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• Moving camera, or camera with discrete "screens"?

  - by Jacob Millward

  I'm making a game with a friend, but having trouble deciding on a camera style. The basic idea for the game, is having a randomly generated 2-dimensional world, with settlements in it. These settlements would have access to different resources, and it would be the job of the player to create bridges and ladders and links between these villages so they can trade. The player would advance personally by getting better gear, fighting monsters and looking for materials in the world, in order to craft and trade them at the settlements. My friend wants to use an old-style camera, where the world is split into a discrete number of screens that the player moves between. Similar to early Zelda dungeons, or Knytt Stories. This is opposite to me, as I want a standard camera that follows the player around as I feel the split-screen style camera limits the game. Can anyone argue the case either way? We've hit a massive roadblock here and can't seem to get past it.

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• Why are Javascript for/in loops so verbose?

  - by Matthew Scharley

  I'm trying to understand the reasoning behind why the language designers would make the for (.. in ..) loops so verbose. For example: for (var x in Drupal.settings.module.stuff) { alert("Index: " + x + "\nValue: " + Drupal.settings.module.stuff[x]); } It makes trying to loop over anything semi-complex like the above a real pain as you either have to alias the value locally inside the loop yourself, or deal with long access calls. This is especially painful if you have two to three nested loops. I'm assuming there is a reason why they would do things this way, but I'm struggling with the reasoning.

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• Game development: Pre-production stage

  - by piers

  I´m starting up a new project. It´s going to be a web browser game, developed using HTML5, JavaScript and CSS3. I have some general questions regarding the process of game developing. Should you know everything about your game by the time you start writing the first lines of code? I mean should you know all the details, all the things the player can and can not do? Basically: should you be done writing down new ideas before you begin coding? I understand the pre-production process is about documenting, doing research etc. What does that mean? Does it mean I should open up Word and write down everything about the game? For example what should happen when you click on different things etc. Thanks for your help!

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• When to use abstract classes instead of interfaces and extension methods in C#?

  - by Gulshan

  "Abstract class" and "interface" are similar type of ideas, while interface being more abstract. One need of abstract classes was to provide method implementations for the derived classes. But in C#, that need has also been reduced by lately introduced extension methods. So, in C#, when should we use abstract classes instead of using interfaces and extension methods associated with the interface? And now, we can use 'Properties' in interfaces also. A notable example of interface+ extension methods is the Heavily used IEnumerable and it's helper methods. You use Linq and it's all by this extension methods!

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• Variable declaration versus assignment syntax

  - by rwallace

  Working on a statically typed language with type inference and streamlined syntax, and need to make final decision about syntax for variable declaration versus assignment. Specifically I'm trying to choose between: // Option 1. Create new local variable with :=, assign with = foo := 1 foo = 2 // Option 2. Create new local variable with =, assign with := foo = 1 foo := 2 Creating functions will use = regardless: // Indentation delimits blocks square x = x * x And assignment to compound objects will do likewise: sky.color = blue a[i] = 0 Which of options 1 or 2 would people find most convenient/least surprising/otherwise best?

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• Is my Document Type Definition Still Up to Date?

  - by Sam

  Hi folks, currently all my php generated rich html webpages start with this line, which I have been adding to my tempaltes YEARS ago... <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> Am I still up to date and 2011-proof? or Should I be changing this into something fasterloaden/more agile/more flexible? I have heard of XHTML 1.1. When I remove this line all still works fine. Is it very much needed still? What are my alternatives? Thanks very much for your suggestions.

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• Can someone recommend an appriopriate drawing tablet that fits my needs?

  - by Syg

  I'm looking for something that can help me to easily create small hand drawn graphics and mock-ups digitalize technical drawings I would normally draw on a whiteboard. I'm a developer, not a designer, so it doesn't have to be high-end I guess. Just something to help make it easier, more fun and more productive to quickly draw mockups etc. After a quick search I landed on the wacom site, but it's hard for me to tell the difference between the offerings never having used something like this. Is small too small? is it annoying? Other suggestion are also welcome ofcourse. Thanx for any help you can give me

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• Requiring multithreading/concurrency for implementation of scripting language

