Search Results

Search found 14545 results on 582 pages for 'design patterns'.

Page 134/582 | < Previous Page | 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141  | Next Page >

• Algorithm for dynamically calculating a level based on experience points?

  - by George

  One of the struggles I've always had in game development is deciding how to implement experience points attributed to gaining a level. There doesn't seem to be a pattern to gaining a level in many of the games I've played, so I assume they have a static dictionary table which contains experience points vs. the level. e.g. Experience Level 0 1 100 2 175 3 280 4 800 5 ...There isn't a rhyme or reason why 280 points is equal to level 4, it just is. I'm not sure how those levels are decided, but it certainly wouldn't be dynamic. I've also thought about the possibility of exponential levels, as not to have to keep a separate lookup table, e.g. Experience Level 0 1 100 2 200 3 400 4 800 5 1600 6 3200 7 6400 8 ...but that seems like it would grow out of control rather quickly, as towards the upper levels, the enemies in the game would have to provide a whopping amount of experience to level -- and that would be to difficult to control. Leveling would become an impossible task. Does anyone have any pointers, or methods they use to decide how to level a character based on experience? I want to be fair in leveling and I want to stay ahead of the players as not to worry about constantly adding new experience/level lookups.

  Read the article

• Why not expose a primary key

  - by Angelo Neuschitzer

  In my education I have been told that it is a flawed idea to expose actual primary keys (not only DB keys, but all primary accessors) to the user. I always thought it to be a security problem (because an attacker could attempt to read stuff not their own). Now I have to check if the user is allowed to access anyway, so is there a different reason behind it? Also, as my users have to access the data anyway I will need to have a public key for the outside world somewhere in between. Now that public key has the same problems as the primary key, doesn't it?

  Read the article

• How do I start correctly in building database classes in c#?

  - by e4rthdog

  I am new in C# programming and in OOP. I need to dive into web applications for my company, and I need to do it fast and correct. So even that I know ASP.NET MVC is the way to go, I want to start with some simple applications with ASP.NET Webforms and then advance to MVC logic. Also regarding my db classes: I plan to create common database classes in order to be able to use them either from WinForms or ASP.NET applications. I also know that the way to go is to learn about ORM and EF. BUT I also want to start from where I am feeling comfortable and that is the traditional ADO.NET way. So about my Data Access Layer classes: Should I return my results in datasets or arraylists/lists? Should my methods do their own connect/disconnect from the db, or have separate methods and let the application maintain the connection?

  Read the article

• Creating user UI using Flixel

  - by Jamie Read

  I am new to game development but familiar with programming languages. I have started using Flixel and have a working Breakout game with score and lives. What I am trying to do is add a Start Screen before actually loading the game. I have a create function that adds all the game elements to the stage: override public function create():void // all game elements { How can I add this pre-load Start Screen? I'm not sure if I have to add in the code to this create function or somewhere else and what code to actually add. Eventually I would also like to add saving, loading, options and upgrades too. So any advice with that would be great. Here is my main game.as: package { import org.flixel.*; public class Game extends FlxGame { private const resolution:FlxPoint = new FlxPoint(640, 480); private const zoom:uint = 2; private const fps:uint = 60; public function Game() { super(resolution.x / zoom, resolution.y / zoom, PlayState, zoom); FlxG.flashFramerate = fps; } } } Thanks.

  Read the article

• Server-side Architecture for Online Game

  - by Draiken

  Hi, basically I have a game client that has communicate with a server for almost every action it takes, the game is in Java (using LWJGL) and right now I will start making the server. The base of the game is normally one client communicating with the server alone, but I will require later on for several clients to work together for some functionalities. I've already read how authentication server should be sepparated and I intend on doing it. The problem is I am completely inexperienced in this kind of server-side programming, all I've ever programmed were JSF web applications. I imagine I'll do socket connections for pretty much every game communication since HTML is very slow, but I still don't really know where to start on my server. I would appreciate reading material or guidelines on where to start, what architecture should the game server have and maybe some suggestions on frameworks that could help me getting the client-server communication. I've looked into JNAG but I have no experience with this kind of thing, so I can't really tell if it is a solid and good messaging layer. Any help is appreciated... Thanks !

