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  • Player rewards in games where you normally have nothing to purchase

    - by PeterK
    In many games there are rewards such as gold coins, points, etc. When these rewards can be used to purchase in-game items, it motivates the player to keep playing. Let's say we have an online game, poker, Yatzy etc. What type of reward would keep the players playing if there are few in-game items available to buy, or none at all? What I am looking for is a reward system that entices the players to play more in a game environment where there isn't that much to purchase. For example, there isn't much to buy in a poker or Yatzy game with the gold you win. I guess having some titles that are added to the userid is one way, or maybe purchasing a logo for the id... A leaderboard is another. Any thoughts on this?

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  • How is it possible to write the compiler of a programming language with that language itself [closed]

    - by tugberk
    Possible Duplicate: How could the first C++ compiler be written in C++? You probably heard that Microsoft released a new language called TypeScript which is a the typed superset of JavaScript. The most interesting thing that makes me wonder is the fact that its compiler writen in TypeScript itself. Call me ignorant but I really couldn't figure out in my head how that is possible. This is just like chicken and egg problem in my head because there is no compiler to compile TypeScript's compiler in the first place. How is it possible to write a compiler of the compiler of a programming language with that language?

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  • What to do if I hate C++ header files?

    - by BlaXpirit
    I was always confused about header files. They are so strange: you include .h file which doesn't include .cpp but .cpp are somehow compiled too. NOTE: I UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING ABOUT THE HEADERS, PLEASE DON'T TELL ME I'M STUPID OR SHOULD USE OTHER LANGUAGE Recently I joined a team project, and of course, both .h and .cpp are used. I understand that this is very important, but I can't live with copy-pasting every function declaration in each of multiple classes we have. How do I handle the 2-file convention efficiently? Are there any tools to help with that, or automatically change one file that looks like example below to .h and .cpp? (specifically for MS VC++ 2010) class A { ... Type f(Type a,Type b) { //implementation here, not in another file! } ... }; Type f(Type a) { //implementation here } ...

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  • Using Copyrighted Images

    - by TMP
    I was thinking about developing a sidescrolling platformer very similar to an old Mario and Luigi game for NES. To start out I was thinking about taking the images from a site like this: http://www.mariouniverse.com/sprites/nes/smb3 Which clearly states a copyright. I was wondering how far I am allowed to take these images. I figure I'm probably allowed to use it for personal development, but what if I publish the game as an exe file and send it to some friends? I figured a definite no-no would be selling the game with the copyrighted images included. A secondary question would be whether or not I would be allowed to modify them slightly and then call them my own.

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  • Does an inventory limit in an MMORPG make sense?

    - by Philipp
    I am currently developing a simple 2d MMORPG. My current focus is the inventory system. I am currently wondering if I should implement a limit on what a player character can carry. Either in form of a maximum weight, a limited number of inventory slots, or a combination of both. Almost every MMORPG I ever played limits inventory space. But plausibility aside, is this really necessary from a gameplay point of view? Maybe it would in fact improve the game experience when I just let the players carry as much stuff as they want. tl;dr: What is the game development rationale behind limiting carrying capacity of player characters?

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  • Are null references really a bad thing?

    - by Tim Goodman
    I've heard it said that the inclusion of null references in programming languages is the "billion dollar mistake". But why? Sure, they can cause NullReferenceExceptions, but so what? Any element of the language can be a source of errors if used improperly. And what's the alternative? I suppose instead of saying this: Customer c = Customer.GetByLastName("Goodman"); // returns null if not found if (c != null) { Console.WriteLine(c.FirstName + " " + c.LastName + " is awesome!"); } else { Console.WriteLine("There was no customer named Goodman. How lame!"); } You could say this: if (Customer.ExistsWithLastName("Goodman")) { Customer c = Customer.GetByLastName("Goodman") // throws error if not found Console.WriteLine(c.FirstName + " " + c.LastName + " is awesome!"); } else { Console.WriteLine("There was no customer named Goodman. How lame!"); } But how is that better? Either way, if you forget to check that the customer exists, you get an exception. I suppose that a CustomerNotFoundException is a bit easier to debug than a NullReferenceException by virtue of being more descriptive. Is that all there is to it?

