's consider a very simple shader for drawing a sprite to the screen.

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Shaders Sprite Pixel Clipping 52

Mircosoft Game Dev

SEPTEMBER 30, 2016

October 1st, Hacktoberfest starts now and will last for the whole month! What's Hacktoberfest ? The purpose of this event (run by DigitalOcean and GitHub) is to encourage people to contribute to open source projects by making pull requests. The incentive? Beyond international fame, the glorious feeling of having made the world better, and deep recognition from the project's community, you also have the opportunity to win a cool T-shirt (sadly not a Godot one - yet ) if you make four pull request

Demo 52

Demo 52

Mircosoft Game Dev

SEPTEMBER 30, 2016

A while ago, we had a Kickstarter for The Interactive Adventures of Dog Mendonça & Pizzaboy® , and during the campaign we 1 promised to release the framework we had made to develop the game as a standalone package. It took a while to finish the game and find some time to put the framework together and publish it, but it's finally here :-). Escoria , a point & click graphic adventure creation framework.

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Point and Click Scripting Graphics Feature 52

Mircosoft Game Dev

SEPTEMBER 23, 2016

Servers and RIDs. Architecture. If you ever lurked in Godot source code, and tried to follow the flow of the logic, you most likely noticed that most code related to scene, formats, etc. always ends up in a giant server class. These really large classes, which Godot calls servers , generally abstract some implementation or architecture. No real objects or classes exist but simple references to a RID type (that stands for Resource ID ), and all functions take these objects as their first argument

Render 52

Render Collision Engine Engineering 52

Mircosoft Game Dev

SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

Image. Godot has many built-in types. Built-in types are used for non-pointer API arguments, where you need to pass around information fast and you don't really care much about keeping a reference. One of the early built-in types in Godot is Image, which is like a Vector, but with a little more information related to image data (such as width, height, format and whether or not it has mipmaps).

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