The Model View Controller (MVC) pattern has been used with great success in business software development for years. Despite this, it has never fully been picked up by the games industry. Today I’m going to discuss why the MVC pattern is perfect for game development. Read More
Test Driven Development (TDD) has steadily grown in popularity among non-game programmers. Despite this, it has not been widely adopted in game development. Today I’m going to discuss why TDD is suited to games development and how it frees developers and designers to experiment with “finding the fun” without breaking core gampelay.
Sid Meier once said “A game is a series of interesting choices” [1]. By focussing on the choices made by the player, we can create better games through Choice Driven Design. This focus on player choice should happen both at design and implementation time for best results. I will discuss why the focus on choices is so important, how this fits in with agile game development and give some practical ways of mapping out the choices made by the player.
Valve’s Gabe Newell was on Good Game recently and brought up a topic close to my heart; community funded games. This is where the community (gamers) all chip in small amounts of money to fund a game, rather than a single large publisher. The question is, will it work? Read More
A bunch of my friends are working on Edge of Twilight at Fuzzyeyes (the first game studio I worked at). They have a new video out which is quite impressive. Check it out here. I’m hoping to have an interview with a couple of the developers in the coming months. Fuzzyeyes is one of the few game studios remaining in Brisbane so I hope things move along smoothly for them.
I’ve previously talk about creating a good game GUI design. Today I’d like to hear from you. I’m interested in what people are currently using to mock up their in-game GUI’s and what they would like to see from a product to help them. Please add a comment to this blog, or email me directly with your thoughts. Below are some specific questions: Read More
Left 4 Dead 2 was announced at E3 this year. A group of disgruntled gamers have since started a boycott of the game. I don’t want to speak about the specifics of the boycott, but instead, touch on what this means for the games industry.
Have you ever played an underwhelming game? It might be a lack of choice, depth, emergence or fun. Today I’m going to discuss why many games lack that key ingredient to succeed, giving specific examples of how Dawn of War II (DOWII) and Battlefield Heroes (BH) both miss the mark. I’ll finish up by giving you an exercise to find out whether your game is underwhelming.
Have you ever written perfect code? If so, how often does this happen? If not, why not, and do you think it’s possible? Perfect code is something that many developers strive for but few, if any, achieve. In this entry, I will discuss the set of requirements that must be met for a developer to be in a position to write perfect code.
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