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  • Should I make up my own HTTP status codes? (a la Twitter 420: Enhance Your Calm)

    - by Max Bucknell
    I'm currently implementing an HTTP API, my first ever. I've been spending a lot of time looking at the Wikipedia page for HTTP status codes, because I'm determined to implement the right codes for the right situations. Listed on that page is a code with number 420, which is a custom code that Twitter used to use for rate limiting. There is already a code for rate limiting, though. It's 429. This led me to wonder why they would set a custom one, when there is already a use case. Is that just being cute? And if so, then which circumstances would make it acceptable to return a different status code, and what, if any problems may clients have with it? I read somewhere that Mozilla doesn't implement the joke 418: I’m a teapot response, which makes me think that clients choose which status codes they implement. If that's true, then I can imagine Twitter's funny little enhance your calm code being problematic. Unless I'm mistaken, and we can appropriate any code number to mean whatever we like, and that only convention dictates that 404 means not found, and 429 means take it easy.

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  • Should I always encapsulate an internal data structure entirely?

    - by Prog
    Please consider this class: class ClassA{ private Thing[] things; // stores data // stuff omitted public Thing[] getThings(){ return things; } } This class exposes the array it uses to store data, to any client code interested. I did this in an app I'm working on. I had a ChordProgression class that stores a sequence of Chords (and does some other things). It had a Chord[] getChords() method that returned the array of chords. When the data structure had to change (from an array to an ArrayList), all client code broke. This made me think - maybe the following approach is better: class ClassA{ private Thing[] things; // stores data // stuff omitted public Thing[] getThing(int index){ return things[index]; } public int getDataSize(){ return things.length; } public void setThing(int index, Thing thing){ things[index] = thing; } } Instead of exposing the data structure itself, all of the operations offered by the data structure are now offered directly by the class enclosing it, using public methods that delegate to the data structure. When the data structure changes, only these methods have to change - but after they do, all client code still works. Note that collections more complex than arrays might require the enclosing class to implement even more than three methods just to access the internal data structure. Is this approach common? What do you think of this? What downsides does it have other? Is it reasonable to have the enclosing class implement at least three public methods just to delegate to the inner data structure?

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  • Architecting persistence (and other internal systems). Interfaces, composition, pure inheritance or centralization?

    - by Vandell
    Suppose that you need to implement persistence, I think that you're generally limited to four options (correct me if I'm wrong, please) Each persistant class: Should implement an interface (IPersistent) Contains a 'persist-me' object that is a specialized object (or class) that's made only to be used the class that contains it. Inherit from Persistent (a base class) Or you can create a gigantic class (or package) called Database and make your persistence logic there. What are the advantages and problems that can come from each of one? In a small (5kloc) and algorithmically (or organisationally) simple app what is probably the best option?

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  • Best way to manage a changelog

    - by Gnial0id
    I'm currently developing a WinForm application. In order to inform the client about the improvements and corrections made during the last version, I would like to manage and display a changelog. I mostly found existing changelog on website (the term changelog is pretty used) or explanation on how to manage the release numbers, which I don't care. So, these are my questions: Is there a good practice in changelog management (using XML, pure text in the app, etc.) in a desktop application ? What is the best way to display it (external website, inside the winform application) ? Thanks.

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  • Repository query conditions, dependencies and DRY

    - by vFragosop
    To keep it simple, let's suppose an application which has Accounts and Users. Each account may have any number of users. There's also 3 consumers of UserRepository: An admin interface which may list all users Public front-end which may list all users An account authenticated API which should only list it's own users Assuming UserRepository is something like this: class UsersRepository extends DatabaseAbstraction { private function query() { return $this->database()->select('users.*'); } public function getAll() { return $this->query()->exec(); } // IMPORTANT: // Tons of other methods for searching, filtering, // joining of other tables, ordering and such... } Keeping in mind the comment above, and the necessity to abstract user querying conditions, How should I handle querying of users filtering by account_id? I can picture three possible roads: 1. Should I create an AccountUsersRepository? class AccountUsersRepository extends UserRepository { public function __construct(Account $account) { $this->account = $account; } private function query() { return parent::query() ->where('account_id', '=', $this->account->id); } } This has the advantage of reducing the duplication of UsersRepository methods, but doesn't quite fit into anything I've read about DDD so far (I'm rookie by the way) 2. Should I put it as a method on AccountsRepository? class AccountsRepository extends DatabaseAbstraction { public function getAccountUsers(Account $account) { return $this->database() ->select('users.*') ->where('account_id', '=', $account->id) ->exec(); } } This requires the duplication of all UserRepository methods and may need another UserQuery layer, that implements those querying logic on chainable way. 3. Should I query UserRepository from within my account entity? class Account extends Entity { public function getUsers() { return UserRepository::findByAccountId($this->id); } } This feels more like an aggregate root for me, but introduces dependency of UserRepository on Account entity, which may violate a few principles. 4. Or am I missing the point completely? Maybe there's an even better solution? Footnotes: Besides permissions being a Service concern, in my understanding, they shouldn't implement SQL query but leave that to repositories since those may not even be SQL driven.