  Read the article

• Push or Pull Input Data In the Game Logic?

  - by Qua

  In the process of preparing my game for networking I'm adding a layer of seperation between the physical input (mouse/keyboard) and the actual game "engine"/logic. All input that has any relation to the game logic is wrapped inside action objects such as BuildBuildingAction. I was thinking of having an action processing layer that would determine what to do with the input. This layer could then be set up to either just pass the actions locally to the game engine or send it via sockets to the network server depending on whether the game was single- or multiplayer. In network games it would make sense that the player's actions should be sent to the server, but should the game logic be pulling (polling?) the data through some sort of interface or should the action processing layer be adding the actions to an input queue in the game logic code?

  Read the article

• DDD and Value Objects. Are mutable Value Objects a good candidate for Non Aggr. Root Entity?

  - by Tony

  Here is a little problem Have an entity, with a value object. Not a problem. I replace a value object for a new one, then nhibernate inserts the new value and orphan the old one, then deletes it. Ok, that's a problem. Insured is my entity in my domain. He has a collection of Addresses (value objects). One of the addresses is the MailingAddress. When we want to update the mailing address, let's say zipcode was wrong, following Mr. Evans doctrine, we must replace the old object for a new one since it's immutable (a value object right?). But we don't want to delete the row thou, because that address's PK is a FK in a MailingHistory table. So, following Mr. Evans doctrine, we are pretty much screwed here. Unless i make my addressses Entities, so i don't have to "replace" it, and simply update its zipcode member, like the old good days. What would you suggest me in this case? The way i see it, ValueObjects are only useful when you want to encapsulate a group of database table's columns (component in nhibernate). Everything that has a persistence id in the database, is better off to make it an Entity (not necessarily an aggregate root) so you can update its members without recreating the whole object graph, specially if that's a deep-nested object. Do you concur? Is it allowed by Mr. Evans to have a mutable value object? Or is a mutable value object a candidate for an Entity? Thanks

  Read the article

• Algorithm for tracking progress of controller method running in background

  - by SilentAssassin

  I am using Codeigniter framework for PHP on Windows platform. My problem is I am trying to track progress of a controller method running in background. The controller extracts data from the database(MySQL) then does some processing and then stores the results again in the database. The complete aforesaid process can be considered as a single task. A new task can be assigned while another task is running. The newly assigned task will be added in a queue. So if I can track progress of the controller, I can show status for each of these tasks. Like I can show "Pending" status for tasks in the queue, "In Progress" for tasks running and "Done" for tasks that are completed. Main Issue: Now first thing I need to find is an algorithm to track the progress of how much amount of execution the controller method has completed and that means tracking how much amount of method has completed execution. For instance, this PHP script tracks progress of array being counted. Here the current state and state after total execution are known so it is possible to track its progress. But I am not able to devise anything analogous to it in my case. Maybe what I am trying to achieve is programmtically not possible. If its not possible then suggest me a workaround or a completely new approach. If some details are pending you can mention them. Sorry for my ignorance this is my first post here. I welcome you to point out my mistakes. EDIT: Database outline: The URL(s) and keyword(s) are first entered by user which are stored in a database table called link_master and keyword_master respectively. Then keywords are extracted from all the links present in this table and compared with keywords entered by user and their frequency is calculated which is the final result. And the results are stored in another table called link_result. Now sub-links are extracted from the domain links and stored in a table called sub_link_master. Now again the keywords are extracted from these sub-links and the corresponding results are stored in a table called sub_link_result. The number of records cannot be defined beforehand as the number of links on any web page can be different. Only the cardinality of *link_result* table can be known which will be equal to multiplication of number of keyword(s) and URL(s) . I insert multiple records at a time using this resource. Controller outline: The controller extracts keywords from a web page and also extracts keywords from all the links present on that page. There is a method called crawlLink. I used Rolling Curl to extract keywords and web page content. It has callback function which I used for extracting keywords alongwith generating results and extracting valid sub-links. There is a insertResult method which stores results for links and sub-links in the respective tables. Yes, the processing depends on the number of records. The more the number of records, the more time it takes to execute: Consider this scenario: Number of Domain Links = 1 Number of Keywords = 3 Number of Domain Links Result generated = 3 (3 x 1 as described in the question) Number of Sub Links generated = 41 Number of Sub Links Result = 117 (41 x 3 = 123 but some links are not valid or searchable) Approximate time taken for above process to complete = 55 seconds. The above result is for a single link. I want to track the progress of the above results getting stored in database. When all results are stored, the task is complete. If results are getting stored, the task is In Progress. I am not clear how can I track this progress.

