@TheZorg awesome mockup, concept!

So... it's kind of like 2D Lugaru platformer then? (KIDDING!!! =)

Love the concept here, I'm suck on "Meh heh heh" =) Works great here on Chrome 5.0.342.9 beta under linux... Really nicely conceived and implemented.

I've heard you have to drink ALOT of cough syrup to REALLY get to the levity stage.

 

!!  

!!!  

So after I stopped laughing I drew this:



Ah, it's late!

You have 100 levels, what do you do when you decide you need another level between 3 and 4?

Hmn. Good point!

To be honest, usually I'm thinking of levels as being more concretely interconnected. I guess it is different ball of wax when you've got a ton of levels that could be ordered any way (and will want to be reordered say to help the difficulty curve.) So I guess in those situations you don't want to name your level files in such a concrete way, but have an array in your game that orders them (and then, name them something that you'll be able to remember, maybe like "lava_room" "unfair_lava_room", etc.)

I'd really recommend against encoding the order of levels in the filename, it makes it super difficult to reorder levels.

Nowai! You just rename the files....

I think, on some level, there are really only three options:

1. Either levels are stitched together at certain points; i.e., you create a "door" object of some kind that links two levels together, and an opposite door on the other level. This might also include a game with purely sequential levels, though here the stitching can be completely automatic (if you go off the right hand side of the level, you load the next level sequentially and show a screen with how many lives left.)

2. There is a hub level that you use to enter levels. Conceptually this is really the same as option 1 above, except the hub level might not use the same movement mechanics (think SMB3)

3. Levels are placed globally; i.e., each level has a global coordinate and the game engine automatically figures out when you walk off the edge of one level what neighbour level you are in.

If you are placing them globally, ala option 3, then you really just need some way to refer to what the world coordinate of a level is, and then let your engine figure it out. What I do is actually just use the corresponding filename, for example overworld area 0,0 is ow_0_0 and the one to the left of it is ow_-1_0.

For my part, I actually like the extra constraint of placing them globally. It forces me to make creative solutions (the inside of a house can't be bigger than the outside, for example, and dungeons underground have to have the same proportion as the overworld.)

If you are not placing them globally, then you will somehow need to refer to them. I recommend some kind of naming scheme that makes sense in the context of your game. For instance if you have linear levels you might just name the files lvl001.map through to lvl100.map (if you pad with zeroes it will be easier to search through your big list of files later on.) If you had sub-levels (e.g., you enter a special door in lvl001 and it takes you into a shop) you might do something like lvl001_001 to reference them or even lvl001_shop. Ditto if you had worlds or something like that, you might do w01_lvl001_sub01 for world 1, lvl 1, sub level 1. Keeping it organized in filenames like this is going to be easiest on your sanity in the long run, especially with a large game.

Next, to take advantage of this in your code you really need to reference them by name. You don't want to create this great naming scheme for files and then for no good reason ignore it for in-game doors, etc. So you should just use some kind of associative array, in flash it might be:

var myLevels : Array;
myLevels["w01_lvl001_sub01"] = LoadLevel ("w01_lvl001_sub01.map");

... however! Why do all that?

The final, best solution, if you can manage it, is going to be to have a function called LoadAllLevels (). The first thing it does is scan the levels folder for all files ending in .map. Then, it's going to to just load it into the proper slot.

This way, as you add more areas, you don't have to go back into your code (ugh) to reference them. It might not seem like much work, but you've got to eliminate all this busy-work so you can focus on the important stuff.

Okay! TA-DA!! Good luck, and take it with a grain of salt (of course) but this is how I do it.

Guys...! Is this thread going to take over the whole internet.

I suggest we make this into a poetry thread:

October first has come and gone,
The leaves are falling to the lawn,
Soon the snow
And the long winter
Will bury us all in it's deathlike cocoon.

Humankind thinks sunny weather's good,
But then winter feels misunderstood,
Soon snap judgements
And food for thought
Will lead is not into temptation but also into evil.

Our biologies combine to unknown end,
Give precious little time to spend
Yet we waste it
And fend off boredom
And submit ourselves
Our whole being
Into this nightmarish, unreal bracken that is the internet.

First, I was watching some videos on Vimeo by Warren Fu, really some amazing stuff. Anyhow he recently did two videos for Mark Ronson's new album, and then I came across this other video from that album that I thought would be of interest here, this one is by Gary Breslin and Jordan Galland:


Watch

Actually, it is kind of sad that the pixel art is so camp (mixed resolutions, uber garish, not pixel-locked) but oh well. It's still pretty cool, I especially like the boss battle and when the sword strikes are timed to the attacks.

That is all!

I think you should knock $100 off the price of whatever you get and invest in an external HDD to use for backup.

I stay far away from laptops for work for this reason, basically they are moved around so much and the HDD is physically more confined to begin with that they are unreliable. Anecdotally they seem to me to be terrible creativity-destroyers (as in, the HDD crashes and takes your project(s) with it.) So... avoid this fate!

I am lucky in that I can use a desktop (and am going to be getting a netbook soonish, but mainly to play games in the evening which for various reasons doesn't work well with my work setup.)

That said, I have seen quite a few of OTHER PEOPLES laptops and can recommend against anything Toshiba. OTOH Dells seem really nicely set up, all the way from the BIOS to customer support. If I were to buy a non-netbook laptop I am sure it would be a Dell of some flavour.