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  • Do functional generics exist and what is the correct name for them if they do?

    - by voroninp
    Consider the following generic class: public class EntityChangeInfo<EntityType,TEntityKey> { ChangeTypeEnum ChangeType {get;} TEntityKeyType EntityKey {get;} } Here EntityType unambiguously defines TEntityKeyType. So it would be nice to have some kind of types' map: public class EntityChangeInfo<EntityType,TEntityKey> with map < [ EntityType : Person -> TEntityKeyType : int] [ EntityType : Car -> TEntityKeyType : CarIdType ]> { ChangeTypeEnum ChangeType {get;} TEntityKeyType EntityKey {get;} } Another one example is: public class Foo<TIn> with map < [TIn : Person -> TOut1 : string, TOut2 : int, ..., TOutN : double ] [TIn : Car -> TOut1 : int, TOut2 :int, ..., TOutN : Price ] > { TOut1 Prop1 {get;set;} TOut2 Prop2 {get;set;} ... TOutN PropN {get;set;} } The reasonable question: how can this be interpreted by the compiler? Well, for me it is just the shortcut for two structurally similar classes: public sealed class Foo<Person> { string Prop1 {get;set;} int Prop2 {get;set;} ... double PropN {get;set;} } public sealed class Foo<Car> { int Prop1 {get;set;} int Prop2 {get;set;} ... Price PropN {get;set;} } But besides this we could imaging some update of the Foo<>: public class Foo<TIn> with map < [TIn : Person -> TOut1 : string, TOut2 : int, ..., TOutN : double ] [TIn : Car -> TOut1 : int, TOut2 :int, ..., TOutN : Price ] > { TOut1 Prop1 {get;set;} TOut2 Prop2 {get;set;} ... TOutN PropN {get;set;} public override string ToString() { return string.Format("prop1={0}, prop2={1},...propN={N-1}, Prop1, Prop2,...,PropN); } } This all can seem quite superficial but the idea came when I was designing the messages for our system. The very first class. Many messages with the same structure should be discriminated by the EntityType. So the question is whether such construct exists in any programming language?

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  • Informing GUI objects about screen size - Designing

    - by Mosquito
    I have a problem with designing classes for my game which I create. In my app, there is: class CGame which contains all the information about game itself, e.g. screen width, screen height, etc. In the main() function I create a pointer to CGame instance. class CGUIObject which includes fields specifying it's position and draw() method, which should know how to draw an object according to screen size. class CGUIManager which is a singleton and it includes a list of CGUIObject's. For each object in a list it just calls draw() method. For clarity's sake, I'll put some simple code: class CGame { int screenWidth; int screenHeight; }; class CGUIObject { CPoint position; void draw(); // this one needs to know what is a screen's width and height }; class CGUIManager // it's a singleton { vector<CGUIObject*> guiObjects; void drawObjects(); }; And the main.cpp: CGame* g; int main() { g = new CGame(); while(1) { CGUIManager::Instance().drawObjects(); } return 0; } Now the problem is, that each CGUIObject needs to know the screen size which is held by CGame, but I find it very dumb to include pointer to CGame instance in every object. Could anyone, please, tell me what would be the best approach to achieve this?

