I have stickers on my laptop from last GDC, including a pirate shark from Ted Martens. They are like business cards that don't get thrown in a drawer at the end of the week

Oh, and yeah. I try to avoid going outside when the temperature is -10c. I assume the author lives in the southern hemisphere.

California, near San Francisco. It is supposed to be the rainy season now but instead we keep getting sunny and 20c.

I'm totally looking forward to webgl, but last I checked support wasn't quite there. Maybe I should just start using it anyway...it would be great to be back in opengl.

I don't do it, but I agree that it sounds like a good idea.

Someone should organize a game jam where everyone camps out in the woods for a week(end). I think it would be a fun bonding experience, and might have an awesome effect on games (ie more board/card/practical games).

But, back to the point, you could always bring a sketchbook and sketch ideas or draw characters or something along those lines. I agree that it's hard to work on a computer in the sun, so don't! Do the parts you can without a computer.

Also, it could be a good way to find playtesters, maybe? Depends on what game you're going for. A mobile, casual game would probably have better luck in this environment than an MMO or similar.

Camping game jam sounds awesome!

I'm a programmer so the sketchbook doesn't work as well as it might, though I would like to be better at sketching so maybe I should just use that as an excuse.

You're right about playtesters...I should work on a mobile game just so I can show it to people at the park

I'm working on a side-scrolling game using the <canvas> element in html. I can't get a decent framerate out of it. I need some help or suggestions. Is anyone else successfully doing smooth scrolling on html5 and care to share how?

Here are the problems I'm seeing:

• bigger sprites (like I want to use for the grass/rocks/dirt of the level) are slow to draw, especially if they overlap (I want them to overlap to look convincing, like Braid)
• using context.rotate() before context.drawImage() kills performance, so I can't rotate sprites on the fly. Any suggestions better than pre-rendering all the possible rotations to off-screen canvas elements?
• All of this gets worse as the canvas size goes up. Filling even a small screen, like 1366x768, doesn't seem possible.

Here's what I've tried:

• Use a small canvas, like only 800x600. This sucks, but I'm willing to live with it.
• Try to render the terrain to a couple different off-screen canvases, then use drawImage to copy them to the main canvas. This saves the cost of drawing all those big sprites for the terrain, but now it has to copy the even bigger terrain canvases into the main canvas so it isn't that much of a savings. I can only get a few layers of depth before it is slow again. Plus it is a PITA to do.
• requestAnimationFrame helps a bit. Not enough.

I'm kind of stuck for ideas on what else to try. Anyone have any examples of smooth side-scrolling action using canvas and care to share the secret?

I'll admit I'm a little spoiled by OpenGL, where a few thousand sprites on screen is easy.

The weather is awesome outside. On days like today I wish I was a landscape painter or park ranger or something. Instead I'm stuck inside working on a computer.

I could take my laptop to the park, but the screen is hard to read in the sun, the battery wouldn't last very long, etc.

Anyone work on their games outside regularly? Any tips?

Buried deep in the Alps of Europe and surrounded by cows, goats and sheep, my partner and I had only two options: become shepherds or do something totally unimaginable here - make a computer game.

The terrain really reminds me of the Alps!

Second, for controls, are people used to two hands on keyboards or gamepad these days? Since it’s a plane game, it requires both hands pressing multiple keys at the same time.
Do many PC users own gamapad and is it popular?

I think on the PC, flight sim enthusiasts are likely to have joysticks with several buttons. Some will have HOTAS joysticks with plenty of buttons, thumbsticks, throttle, rudder, etc. (I did, until I gave it to my brother). I didn't have a gamepad until I started hanging out with folks from tigsource...now I have an xbox 360 controller.

Is [email protected] not your email address? That's how I read the card...

Great fun! I love games that make you think about your breathing. I finally died after falling into a hole that was a lot deeper than I expected. I had a hint of panic too, realizing that I wasn't going to make it out, and started frantically jumping up to try to get back to the surface. Didn't make it. Very cool to have the game pull panic out that way

Umm, apologies for the dumb question, but where would that GGJ exactly be?

There's one in Berlin in a month that I'm intending to visit, but I can hardly imagine that would be the one... or is it?

Here's how you can double-check whether the one you're going to is part of the global game jam:

http://globalgamejam.org/Locations/country

(well, also, is the one you're going to Jan 27-29?)

knowing people at GDC makes a huge difference, so I could imagine that getting to know a bunch of other volunteers would be a big benefit.

Based on feedback and metrics I've made a couple changes.

1) Added music.

2) Removed the "failure" ending & put the "hold space as you breathe in" instructions right up front.

Too many people were ending up at the "failure" ending, I'm hoping this fixes it. I'm worried it might take away some charm, though. What do you think? I'd really appreciate feedback on this, especially if you played it before. Is it better now? Worse?

Play: http://www.zovirl.com/2011/09/forest.html

I like how braid and realm of the mad god handle it. Instructions embedded in the level so the tutorial doesn't interrupt the play, and takes only as long as a simple level.

I can also definitely confirm that asteroid mining will be in one of the next few builds, probably this immediate one coming out. As for ferrying cargo betwen space stations; what would you have in mind.