  - by Ricky Stewart

  Here's the deal: I'm looking at designing my own scripting/interpreted language for fun. I'm only in the planning stages right now; I want to make sure I have a very strong hold on exactly how I will implement everything before I start coding. What I'm currently struggling with is concurrency. It seems to me like an easy way to avoid the unpredictable performance that comes with garbage collection would be to put the garbage collector in its own thread, and have it run concurrently with the interpreter itself. (To be clear, I don't plan to allow the scripts to be multithreaded themselves; I would simply put a garbage collector to work in a different thread than the interpreter.) This doesn't seem to be a common strategy for many popular scripting languages, probably for portability reasons; I would probably write the interpreter in the UNIX/POSIX threading framework initially and then port it to other platforms (Windows, etc.) if need be. Does anyone have any thoughts in this issue? Would whatever gains I receive by exploiting concurrency be nullified by the portability issues that will inevitably arise? (On that note, am I really correct in my assumption that I would experience great performance gains with a concurrent garbage collector?) Should I move forward with this strategy or step away from it?

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• what making a good soundtrack for social game

  - by Maged

  there are many successful social games in Facebook and other social sites like brain buddies, who has the biggest brain and word challenge.both of them have a great soundtrack while playing and in the beginning of the game . my question is how to find a good soundtrack or what's i should look for to find a good soundtrack like this that's help to attract the user specially for games that need concentration ?

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• Will a polled event system cause lag for a server?

  - by Milo

  I'm using a library called ENet. It is a reliable UDP library. The way it works is a polled event system like this: ENetEvent event; /* Wait up to 1000 milliseconds for an event. */ while (enet_host_service (client, & event, 1000) > 0) { switch (event.type) { case ENET_EVENT_TYPE_CONNECT: printf ("A new client connected from %x:%u.\n", event.peer -> address.host, event.peer -> address.port); /* Store any relevant client information here. */ event.peer -> data = "Client information"; break; case ENET_EVENT_TYPE_RECEIVE: printf ("A packet of length %u containing %s was received from %s on channel %u.\n", event.packet -> dataLength, event.packet -> data, event.peer -> data, event.channelID); /* Clean up the packet now that we're done using it. */ enet_packet_destroy (event.packet); break; case ENET_EVENT_TYPE_DISCONNECT: printf ("%s disconected.\n", event.peer -> data); /* Reset the peer's client information. */ event.peer -> data = NULL; } } It waits up to 1000 milliseconds for an event. If I'm hosting say 75 event driven card games and a lobby on the same thread as this code, will it cause any problems. If my understanding is correct, the process will simply sleep until there is an event, when there is one, it will process the event then come back here where potentially 5 or so events have queued up since so enet_host_services would return right away and not cause lag. I have been advised not to use multiple threads, will that be alright like this? Thanks

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• Recommended method towards making custom maps for a 2d game?

  - by Qasim

  I am planning on making a 2D game, however different from my last personal projects I want this one to have enhanced graphics, with custom-designed levels. My previous 2d platformers were tile-based, in which I made a map editor for to create levels. However, I am wondering the best way to implement custom designed maps? For say, some grass is a litter higher than others, flowers here and there, cool drawings and structures along the way, etc. instead of just the same old tiles over and over again. I am thinking but I just can't grasp the idea of how to implement it. I have seen it done in other games and am interested to see how they accomplish it, but can't get my hands on some source code. :(

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• Code and Slides: Techniques, Strategies, and Patterns for Structuring JavaScript Code

  - by dwahlin

  This presentation was given at the spring 2012 DevConnections conference in Las Vegas and is based on my Structuring JavaScript Code course from Pluralsight. The goal of the presentation is to show how closures combined with code patterns can be used to provide structure to JavaScript code and make it more re-useable, maintainable, and less susceptible to naming conflicts.  Topics covered include: Closures Using Object literals Namespaces The Prototype Pattern The Revealing Module Pattern The Revealing Prototype Pattern View more of my presentations here. Sample code from the presentation can be found here. Check out the full-length course on the topic at Pluralsight.com.

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• Java Desktop Application For Network users

  - by Motasem Abu Aker

  I'm developing a desktop application using Java. My application will run in a network environment where multiple users will access the same database through the application. There will be basic CRUD opreations (Insert, Update, Delete, & select), which means there will be chances of deadlock, or two users trying to update the same record at same time. I'm using the following Java Swing for Clients (MVC). MySQL Server for database (InnODB). Java Web start. Now, MySQL is centralized on the network, and all of the clients connect to it. The Application for ERP Purpose. I searched the internet to find a very good solution to ensure data integrity & to make sure that when updating one record from one client, other clients are aware of it. I read about Socket-server-client & RESTful web services. I don't want to go web application & don't want to use any extra libraries. So how can I handle this scenario: If User A updates a record: Is there a way to update User B's screen with the new value? If user A starts updating a record, how can I prevent other users from attempting to update the same record?