  Read the article

• how do you read from system.out in Java [closed]

  - by Dan

  I'm trying to create a word scramble game and so far I have taken a vector of randomly assorted strings that contains both words and hints and split them into two vectors. I have randomly scrambled the word and set this all up in text boxes. Right now I'm stuck because I have a text box that takes input but I'm not sure how to read that in? I want the user to type the unscrambled word into the text box and have it calculate as correct and move on to the next word immediately. I also don't know how to get the keys working. I want the "?" character to be the hint button that shows the hint. At the moment the hint box works if I type the question mark in using the System.in but it doesn't work if I type it directly in to the text box. The characters are showing up in the text box but nothing is working after that.

  Read the article

• 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?

  Read the article

• What can make peaceful game successful?

  - by Miro

  Today, the most successful games are action games like FPS, RPG, MMORPG... I'd like to make peaceful game, but i don't know how to attract people. I can make good graphics, but that's not the main thing that makes people like game more that couple of minutes. The content is important. In game styles mentioned in beginning are main content fight, kill others, make from yourself predator/the most powerful creature/player in the game. But what content can attract people in peaceful game?

  Read the article

• Customer won't decide, how to deal?

  - by Crazy Eddie

  I write software that involves the use of measured quantities, many input by the user, most displayed, that are fed into calculation models to simulate various physical thing-a-majigs. We have created a data type that allows us to associate a numeric value with a unit, we call these "quantities" (big duh). Quantities and units are unique to dimension. You can't attach kilogram to a length for example. Math on quantities does automatic unit conversion to SI and the type is dimension safe (you can't assign a weight to a pressure for example). Custom UI components have been developed that display the value and its unit and/or allow the user to edit them. Dimensionless quantities, having no units, are a single, custom case implemented within the system. There's a set of related quantities such that our target audience apparently uses them interchangeably. The quantities are used in special units that embed the conversion factors for the related quantity dimensions...in other words, when using these units converting from one to another simply involves multiplying the value by 1 to the dimensional difference. However, conversion to/from the calculation system (SI) still involves these factors. One of these related quantities is a dimensionless one that represents a ratio. I simply can't get the "customer" to recognize the necessity of distinguishing these values and their use. They've picked one and want to use it everywhere, customizing the way we deal with it in special places. In this case they've picked one of the dimensions that has a unit...BUT, they don't want there to be a unit (GRR!!!). This of course is causing us to implement these special overrides for our UI elements and such. That of course is often times forgotten and worse...after a couple months everyone forgets why it was necessary and why we're using this dimensional value, calling it the wrong thing, and disabling the unit. I could just ignore the "customer" and implement the type as the dimensionless quantity, which makes most sense. However, that leaves the team responsible for figuring it out when they've given us a formula using one of the other quantities. We have to not only figure out that it's happening, we have to decide what to do. This isn't a trivial deal. The other option is just to say to hell with it, do it the customer's way, and let it waste continued time and effort because it's just downright confusing as hell. However, I can't count the amount of times someone has said, "Why is this being done this way, it makes no sense at all," and the team goes off the deep end trying to figure it out. What would you do? Currently I'm still attempting to convince them that even if they use terms interchangeably, we at the least can't do that within the product discussion. Don't have high hopes though.

