tl;dr The Apple iPhone SDK docs are really good.

I was really confused when I first read the documentation because all of the method names were so verbose/descriptive, it looked to me like they were saying theNameOfDesiredResult and some kind of http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/V/voodoo-programming.html.

And lol @ the sticky response. Maybe in an iPhone dev tips thread.

In the beta, I didn't even know the world was procedural until someone told me. I honestly thought it was just big that I kept seeing something different every time I played. I came across some cool generated mountains in the game.

I guess it's not completely awesome, but it's cool. Helps keeps things different and changing. The game would probably get incredibly boring if everything was static.

But how is the actual.. gameplay? I saw a video a while back of some people rushing a base, shooting some turrets. It looked cool.. looks pretty open-ended though? No win/lose? (unless you get all your cities removed from the map lol)

Thank you!!
Found this too: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1560492/how-to-tell-wether-a-point-is-right-or-left-of-a-line
The sign method works cleanly, thanks Tig'ers! Using the function for animating turns left or right, works great.

I've got an object with an X/Y velocity. I want to know if this velocity is left or right compared to a line between the objects location and another location.

Does anyone know how? Or what I should look up?

It's not horribly complex... but aren't you just reinventing webmail here? GMail accounts are free! Just make one for the game.

Good.. point.. but wait! You could put in number-crunching stuff for the GM.. roll dice for results and stuff. Custom programming of tables? "Below 3, result is A, above 3 less than 7 result i B" etc where A,B..Z are strings entered by the GM.

Thanks, great suggestions. Any iPhone ones out there?

This? http://www.pinchmedia.com/#features

Disclaimer: Not a web programmer, hence the thread:
Um.. how complex would it be to make some sort of PHP script for forum-GM games? "Input your turn here" then GM can "Send response to player" then GM can "Post to public thread what happened". Or maybe each event that happens, GM ticks name of each player who's aware of the event (eg you don't know when someone sabotaged your weapon while you slept etc).

Crap, missed this.
Um.. how complex would it be to make some sort of PHP script for forum-GM games? "Input your turn here" then GM can "Send response to player" then GM can "Post to public thread what happened". Or maybe each event that happens, GM ticks name of each player who's aware of the event (eg you don't know when someone sabotaged your weapon while you slept etc).
Not a web developer, or I would do it myself

Text-free spaceinvader tower-defense
with a strategy exploit about making a shitload of the money-making towers, waiting till the last space invader got to the end, selling a money-maker, placing a kill tower, then killing all but one again and rinse/repeat..
oh, spoilers

I wrote a bunch of text for a tutorial in a game I'm developing, and it kind of irritates me that I feel like I have to. I guess I'd like to give the player a simple diagram of controls and let them figure out the rest.. but there seems to be a trend in hand-holding in games lately? With so many games available to play, many free, I think designers use text to make sure the player is "getting it".. tutorial or plot or plot-twist etc; stemming from a concern that if they don't understand the mechanics or clearly what they are doing ("I don't know what I'm supposed to do.. find Zelda? Who's that? so I quit).
I don't think "text-free" for the sake of itself makes sense unless it fits into a larger artistic/gameplay view (Illegal Communication, that space invaders tower defense that was text-less. Forget name).
+1 to what Dustin said

3+ a day, mostly testing games I'm working on though. Random game playing + Getting together with friends: maybe 8-12 hours a week on average? I have been programming more and playing less, it's weird 

human genes + immortal jellyfish + photosynthesis slug genes + dolphin sexual organs + laser machine gun

Better hold on to your butts, this is gonna be one hell of a ride.

*hugs X3N*
A random spammer has been annoying me too. Knows which school I go to, how old I am, and keeps on talking about the Matrix...
Ah well, the best thing is to ignore them.