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• Code Smell: Inheritance Abuse

  - by dsimcha

  It's been generally accepted in the OO community that one should "favor composition over inheritance". On the other hand, inheritance does provide both polymorphism and a straightforward, terse way of delegating everything to a base class unless explicitly overridden and is therefore extremely convenient and useful. Delegation can often (though not always) be verbose and brittle. The most obvious and IMHO surest sign of inheritance abuse is violation of the Liskov Substitution Principle. What are some other signs that inheritance is The Wrong Tool for the Job even if it seems convenient?

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• Use Those Schemas, People!

  - by BuckWoody

  Database Schemas are just containers – they aren’t users or anything else – think of a sub-directory on the hard drive. In early versions of SQL Server we “hid” schemas, placing all objects under “dbo”, which gave the erroneous perception that Schemas are users. In SQL Server 2005, we “un-hid” or re-introduced schemas within the database. Users can have a default schema (a place where their new objects go), you can add new schemas and transfer objects between them, and they have many other benefits. But I still see a lot of applications, developed by shops I know as well as vendors, that don’t make use of a Schema. Everything is piled under dbo. I completely understand this – since permissions can be granted to a schema, they feel a lot like a user, so it’s just easier not to worry about both users and schemas when you create a database. But if you’ll use them properly you can make your application more understandable and portable. You should at least take a few minutes and read more about them – you owe it to your users: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190387.aspx Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• How to handle a player's level and its consequent privileges?

  - by Songo

  I'm building a game similar to Mafia Wars where a player can do tasks for his gang and gain experience and thus advancing his level. The game is built using PHP and a Mysql database. In the game I want to limit the resources allowed to player based on his level. For example: ________| (Max gold) | (Max army size) | (Max moves) | ... Level 1 | 1000 | 100 | 10 | ... Level 2 | 1500 | 200 | 20 | ... Level 3 | 3000 | 300 | 25 | ... . . . In addition certain features of the game won't be allowed until a certain level is reached such as players under Level 10 can't trade in the game market, players under Level 20 can't create alliances,...etc. The way I have modeled it is by implementing a very loooong ACL (Access Control List) with about 100 entries (an entry for each level). However, I think there may be a simpler approach to this seeing that this feature have been implemented in many games before.

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• Help with this optimization

  - by Milo

  Here is what I do: I have bitmaps which I draw into another bitmap. The coordinates are from the center of the bitmap, thus on a 256 by 256 bitmap, an object at 0.0,0.0 would be drawn at 128,128 on the bitmap. I also found the furthest extent and made the bitmap size 2 times the extent. So if the furthest extent is 200,200 pixels, then the bitmap's size is 400,400. Unfortunately this is a bit inefficient. If a bitmap needs to be drawn at 500,500 and the other one at 300,300, then the target bitmap only needs to be 200,200 in size. I cannot seem to find a correct way to draw in the components correctly with a reduced size. I figure out the target bitmap size like this: float AvatarComposite::getFloatWidth(float& remainder) const { float widest = 0.0f; float widestNeg = 0.0f; for(size_t i = 0; i < m_components.size(); ++i) { if(m_components[i].getSprite() == NULL) { continue; } float w = m_components[i].getX() + ( ((m_components[i].getSprite()->getWidth() / 2.0f) * m_components[i].getScale()) / getWidthToFloat()); float wn = m_components[i].getX() - ( ((m_components[i].getSprite()->getWidth() / 2.0f) * m_components[i].getScale()) / getWidthToFloat()); if(w > widest) { widest = w; } if(wn > widest) { widest = wn; } if(w < widestNeg) { widestNeg = w; } if(wn < widestNeg) { widestNeg = wn; } } remainder = (2 * widest) - (widest - widestNeg); return widest - widestNeg; } And here is how I position and draw the bitmaps: int dw = m_components[i].getSprite()->getWidth() * m_components[i].getScale(); int dh = m_components[i].getSprite()->getHeight() * m_components[i].getScale(); int cx = (getWidth() + (m_remainderX * getWidthToFloat())) / 2; int cy = (getHeight() + (m_remainderY * getHeightToFloat())) / 2; cx -= m_remainderX * getWidthToFloat(); cy -= m_remainderY * getHeightToFloat(); int dx = cx + (m_components[i].getX() * getWidthToFloat()) - (dw / 2); int dy = cy + (m_components[i].getY() * getHeightToFloat()) - (dh / 2); g->drawScaledSprite(m_components[i].getSprite(),0.0f,0.0f, m_components[i].getSprite()->getWidth(),m_components[i].getSprite()->getHeight(),dx,dy, dw,dh,0); I basically store the difference between the original 2 * longest extent bitmap and the new optimized one, then I translate by that much which I would think would cause me to draw correctly but then some of the components look cut off. Any insight would help. Thanks

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• Naming a predicate: "precondition" or "precondition_is_met"?