  Read the article

• 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.

  Read the article

• Real life example of an agile game development process

  - by Ken

  I'm trying to learn about applying agile methodologies to game development. But seems to be impossible to find real life examples. What I am looking for are things like; Initial user stories Final user stories (complete, covering the entire game requirements) Acceptance criteria Task list Sprint backlogs (before and after each sprint) The agile books seem to have some limited examples, many of which seem contrived. In this era of open source software, there must be an documented example of the process applied to a game that is publicly available. I am asking specifically about games because they are so different from normal applications. Regular applications are built to all users to complete specific tasks in order to get stuff done(book a room, print a report etc). People play games for much less tangible reasons, so I think the process is significantly different. [it doesn't have to be scrum, it could be any process, just needs to be a real life example game and be reasonably complete]

  Read the article

• Relationships in a Chen ERD

  - by Nibroc A Rehpotsirhc

  I am working on a Chen ERD to model our organizations merchandise. Our central entity is a Style. We have supplemental entities of Color and Season. I am defining our assortment as the relationship between these three entities, and this relationship itself will have attributes and is defined by the three entities which participate in the mandatory relationship. The rules are; Many Styles can be offered in a Season, and a Style can be offered in many Seasons. Within a Season, a Style can be offered in Many Colors. I then have 2 other entities, one of which I believe is a weak entity, Climate, and the other may be weak, but I am not sure, this being Transaction Channel. I am thinking of these as relationships off of a relationship? Meaning, for a given Style/Color combination offered in a Season, it can be available through 1 or more Transaction Channels. Additionally, within a season, a given Style/Color combination can be intended for 1 or more Climates. Is it valid to have relationships off of relationships? Or does this requirement dictate that I should think of this Style/Color/Season relationship as an entity itself, and define the relationships to Climate and Transaction Channel off of this entity?

  Read the article

• responsibility for storage

  - by Stefano Borini

  A colleague and I were brainstorming about where to put the responsibility of an object to store itself on the disk in our own file format. There are basically two choices: object.store(file) fileformatWriter.store(object) The first one gives the responsibility of serialization on the disk to the object itself. This is similar to the approach used by python pickle. The second groups the representation responsibility on a file format writer object. The data object is just a plain data container (eventually with additional methods not relevant for storage). We agreed on the second methodology, because it centralizes the writing logic from generic data. We also have cases of objects implementing complex logic that need to store info while the logic is in progress. For these cases, the fileformatwriter object can be passed and used as a delegate, calling storage operations on it. With the first pattern, the complex logic object would instead accept the raw file, and implement the writing logic itself. The first method, however, has the advantage that the object knows how to write and read itself from any file containing it, which may also be convenient. I would like to hear your opinion before starting a rather complex refactoring.

  Read the article

• Solid principles vs YAGNI

  - by KeesDijk

  When do the SOLID principles become YAGNI? As programmers we make trade-offs all the time, between complexity, maintainability, time to build and so forth. Amongst others, two of the smartest guidelines for making choices are in my mind the SOLID principles and YAGNI. If you don't need it; don't build it, and keep it clean. Now for example, when I watch the dimecast series on SOLID, I see it starts out as a fairly simple program, and ends up as a pretty complex one (end yes complexity is also in the eye of the beholder), but it still makes me wonder: when do SOLID principles turn into something you don't need? All solid principles are ways of working that enable use to make changes at a later stage. But what if the problem to solve is a pretty simple one and it's a throwaway application, then what? Or are the SOLID principles something that always apply? As asked in the comments: Solid Principles YAGNI

