In the past, I've done some data synching apps that ended up just using HTTP requests to shuttle data around between the phone and the server.

However, this Stack Overflow post indicates that you can do local network transfer between iOS and a computer using Bonjour.  It sounds considerably easier to do than Internet based communication.  I also hear tell there's a version of Bonjour for Windows.  I've never tried it myself, but maybe it'll point you in the right direction.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3901659/how-to-send-data-from-iphone-over-wifi-to-application-to-print-message

Thief 2 remains my favorite stealth game of all time.  It's a little weird how it was able to perfectly nail first person stealth, and so many games that came after botched it.

I'm not sure there's anything particularly revolutionary by today's standards in the mechanics, but the game did a lot of things right.  They set up a very rich world for the player

It had a good light and sound engine.  Different materials you walked on would make different noises, and lights were dynamic.  Guards had very good eyesight if you were in broad daylight, but if you were in total darkness they could walk within a foot of you and not notice.

The AI is pretty good.  I mean, this game is old but they chose the right parts of the AI to focus on.  Guards in the game are pretty aware of their surroundings.  They'll notice bloodstains, or even if the lights in a room were changed.  Sometimes they'll flip lights back on or relight torches.  They'll enter a search mode if they get suspicious, and will fight if they catch you.  The guards are stronger than Garret in direct combat, and very tenacious in their pursuit.  However, they'll run away if they're wounded (screaming the whole time), and Garret's more agile (none of that Assassin's Creed parkour bullshit, but the man can do some pullups), so it's possible to escape.  The one thing guards don't notice is stuff that's stolen, or things that have been moved around in rooms.  That would have been cool.

What was also interesting is they had non-combatants, civilians and the like, with a different AI that focused on fleeing and seeking help.  While a civilian wouldn't kill you, if one got away they'd probably bring back a whole slew of guards.

I think the real success of Thief (beyond the core sneaking mechanic being well executed), is how totally committed they were to supporting their core mechanics, and meeting the expectations of the players.  This ended up making the world highly interactive for the time, and gave me lots of great moments while playing it.

For instance, a big focus in the game was augmenting your environment to make it sneak-friendly.  Your bow had a slew of magical arrows available for it.

Water arrows could extinguish torches and wash out bloodstains.  What's really cool here is that they establish early on, "Water arrows can extinguish fire" and all throughout the game that remains true.  Later on you encounter these terrifying steam-powered sentry robots.  At first they seem neigh unkillable, but on their back is a small open vent to their furnace.  They never explicitly tell you this, but if you shoot a water arrow into the vent it will extinguish the furnace and shut them down.

Moss arrows could grow soft patches of moss on the floor, deadening the sound of your footsteps.
Rope arrows would embed in anything wooden and deploy a rope that could be climbed.
Noise arrows will start making suspicious sounding noise wherever they land for a few seconds.

Flash bombs were another great item that worked as a sort of "get out of combat free" card.  Using them would blind guards for a few seconds and leave them open to being knocked out (usually only something you can do when you're unnoticed).  Against a lone combatant, the flash bomb can let you easily win the fight, and against a group of guards it can distract them long enough for you to escape.  The flash bombs were great, because it allowed the designers to ramp up the deadliness of direct combat without making the game impossible.

Since the equipment was really powerful, they were able to design some pretty tough levels with few holes in the guard patrol paths.  They also had an awesome equipment system.  You got a base equipment loadout per-level, but you could use the money you stole from your previous mission to buy additional equipment.  That way the designers gave you a bare minimum needed to finish the level, but you could still customize your loadout.

Level design was well done in the game, too.  You had to sneak to get anything done, but they placed lots of alternate paths and shortcuts throughout the levels.  They also packed the levels filled with optional areas that had valuable things to steal.  This tied in very well with the whole "how much you steal is how much you have to spend on equipment for the next level" dynamic.

tl;dr:  Thief 2 is an amazing game and did basically everything I'd ever want in a stealth game.  It would be a good place to look for inspiration, I think, and if I had to make a stealth game I'd just make something like Thief 2.  I know that's not really "breaking the mould", but stealth is so consistently bad in games I'd consider making a really good stealth game quite the achievement.

Game is excellent monument to our glorious society.  LEADER would be proud!

Honestly, I would just worry about picking a tool that's easy to use and make games with that.

You're only going to need to port to consoles if you have a really successful game that merits a console port.  That is a very good problem to have.