  - by RexE

  In my web app framework, each page can have a precondition that needs to be satisfied before it can be displayed to the user. For example, if user 1 and user 2 are playing a back-and-forth role-playing game, user 2 needs to wait for user 1 to finish his turn before he can take his turn. Otherwise, the user is displayed a waiting page. This is implemented with a predicate: def precondition(self): return user_1.completed_turn The simplest name for this API is precondition, but this leads to code like if precondition(): ..., which is not really obvious. Seems to me like it is more accurate to call it precondition_is_met(), but not sure about that either. Is there a best practice for naming methods like this?

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• null values vs "empty" singleton for optional fields

  - by Uko

  First of all I'm developing a parser for an XML-based format for 3D graphics called XGL. But this question can be applied to any situation when you have fields in your class that are optional i.e. the value of this field can be missing. As I was taking a Scala course on coursera there was an interesting pattern when you create an abstract class with all the methods you need and then create a normal fully functional subclass and an "empty" singleton subclass that always returns false for isEmpty method and throws exceptions for the other ones. So my question is: is it better to just assign null if the optional field's value is missing or make a hierarchy described above and assign it an empty singleton implementation?

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• How to manage own bots at the server?

  - by Nikolay Kuznetsov

  There is a game server and people can play in game rooms of 2, 3 or 4. When a client connects to server he can send a request specifying a number of people or range he wants to play with. One of this value is valid: {2-4, 2-3, 3-4, 2, 3, 4} So the server maintains 3 separate queues for game room with 2, 3 and 4 people. So we can denote queues as #2, #3 and #4. It work the following way. If a client sends request, 3-4, then two separate request are added to queues #3 and #4. If queue #3 now have 3 requests from different people then game room with 3 players is created, and all other requests from those players are removed from all queues. Right now not many people are online simultaneously, so they apply for a game wait for some time and quit because game does not start in a reasonable time. That's a simple bot for beginning has been developed. So there is a need to patch server code to run a bot, if some one requests a game, but humans are not online. Input: request from human {2-4, 2-3, 3-4, 2, 3, 4} Output: number of bots to run and time to wait for each before connecting, depending on queues state. The problem is that I don't know how to manage bots properly at the server? Example: #3 has 1 request and #4 has 1 request Request from user is {3,4} then server can add one bot to play game with 3 people or two bots to play game of 4. Example: #3 has 1 request and #4 has 2 requests Request from user is {3,4} then in each case just one bot is needed so game with 4 players is more preferrable.

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• How to Detect Sprites in a SpriteSheet?

  - by IAE

  I'm currently writing a Sprite Sheet Unpacker such as Alferds Spritesheet Unpacker. Now, before this is sent to gamedev, this isn't necessarily about games. I would like to know how to detect a sprite within a spriitesheet, or more abstactly, a shape inside of an image. Given this sprite sheet: I want to detect and extract all individual sprites. I've followed the algorithm detailed in Alferd's Blog Post which goes like: Determine predominant color and dub it the BackgroundColor Iterate over each pixel and check ColorAtXY == BackgroundColor If false, we've found a sprite. Keep going right until we find a BackgroundColor again, backtrack one, go down and repeat until a BackgroundColor is reached. Create a box from location to ending location. Repeat this until all sprites are boxed up. Combined overlapping boxes (or within a very short distance) The resulting non-overlapping boxes should contain the sprite. This implementation is fine, especially for small sprite sheets. However, I find the performance too poor for larger sprite sheets and I would like to know what algorithms or techniques can be leveraged to increase the finding of sprites. A second implementation I considered, but have not tested yet, is to find the first pixel, then use a backtracking algorithm to find every connected pixel. This should find a contiguous sprite (breaks down if the sprite is something like an explosion where particles are no longer part of the main sprite). The cool thing is that I can immediately remove a detected sprite from the sprite sheet. Any other suggestions?

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• How to refactor and improve this XNA mouse input code?