You talked about hauling ore from asteroids to stations for a profit. Imagine the exact same mechanics except the player is hauling medical supplies (or food, or water, or people, or whatever) from one station to another.  It could literally be the same basic mechanics with just a thin veneer calling it something else.

Ever play dopewars? There was a variant on dopewars set in space, where the player hauls materials between planets instead of drugs between different locations in a city.

I'm thinking of adding a few giant, 'cracked' asteroids where there's miners working in the debris. You can dock up there and trade your own refined resources for compressed ore, then haul it to a station for a profit. Probably elementary stuff like that so there won't be any spreadsheet misering. Maybe some special events that effect prices at locations dynamically.

I'd rather avoid a lot of number crunching and make trading for experience's sake, where you get to make high level decisions. Then just do it.

Sounds awesome! I agree with you about avoiding spreadsheets.

Awesome, I managed to dock!  Made it to wave 25 before I ran out of fuel trying to chase down the supply ship. It was fun! I have visions in my head of mining asteroids, carrying cargo between space stations, navigating in gravity wells, etc

Here's what was throwing me off before: When the "runway" locks to the middle of the screen, the camera stops following my ship. Previously, my ship shot off the side of the screen so fast I didn't notice, so I wasn't sure what to do...the diamond icon was obvious but my ship was no longer on the screen so I was confused. I finally figured out that if I approach the other ship slowly enough, then when the camera locks onto the runway I could stop my lateral motion before my ship ran off the edge of the screen. Then docking was easy.

Few bugs:

When I run out of fuel, my main rocket looks like it keeps firing. Also, my fuel bar seems to go negative (it grows out to the left of the fuel pump icon)


When I finally died (a wave of mines hit me since I had no fuel) I got this in a popup window:

___________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 1
of  Step Event
for object survivalmode:

Error in code at line 14:
   if !wave_set && obj_id_exists(world.player)
                                       ^
at position 38: Unknown variable player

Cool, I got locked on to the ship. And lined the ship up under the cursor that pops up. Does it actually "dock" or does the other ship just disappear?

Also, I could swear the other ship sometimes teleports away. True, or false?

One other comment on the radar: background stars look like points on it. Maybe dim the background behind it (i.e. have the radar background not be fully transparent)?

How do I strafe left/right when in docking mode? I tried holding 4 & 6 on the number pad and it fires one of the rotation rockets, but doesn't seem to affect my speed. What am I missing?

What do I do if an enemy shows up while I'm in docking mode? I can't turn to shoot at them. Rocket away to break the docking lock?

This is cool. I had some problems figuring out how to play it, but it feels like it has promise!

• website: blue text on dark grey is impossible to read on my monitor.
• my laptop keyboard doesn't have a number pad, but I have a regular keyboard so was still able to play
• I found the menu hard to use. I think up/down/enter would work better than up, 5, left. Also, a mouse would work. The rotating/sliding style of the menu is cool though.
• The "replay tutorials" menu option didn't work for me

First game:

• I would make the background darker on the tutorial messages so they stand out from the background more and are easier to read
• I felt like the HUD was obscuring my view. The radar kept being right on top of where I was trying to aim
• Something felt weird about firing. Sometimes I'd hit Q and it wouldn't fire. I think there's a cooldown-period or something? I wasn't sure.
• sometimes there's a huge stripe of text across the whole screen but I can't read what it says because it flashes by so fast
• What do I do when I run out of ammo?

Second game:

• Ok, I see there's a ship I can go dock with. But I can't catch it. It seems like it teleports away whenever I get near
• I got to wave 10 without trying. Most of the waves seem to blow themselves up if you leave them alone?
• Sometimes the HUD says "go right" and I can't seem to turn left, which is a problem when I want to shoot an enemy to the left
• ran out of fuel trying to chase down the docking ship

Third game:

• Oh I get it, the stripe of text is like a runway leading to the ship
• Ran out of fuel again trying to dock with the ship. Pesky enemies kept up
  with me this time, making it hard to concentrate on docking

Fourth game:

• getting closer to the ship. I'm trying to match velocities based on the radar, but...
• It seems like every time get near the ship, the rotation is locked and so I can't turn to maneuver next to it

So...what's the trick to docking with the ship?


As for your "big question," I don't like SHMUPs, so I'd prefer going to more of an open world right away. Maybe making the combat less wave-oriented and more like mobs in RPGs (you know how in an RPG, most mobs won't attack you until you get too close and/or attack them?)

But like I said, I don't like SHMUPs so...take that advice with a grain of salt

I was planning on taking Caltrain down, probably the 1:15. I'm up for riding together if you like.

(I'm getting a ride back with someone so it is just a one-way trip for me)

Firefox 7, Core i7, 8 gig ram. I just got Firefox 8 installed so I'll try it again.

EDIT: Nope, still lagging for 100ms or so every few seconds and once a minute or so it stops for 5 seconds.

Well, your computer is better than mine. I'm stumped.

I have a Core i5, windows, 4 gig ram. Works fine for me in firefox 6, chrome, and ie9.

What kind of video card do you have? I can't imagine that would be it, since I'm using my laptop's intel HD graphics chip (it also works well with the nividia 310m, of course)