If you already have a successful game, you already have money or can more readily secure funding.  Then you can hire an engineer to help you port the game, which will probably be cheaper than trying to port it yourself.

The most important thing is to make games, particularly good games that sell.  Focus on that first, and don't think too much about porting just yet.

I imagine you're still working on it, but the tree is really springy and loose at the moment, with some of the branches bending rather violently in your physics test.  Perhaps adding some constraints to the joints to limit their rotation would prevent the tree from bending in really strange ways?

Or, it might be good to increase the restorative force on those joints.

It's gorgeous looking, though.  Really love that aurora effect and the water.

Hmmmm, normally I'd recommend Box2D, but that's...well...2D, which won't cut it.

I think Bullet has a version for iOS.  It's an open source physics engine, and I've heard pretty good things about it.  I don't know what it would actually be like running on iOS, though.

I know it's a full on physics engine, and you're looking for just collision, but it might be scalable to your needs.  Other than Bullet, the only thing I've heard of is a detection library called coldet, but I know basically nothing about it.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/coldet/
http://bulletphysics.org/wordpress/

Is it for smartphones?

A few questions.

1)  How fast can objects move?
2)  How many objects need to be moving a the same time?
3)  How precise does the collision and math need to be?
4)  You said this is for a CAD program?  How would code be integrated into the project?  I'm guessing you have access to the source, but what language is it in?

Ok, so without the man power to adapt the UE3 source code (which I also don't have) into a new engine that would run on ps3 or xbox, it sounds like a writing my game in XNA really is the only way to go until I'm a billionaire who can afford console dev kits and whatnot, cool.

It might be worth me giving up the idea of working in XNA though, and instead focus on making a killer PC game in unreal, which (if it made loads of money) could be ported to consoles later, right? or not?

The full Unreal engine costs money to use (a pretty healthy sum), too.  You can use the UDK for free, which is quite powerful, and only pay royalties if you publish.  Something like that.  I don't know how something made with the UDK would run on a console, or if it would.  There are full versions of the Unreal Engine available for console, but once again, you need a license for it (and a dev kit console).

Something you write will likely only be able to be ported to consoles if you designed it to be ported from the get go.  I've heard that the general strategy is to design and code with the most cantankerous, restrictive platform in mind.  Particularly if you want to do anything taxing for a system, you'll have to have pretty deep knowledge of how it works.  I would not bank on anything you write with a significant degree of complexity being able to port unless you already have experience with the platform you'd be porting to.  PC's and the various consoles do not operate the same way, and have very different hardware constraints.

Is there a reason you're interested in the PS3 specifically?  Console development is hard for indies, which is why most tend to stick to PC/Smart Phone.  There's typically more overhead, and the technology and tools you need are not as accessible or cheap.  XNA's the exception, you can get the indie license for $100 I think.

At this point I've lost track of what the pass got me though; access to the IGS summit sessions, correct? Is there any way to get access to those other than getting a full summit/tutorials pass?

I'm fairly confident that the IGS pass sellout means that there are no seats left in the IGS sessions. It'll be an expo pass for me..

I'm still debating which pass to get.  I'm an indie, but wouldn't mind working in the AAA industry at some point.  That 1,500 full pass is just so expensive.

It's possible to mess around with the design too much and strangle something that was once good, but polish should always be to help reinforce your core design and let it shine through.  If you start mucking about and degrading your core design, then you're no longer polishing.

I suppose you could "spend too much time in the polish phase" and end up polluting your design, but I would consider that a developer being careless more-so than having spent too much time on polish.

Sorry Silent.

When I was in school, some of my professors would use "Interactive Fiction" to describe things that are kind of like games but not really.

There's an old arcade game called Dragon's Lair that consists pretty much entirely of QTE's.  I'm not really sure I'd consider that a video game.  I think there's a certain amount of complexity and abstraction that video games need to have to be what people would usually recognize as "video games".  A QTE doesn't really bring that to the table, and is more an element of interactive fiction than video games.

the alternative theory is, of course, that different people have different tastes, and might enjoy something that you don't enjoy

Actually, I'm going to visit this one again.

If we consider Heavy Rain to not be a game, but rather, a piece of Interactive Fiction, it totally changes things.

Much of what makes games good is the sense of agency, the ability to explore systems, the ability to play.  That sort of stuff.  Story and narrative are great, but you can have great games without a narrative at all.