  - by Andrew Price

  Currently I have something like this: public bool IsLeftMouseButtonDown() { return currentMouseState.LeftButton == ButtonState.Pressed && previousMouseSate.LeftButton == ButtonState.Pressed; } public bool IsLeftMouseButtonPressed() { return currentMouseState.LeftButton == ButtonState.Pressed && previousMouseSate.LeftButton == ButtonState.Released; } public bool IsLeftMouseButtonUp() { return currentMouseState.LeftButton == ButtonState.Released && previousMouseSate.LeftButton == ButtonState.Released; } public bool IsLeftMouseButtonReleased() { return currentMouseState.LeftButton == ButtonState.Released && previousMouseSate.LeftButton == ButtonState.Pressed; } This is fine. In fact, I kind of like it. However, I'd hate to have to repeat this same code five times (for right, middle, X1, X2). Is there any way to pass in the button I want to the function so I could have something like this? public bool IsMouseButtonDown(MouseButton button) { return currentMouseState.IsPressed(button) && previousMouseState.IsPressed(button); } public bool IsMouseButtonPressed(MouseButton button) { return currentMouseState.IsPressed(button) && !previousMouseState.IsPressed(button); } public bool IsMouseButtonUp(MouseButton button) { return !currentMouseState.IsPressed(button) && previousMouseState.IsPressed(button); } public bool IsMouseButtonReleased(MouseButton button) { return !currentMouseState.IsPressed(button) && previousMouseState.IsPressed(button); } I suppose I could create some custom enumeration and switch through it in each function, but I'd like to first see if there is a built-in solution or a better way.. Thanks!

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• Which Game Engine to Use for an Angry Bird style game? [JAVA] [on hold]

  - by Arch1tect

  Our team is building an Angry Bird Style game, and we have only about ten days. The game is a little more complex than Angry Bird because there are two players, they each have a castle with pigs to protect(not destroy:)). And the goal is to destroy the other player's pigs. I wonder what Game Engine would help us finish this game most efficiently. We at least need a physics engine but I guess game engine is more helpful since it usually includes physics engine. Correct me if I'm wrong. (So I'm wondering which game engine I should use, if it's just physics engine, I'll use box2d) Networking may or may not be added later depend on time we have. Thanks in advance for any advice! EDIT: image looks small, I'll add one:

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• Overloading interface buttons, what are the best practices?

  - by XMLforDummies

  Imagine you'll have always a button labeled "Continue" in the same position in your app's GUI. Would you rather make a single button instance that takes different actions depending on the current state? private State currentState = State.Step1; private ContinueButton_Click() { switch(currentState) { case State.Step1: DoThis(); currentState = State.Step2; break; case State.Step2: DoThat(); break; } } Or would you rather have something like this? public Form() { this.ContinueStep2Button.Visible = false; } private ContinueStep1Button_Click() { DoThis(); this.ContinueStep1Button.Visible = false; this.ContinueStep2Button.Visible = true; } private ContinueStep2Button_Click() { DoThat(); }

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• How to expose game data in the game without a singelton?

  - by zardon

  I'm quite new to cocos2d and games programming, and am currently I am writing a game that is currently in Prototype stage. Everything is going okay, but I've realized a potentially big problem and I am not sure how to solve it. I am using a singelton to store a bunch of arrays for everything, a global list of planets, a global list of troops, a global list of products, etc. And only now I'm realizing that all of this will be in memory and this is the wrong way to do it. I am not storing files or anything on the disk just yet, with exception to a save/load state, which is a capture of everything. My game makes use of a map which allows you to select a planet, then it will give you a breakdown of that planets troops and resources, Lets use this scenario: My game has 20 planets. On which you can have 20 troops. Straight away that's an array of 400! This does not add the NPC, which is another 10. So, 20x10 = 200 So, now we have 600 all in arrays inside a Singelton. This is obviously very bad, and very wrong. Especially as the game scales in the amount of data. But I need to expose pretty much everything, especially on the map page, and I am not sure how else to do it. I've been told that I can use a controller for the map page which has the information I need for each planet, and other controllers for other items I require global display for. I've also thought about storing each planet's data in a save file, using initWithCoder however there could be a boatload of files on the user's device? I really don't want to use a database, mainly because I would need to translate NSObjects and non-NSObjects like CGRects and CGPoints and Colors into/from SQL. I am open to other ideas on how to store and read game data to prevent using a singelton to store everything, everywhere. Thanks for your time.

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