One time I was on the phone with a friend while driving, we were talking about different stuff, blah blah. Then I started talking about http://www.simulation-argument.com/, maybe 45 seconds explaining the theory / different possibilities.. then my friend said "Hello? Are you there?" And I said "yeah, you didn't hear what I was just talking about?" and they said "No, you cut out for about 45 seconds." and then I was like oh shit.

thematrixhasyou

So is the procedural-gameplay generator awesome? Not that great? Interesting?

There could be two panels on the front page.. for twice the indieness(?)
How about regular features for.. um not genres but styles? Like "multiplayer", "web-based", "competition", and such. Sorry I didn't read the rest of the thread, if this was said before then +1.

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=5746.msg362463#msg362463
Help I'm scared. What does she want!? I don't have a truck.. I have never moved le parcls!

Immortal Jellyfish ftw.
My random stuff for the thread:
1) about to finish development on an awesome indie game
2)
just called my cellphone, addressed me as "xeno", asked me a cryptic question, twice, when I indicated I didn't know what they meant, she hung up. She identified herself as Tracey (matches google records), no connect on call back and SMS bounced with "invalid number".. her phone number is listed on a phonescam investigation site.
This is after yesterday, when the payphone rang at the gas station and I answered it after it stopped ringing and a voice said "Press 2 to speak with a specialist who will talk to you about how your choice is good for you"
WTF

Hi guys, I'm Matt, some 20 year old Aussie programmer.

I'm currently in my final year of study at Swinburne, learning to make (who would guess?) computer games. I've participated in the Experimental Gameplay Project a little, with mixed results.

For some reason I find myself not enjoying many games recently, as strange as that may seem. Maybe I've just been playing the wrong games. Previously I have enjoyed games such as Mirror's Edge, Left 4 Dead 2 (never really like 1 that much), Team Fortress 2, Empire: Total War, Eve Online and Multiwinia as well as many more. The only games I currently seem to like playing are Audiosurf, Nethack and Off-Road Velociraptor Safari HD.

As for the games I've made... [Advertising heavy section D:] Well, there was the one involving a Rocket-Car-Helicopter-Submarine. Then there was the attempt to make a "worms-like" artillery game with a heavy emphasis on using physics to your advantage. Most recently there was a silly experimental asteroids clone. My current project is an RTS/TBS mashup where giving orders and watching them happen occur at entirely separate times.

As for what I'll be doing after the course... that's yet to be decided.

The games you like are more open-ended "freestyle" games than say.. a single player adventure. Racing, reaction, and.. the unbeatable Nethack. Maybe that's it?

Welcome all the new indies!
Looking forward to the games everyone makes 

[anything]

I don't know where to post this, so I'll post it here 

I'd really, really love making my own platformer    The biggest problem is, I currently don't know anything about programming. And I seriously mean anything. My only experience with game making has been Rm2k/Rm2k3, and I've never finished a project. I've tried to platformize those makers by disabling walking up and down, and adding a simple two-steps-forward jump that just doesn't feel right. I've tried some GM tutorials, and I end up "finishing" what I'm supposed to do, but I simply don't know what else I should/can do. It's evident I suck at this, but I'd still love making my own game.


This is what I do most of the time when I use Rm2k.

There's only one thing I can do, and that's keep trying. I'll read as many tutorials as possible until I become less sucky, and can make a semi-decent Mario clone platformer 

</mini-rant>

hey, a friend and i wrote a platformer engine a while back in vb. what we did was, have an array of wall classes which had a startpoint (X,Y), height, and side value (left, right or both) - which side you could wallslide onto, or other numbers for "block access completely".
Then there was an array of floors, same concept: startpoint(X/Y), length, and a value for if you could jump through or not.
my friend wrote another program that let you click points on a picture to generate the code for these walls/floors so, in the editor you would load a JPG file, then click "make wall", then click the start point, then the end point, matching to the picture, and that would generate code, something like

MakeWall(130,260,85,1) (x,y,height,side). Which we'd put into the appropriate LoadLevel(#) function.

I like it.
Perfect response to "How do we make RPG battles more interesting?"  
MP for "Recharge one character fast" or attack bonuses would be cool imo.