  Read the article

• Help in (re)designing my Swing application

  - by Harihar Das

  I have developed a Swing application that controls execution of several script like jobs. I need to display the interim output of the jobs concurrently. I have followed MVC while writing the application. The application is working as expected. But off late I have the following requirements in hand: A few of the script jobs need special user privileges to execute so as to access specialized resources. There seems to be now way in Java to impersonate as a different user while running an application.[examined in this question]. Also trying to run the Swing application as a scheduled task in windows is not helping. Once started the jobs should be running even if the user logs off after starting the jobs. I am thinking of separating the execution logic from the UI and run that as a service; and introduce JMS in between the two layers so as to store/retrieve the interim the output. Note: I need to run this application on windows Any ideas on meeting my requirements will be highly appreciated.

  Read the article

• What are examples of games with "minimalist" models/art assets

  - by Ken

  When teaching game development, my student's obsess about building realistic or complex art/models/animation. And spending wayyy to much time trying to get accurate collision detection between two 3D models [despite my best efforts] However I would like them to spend more time thinking about developing the game mechanics, interaction and game play. I'm looking for some games where the visuals are simple but have good game play. Things I am thinking about are Cubes' vs Spheres or Impossible Game. What are more examples of visually simple (preferably 3D) games to help inspire my students?

  Read the article

• In-Game Encyclopedias

  - by SHiNKiROU

  There are some games where there is an in-game encyclopedia where you can know many things about characters and settings of the game. For example, the Codex in Mass Effect. I want to know if it is exclusive to Bioware, and get inspired about other encyclopedia systems. What are some other examples of in-game encyclopedias? How effective is it? I also want some examples where the in-game encyclopedia is not effective at all or an ignored feature

  Read the article

• Breakout ball collision detection, bouncing against the walls

  - by Sri Harsha Chilakapati

  I'm currently trying to program a breakout game to distribute it as an example game for my own game engine. http://game-engine-for-java.googlecode.com/ But the problem here is that I can't get the bouncing condition working properly. Here's what I'm using. public void collision(GObject other){ if (other instanceof Bat || other instanceof Block){ bounce(); } else if (other instanceof Stone){ other.destroy(); bounce(); } //Breakout.HIT.play(); } And here's by bounce() method public void bounce(){ boolean left = false; boolean right = false; boolean up = false; boolean down = false; if (dx < 0) { left = true; } else if (dx > 0) { right = true; } if (dy < 0) { up = true; } else if (dy > 0) { down = true; } if (left && up) { dx = -dx; } if (left && down) { dy = -dy; } if (right && up) { dx = -dx; } if (right && down) { dy = -dy; } } The ball bounces the bat and blocks but when the block is on top of the ball, it won't bounce and moves upwards out of the game. What I'm missing? Is there anything to implement? Please help me.. Thanks

  Read the article

• 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

  Read the article

• Would you use UML if it kept stakeholders from requesting changes frequently?

  - by Huperniketes

  As much as programmers hate to document their code/system and draw UML (especially, Sequencing, Activity and State machine diagrams) or other diagramming notation, would you agree to do it if it kept managers from requesting a "minor change" every couple of weeks? IOW, would you put together visual models to document the system if it helped you demonstrate to managers what the effect of changes are and why it takes so long to implement them? (Edited to help programmers understand what type of answer I'm looking for.) 2nd edit: Restating my question again, "Would you be willing to use some diagramming notation, against your better nature as a programmer, if it helped you manage change requests?" This question isn't asking if there might be something wrong with the process. It's a given that there's something wrong with the process. Would you be willing to do more work to improve it?

  Read the article

• 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:

  Read the article

• How do I know if my game's average game session time is too small?

  - by you786

  My game has only one life, and the aim is to stay alive as long as possible to get as many points as possible (it's an endless runner). Using Google Analytics I found that players are staying alive for an average of 17 seconds. I could easily increase or decrease this by manipulating acceleration or starting speed. The question is, should I change it at all? Is there any research or general ideas on the best playing time for a game like this? I would also like to know about any research about how long an ideal mobile game session should last.

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141  | Next Page >