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  • Draw "vision cone" / targetting element onto game world

    - by gkimsey
    I'm wanting to indicate various things using a "pie slice" sort of shape as below. Similar to vision cones in stealth game minimaps, or targetting indicators in RTS type games for frontal area attacks. Something generic enough to be used for both would be ideal. I need to be able to procedurally (and efficiently) change things like the slice width and length, color, transparency, position in the world, etc. For my particular situation, there's no concern with elevation, funky terrain, or really any third axis at all as far as this element is concerned. I have two first inclinations on how to accomplish this: 1) Manually generate the vertices for a main triangle, (possibly two, superimposed to get the border effect), a handful more to approximate the arc at the end, and roll it into a mesh. 2) Use some sort of 2D drawing library to create a circle and mask it off at the right angles, render to texture, and use that. For reference, I have some experience with Ogre3D, but I'm not attached to it as this is a mostly academic pursuit at the moment. Other technologies that might be better at accomplishing this are more than welcome. Finally, I'm kind of curious about how to do a "flashlight" or similar 3D effect that could produce the same result, but on all surfaces in the lit area.

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  • How can I get better at explaining complex software processes to developers?

    - by Lostsoul
    I'm really struggling with my software specs. I am not a professional programmer but enjoy doing it for fun and made some software that I want to sell later but I'm not happy with the code quality. So I wanted to hire a real developer to rewrite my software in a more professional way so it will be maintainable by other developers in the future. I read and found some sample specs and made my own by applying their structure to my document and wanted to get my developer friend to read it and give me advice. After an hour and a half he understood exactly what I was trying to do and how I did it(my algorithms,stack,etc.). How can I get better at explaining things to developers? I add many details and explanations for everything(including working code) but I'm unsure the best way I can learn to pass detailed domain knowledge(my software applies big data, machine learning, graph theory to finance). My end goal is to get them to understand as much as possible from the document and then ask anything they do not understand, but right now it seems they need to extract alot of information from me. How can I get better at communicating domain knowledge to developers?

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  • Beginner's steps to game programming [on hold]

    - by CodeTrasher
    I have graduated from university less than 6 months ago and became a B.Eng in Software Engineering. I have moderate understanding of programming experience from languages like C++, Java and C#. But mostly on simple desktop and mobile applications. I've tried some simple Pong-like games but never finished even the smallest game. I have a couple of nice ideas growing (IMO, at least...) in my mind but don't really know where to begin. 2D is way to go, of course, at the beginning. I just want to hear from more experienced game devs how they started out. Should I make a rough outline of the core idea and mechanics and start working on a prototype of core gameplay? Or should I just practice more by making Pong, Asteroids and that sort of games and get an understanding of those before moving on? Thanks to all!

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  • Accepting a numerical range in a function call

    - by dekpos
    I have encountered two ways of doing it: void foo(int from, int to); /* 'from' inclusive, 'to' exclusive */ void foo(int startIndex, int rangelength); Has one style historically been preferred over the other? If so, was it just a matter of convention or was it due to some deeper underlying reason? I'm currently programming in Java and noticed that the Arrays class uses the former style. The exclusivity of the to argument felt somewhat unintuitive to me, which led me to ask this question.

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  • Should static parameters in an API be part of each method?

    - by jschoen
    I am currently creating a library that is a wrapper for an online API. The obvious end goal is to make it as easy for others to use as possible. As such I am trying to determine the best approach when it comes to common parameters for the API. In my current situation there are 3 (consumer key, consumer secret, and and authorization token). They are essentially needed in every API call. My question is should I make these 3 parameters required for each method or is there a better way. I see my current options as being: Place the parameters in each method call public ApiObject callMethod(String consumerKey, String consumerSecret, String token, ...) This one seems reasonable, but seems awfully repetitive to me. Create a singleton class that the user must initialize before calling any api methods. This seems wrong, and would essentially limit them to accessing one account at a time via the API (which may be reasonable, I dunno). Make them place them in a properties file in their project. That way I can load the properties that way and store them. This seems similar to the singleton to me, but they would not have to explicitly call something to initialize these values. Is there another option I am not seeing, or a more common practice in this situation that I should be following?

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  • Implementing `let` without using a macro

    - by Matt Fenwick
    I'm learning Lisp, and I've just gotten to let, which I don't quite understand (the implementation of). A common definition for it is given in terms of lambda as a macro. However, nowhere have I seen that let must be implemented as a macro or in terms of lambda. Is it possible to define let without using a macro or lambda? I know it can be implemented as a primitive, but I want to know whether it can be implemented in Lisp without creating a macro -- by creating a special form or a function.

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  • Moving dozens of existing standalone retail sites to one central inventory database: what should I know going in?