Finally here is a tip: When you first get it, boot into the bios and run the extensive memory diagnostic (takes over an hour to run, twiddles bits many different ways.) My wife had a dell and it crashed intermittently, which we chalked up to it being Vista and being relatively new at that point. One day, though, we ran this diagnostic which showed that one of the ram chips was faulty. Called them, explained the error, and they sent us new ram chips which arrived the next day. Lucky too, it was the last day of her warranty, but I can attest that they were really great to deal with.

Best of luck!

chris you're still talking about issues separate from this *particular* game. nobody is arguing that games in general aren't sexist. just that what this particular game did was not. now you're saying you didn't even read the site. so you didn't read the site, you didn't play the game, and you're saying it's sexist anyway? why not do those things before making that claim? context can be very important, just reading a quote or two out of context and writing pages of text about it doesn't seem right.

Paul/Chris I think you are each zeroing in on something different. Paul seems to be seeing mainly that the game was critical of the pervy guys, and wondering why that is so inappropriate. But Chris (and the original article, at least to my read) seems to be critical of the entire setup, which is played mainly for laughs and is ultimately still demeaning to the shop owner. I think these two views aren't mutually exclusive.

Hi Medi! Unfortunately I don't have any information on scholarships but just wanted to send you a good vibe of encouragement. It's really sad that KooChooLoo was rejected, the video looks very cool. You're really doing amazing stuff, especially for a 17 year old. I am sure if you got into a good school environment you could expand your abilities hugely so I am wishing you the best!

I am lucky enough to be quite healthy now, however for most of my life that wasn't the case.

I used to be pretty overweight and overall weak, however I met a girl (now my wife) who lived across town, I didn't have a job, so I ended up biking both ways to her place. At first I hated this immensely because I thought my parents should give me a car (hah!) But eventually cycling just became easier and easier and now it's second nature and wherever I go I just go on my bike. Sometimes people get irritated when I tell them this because it sounds like bragging but it's more than, until about 5 years ago I was completely unathletic (and had been my whole life) where now I am quite strong, so it's more a factor of personal amazement.

More than this though is that I'm lucky that I don't have any major health problems that are outside my control.

That whole site, The Border House, seems to be one giant, progressive nightmare.

...snip...

Sadly this type of PC intellectual bullying will leave a mark on the industry,

...snip...

I don't think this kind of site represents an "industry bully". It might be that this particular site is more focused on a gender-issues perspective but I'm not sure why you feel that counts as bullying.

I am reminded of the recent Metroid: Other review on G4 (I think) where the reviewer criticized M:O for basically turning Samus into a whiny weakling, personality-wise. And then got lambasted by readers. Anyhow I think it's unfair to call such a relatively small voice a "bully".

Forgive me if it's too obvious, but surely what we can do (as an indie development community) is make games that do it right.

Go on then! 

(Uhm, I know it was suggested ages ago as a joke in the legendary 'where are all the indie games loving girls' thread, but I do think a TIGS compo to do games for girls would be really interesting!  )

Zoop! Just dodging in for this:

October's Experimental Gameplay Project is Boys and Girls.

Oh yeah I was going to say, one thing that I really love is how carefully and finely fez is animated. Like all his little motions, he really convinces me that he's got mass to his body and the animations are very smooth, extravagant even. Keep going!

Interesting... I think though that maybe there are two types of maguffins. Like, there is the ball you mentioned which is clearly a poorly thought out plot device (I'll give you the crystal key to the palace but first you need to find my silver locket in the dungeon of death) but I think it's important not to confuse with the "Ultimate Magical Object" trope.

In LotR I think the ring wasn't exactly a bad maguffin; it's tightly wound into the story and works on many levels, I think. Ditto with the Triforce, though of course the story of Zelda games is not really that interesting in comparison with LotR...

Sexual Harassment 101 or "What's So Wrong With Saying You're Beautiful"
by PsySal

Suppose you work at a job, you are let's say a computer programmer. Other programmers on the team are talented... but so are you. You want to be respected as a good programmer, you're not afraid to admit your faults but you definitely have valuable ideas.

The only problem is, everyone on the team keeps belittling you. In fact, they completely ignore your suggestions or abilities and constantly remind you, indirectly, that they want to have sex with you. That they like your lipstick. That they like your sweater.

On the one hand, they are creeps. But it's actually worse than that, the real problem is that you're not being treated seriously on a professional level. They are saying, "you don't count, except as an object for us to sexualize."

You see the problem now? I don't see that it's really that hard to understand.

(NOTE: I didn't fully read the initial post so maybe I'm a bit off base here, but it really does infuriate me when people (not mentioning any names) pull out the "what's so wrong with saying you look nice" card.) OKAY I said my piece I'm outta this one. =) NO ill intent just hoping to shed some light on it...

EDIT: After my knee-jerk reaction I went back and read the review and all the posts. I think that what bento says is pretty right, in that the developers aren't exactly glorifying or condoning it, but ultimately it sounds like it is played mainly for humour which is really bad taste. So anyhow I do think the review in question is pretty fair, the author found something they found offensive that the game seemed to be saying was somehow OK, though there was some soft criticism of it. Anyhow... onward!

@Hardy hey nice to meet you! Your blog is really brilliant and I've read it for a long time...

There is one problem with the main character not turning around properly when he's shooting, so sometimes he's angled the wrong way. Other than that in action I think it looks reasonably convincing when he shoots, but we'll see!

Today I have my rally outfit on, which is basically a shirt that says TEXAS and a pair of camo pants. So we'll see what I get accomplished!

Love the diagonals, flat shading, and color selection. I think making a passive platformer is a fantastic idea, something like Knytt but more.

Seriously though, I could live with this not turning into a game... I love just seeing the art.

No this needs to be a game.