Judging Heavy Rain as a game, well, I don't think it works very well.  However, it did sell and there are people who do like it, so maybe it's not actually a game, but rather, Interactive Fiction.

If it is not a game, then it doesn't have to live up to the expectations of games.  The exploration and execution of meaningful choice (in terms of game mechanics), does not have to be a core criteria for its success.  Rather, Interactive Fiction might have other aspects that take the front seat.  Things like the ability to explore and branch a story, or the ability to give the user some degree of control over the cinematic experience.

Heavy Rain got sold and marketed as a game, which I don't blame people for doing.  Interactive Fiction is not in the vernacular, and no one would have understood what it was if they tried to sell it as such.  It's on a PS3, you use a controller, it has 3D graphics, it's entertainment, I think the majority of people would look at that and go "yep, it's a game."  I think the backlash that people have, me included, is when others are like, "Wow Heavy Rain is a great game!" to which I reply, "What?  No it isn't.  It did all these game design no-nos"

It's quite possibly that Heavy Rain is a perfectly enjoyable media experience, so long as you don't think of it as a game, but as Interactive Fiction.  The QTE's, while they may not be the best idea (I honestly don't know), fit within the goals of Interactive Fiction.

However, I don't think they fit with the goals of video games, and that QTE's should be avoided in video games.

It was certainly different from what most people had seen of video games, and if you're able to scream loud enough that something's "good" then you release something that's "different", people won't know what to believe and they'll trust you.

i think this has two applications/corollaries you may be missing and/or uncomfortable with:

1) if millions of people can be deluded into thinking a game is good, and enjoying/loving it, even when it is not good, then in a sense the game actually *is* good, because they are getting enjoyment out of it, even though they were "tricked" into enjoying it

Strong sales and good reviews mean that a product is successful, that it has sufficiently met the expectations of the media and consumers.  It is not an absolute indicator of product quality.  There are fantastic products that never get moved, because they have no market.

People need two things before they can by a product.

1)  Knowledge of its existence.
2)  Will to purchase the product.

You can't buy something if you don't know it even exists, and you won't buy something you don't want.  Marketing exists to bolster both of these consumer needs, and good marketing can work wonders.

"New and different" is a fantastic marketing hook.  If you can convince people that something is innovative, you have a couple things going for you.

1)  You limit their scope of comparison to other products.  If someone presents to you a mousetrap, you have a whole wealth of mousetraps to compare them to.  If someone presents to you a magical wand that kills mice, you can't make direct comparisons.  It becomes more difficult to judge the worthiness/unworthiness of the product.  In such times, trusted opinions and the word of media outlets can be highly effective, since it is in a time of uncertainty that the consumer is most impressionable.

2)  New and shiny is attractive to consumers.  Everyone loves to be on the cutting edge, everyone loves to be a hipster.

2) if millions of people can be deluded into thinking a game is good, then it may also be true that *some* (if not all) of the games that you personally believe to be good are actually not good, and that you're enjoying them just because you were tricked into it. because if being able to fool someone into enjoying something that they should not enjoy is possible, you can't say that you're immune to it and that those millions of others are not

Yeah, I'm human.  So what?  Marketing works, that's why people spend more on it than making the game.  It would be hubris to think I'm above marketing, and I know I fall into it.

Or I could be a pretentious douche who's furiously pounding on my Macbook Pro while sipping my Grande Mocha Latte in Starbucks trying to decry successful games that I think "aren't art" but the plebeian masses embrace.

Who knows?

Regardless, in this context I am talking about "good" in the sense of gameplay mechanics which provide compelling experiences for the player with all the marketing guff and financial success stripped away.  So yes, games as something more than a money making endeavor.  Art, if you will.

*sip*

One interesting note, though, if the assertion that "Heavy Rain's not great" and "Heavy Rain was wildly successful" holds up it could indicate that there's a significant void in the market waiting to be filled.  Perhaps it was successful because people were in love with the idea it embodied.  A compelling, mature narrative married to the interactive depth of a video game does sound pretty sweet.  There could be some serious room for a game to step up to the plate and fill that void for consumers.

Discussion of whether or not Heavy Rain is "A bad M. Night Shyamalan movie" has absolutely zero to due with Quick Time Events.

You can validate your self-indulgent opinions of literary tastes somewhere else. This is about game design, and specifically the use of Quick Time Events as a method of gameplay.

you know, qtes kinda remind me of bad michael bay movies...