    - by palintropos
    This will be the first project of this scale that I have attempted, and the first time I have run a website at all (much less dozens) using an off-site database. In particular, I'd like to know: what sort of optimizations I should read up on to make this run as smoothly as possible? any pitfalls/gotchas wiser, more experienced folk are aware of I should be on the lookout for, and what damage-control and preventative measures I should take against the nightmare scenario of the main server (hosting the database) having an outage, grinding over 100 websites to a halt (because they have no access to the product data).

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  • More Tables or More Databases?

    - by BuckWoody
    I got an e-mail from someone that has an interesting situation. He has 15,000 customers, and he asks if he should have a database for their data per customer. Without a LOT more data it’s impossible to say, of course, but there are some general concepts to keep in mind. Whenever you’re segmenting data, it’s all about boundary choices. You have not only boundaries around how big the data will get, but things like how many objects (tables, stored procedures and so on) that will be involved, if there are any cross-sections of data (do they share location or product information) and – very important – what are the security requirements? From the answer to these types of questions, you now have the choice of making multiple tables in a single database, or using multiple databases. A database carries some overhead – it needs a certain amount of memory for locking and so on. But it has a very clean boundary – everything from objects to security can be kept apart. Having multiple users in the same database is possible as well, using things like a Schema. But keeping 15,000 schemas can be challenging as well. My recommendation in complex situations like this is similar to a post on decisions that I did earlier – I lay out the choices on a spreadsheet in rows, and then my requirements at the top in the columns. I  give each choice a number based on how well it meets each requirement. At the end, the highest number wins. And many times it’s a mix – perhaps this person could segment customers into larger regions or districts or products, in a database. Within that database might be multiple schemas for the customers. Of course, he needs to query across all customers, that becomes another requirement. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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  • Where to get PNG icons/graphics for game development for kids? [closed]

    - by at.
    Possible Duplicate: Where can I find free sprites and images? I'm teaching kids to program using Ruby and the gaming framework Gosu/Chingu. Kids love it, including the part where they have to look for the icons/graphics for their game objects. I direct them to iconarchive.com, but the selection is sometimes very limited, the graphics aren't always with transparent backgrounds and sometimes the art requires payment. I don't mind paying for an educational license of some sort, but I want the kids to easily select graphics they can use in their games. Is there another resource better suited for this purpose? I don't have a good solution for this, but would also love a site they can get cool background images for their games.

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  • Mobile Compatibility: traditional website look vs native application ?

    - by Siddiqui
    I have a question related to mobile compatible websites, I have seen two type of websites One in which they adopt traditional website look and adjust website according to mobile screen, if they have lot of information which can not be adjust according to screen then they expand the height of page, so that user can scroll the page to see more information... In the second approach they used native application look means use navigation-bar, tab-bar, tool-bar, scroll-view just like in native applications. Height and width of page adjust according to screen size, if they have more information then they use scroll-view etc... My question is: which approach is better then other, in which approach you feel more comfortable to use website.

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  • How to calculate production when player is offline

    - by Kaizer
    What is the best way to do for example food growth based on how many food buildings you have? Lets say I have a webbased game where you can build a farm wich generates 60 food units per hour. A player has 1 farm in his possession. What is the best way to keep on producing these units even when the player is offline? Should I do the math when the player get's back online again? If so..how can I do this without having to save his last online time every 5 seconds so I can do some maths with it when he logs back in (datetime.now - lastonlinetime)? Next thing is when the player is online, should I refresh his resource count every 5 seconds or so by going to the database and back? This would seem weird to do for every logged on player. I hope you understand my question. kind regards

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  • What most games would benefit from having

    - by Phil
    I think I've seen "questions" like this on stackoverflow but sorry if I'm overstepping any bounds. Inspired by my recent question and all the nice answers (Checklist for finished game?) I think every gamedev out there has something he/she thinks that almost every game should have. That knowledge is welcome here! So this is probably going to be an inspirational subjective list of some sorts and the point is that anyone reading this question will see a point or two that they've overlooked in their own development and might benefit from adding. I think a good example might be: "some sort of manual or help section. Of course it should be proportional to how advanced the game is. Some users won't need it and won't go looking for it but the other ones that do will become very frustrated if they can't remember how to do something specific that should be in the manual". A bad example might be "good gameplay". Of course every game benefits from this but the answer is not very helpful.

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