If the CoD series was rife with QTE's it would be a bad Michael Bay film.  Instead, it's just, "Michael Bay Presents:  Michael Bay: The Movie: The Game: Part 4: Gold Edition", which I'm actually ok with.

Fair enough.

I've heard the philosophy before that "movies are movies, games are games.  Let movies be movies, let games be games, don't mix the two."

The reasoning behind this is that movies and games have an irreconcilably difference.

Movies are passive entertainment.  You sit there and watch.  Absorbing the story, and the experience of watching, is what you're supposed to do.  You're free to interpret, but you cannot change the film.  It is made and it is static.

Games are active entertainment.  The player is not just audience, they are a component in the active creation of the experience.  Without the player, there is no game, just software that doesn't do anything.

Some people have suggested that cutscenes of any ilk are bad, and that the player should always be in control of the character.  If you want to watch cutscenes, go watch a movie.  Games should be about interaction and agency, and weakening that is bad.

Personally, I'm not convinced that cutscenes are bad, or that games and movies should never mix, but I do think they're tricky to get right.  Cutscenes are good for providing context, and delivering a very specific experience to the player.  However, I don't think they should be used for wholesale narrative dumps, and that many stories can benefit from gameplay and cutscene being interwoven.  More like "gameplay with a side of exposition" than "sit tight and watch a 5 minute movie."

QTE's try to merge gameplay and movie together, but only end up botching the strong suits of both mediums.  They prevent the player from experiencing the movie as a movie by invading the crafted nature of film and demanding the player's attention.  No longer can the player be the passive audience and enjoy the experience.  The trade off is that you get some really shallow, arbitrary gameplay.  Waggle this thing, press that button, jiggle this joystick.  Demanding someone's attention, making them perform a task, does not mean you are engaging them.  If the task is thoughtless and arbitrary, there is no way for the player to make any meaningful choices, or experience any meaningful challenge, and thus the experience is largely wasted.

You're just left with a movie that can't be enjoyed, and a segment of gameplay that's boring.

Again, I'm not opposed to cinematic moments of gameplay, or having narrative occur during gameplay.  I'm not a gigantic fan of moving from cutscene->gameplay->cutscene->gameplay either.  If you're going to make an "interactive cutscene" though, make the gameplay just as good as the rest of the game.  If you do, you no longer have a QTE and have what a QTE wants to be, and arguably, something useful for the game's experience.

The plot gets good on the second half of the game when there's a lot of action sequences, but until then there's a bunch of useless interactive scenes that could be just be told through non-interactive movies and wouldn't be so tedious and ridiculous.

I played through the entire thing. The plot is convoluted as fuck and has gigantic holes. It's also full of generic crime drama bullshit. This is supposed to be a "serious, mature" videogame? lol

I've been watching videos of the gameplay (if it can be called that), and lordy the dialog is bad.  I will also agree that the plot is absurd.

I think the game was exceedingly well marketed.  I remember when it was in development there was a lot of teasing, lots of whispers about how it was the next generation of storytelling.  I remember the media crowing about how video games were finally getting a masterprice, a breath of fresh air from your Halos and Gears of War, an intelligent game with a serious plot starring normal people.

But it's just a bad M. Night Shyamalan movie.  It was certainly different from what most people had seen of video games, and if you're able to scream loud enough that something's "good" then you release something that's "different", people won't know what to believe and they'll trust you.

Truly, Heavy Rain is filled to the brim with meaningful choices.

Anyway, QTEs are dumb and usually a half-assed compromise. Shocking the first time, then just annoying and uninteresting. If you want to put interactivity in certain parts of your game then go all-out and let me properly play it, and if you can't due to limitations regarding camera visibility, model resources, etc. but still think the game would benefit from me seeing it then let me watch or read it. Button press prompts aren't going to make cutscenes much more interesting.

Ok.  That's pretty awful.  Would be a better sequence if you could just chase the guy.

Blender's interface is actually useable now, so give it a shot.

I never played Heavy Rain, so I'm not really sure.

I believe the thing that makes them distinct to me is the lack of the ubiquitous "Simon Says" aspect most QTE's have had.

If I remember the squat game (it has been a long while since I played FF7), you had to press a specific sequence of buttons over and over with timing to do the squats, and the goal was to do as many as possible (with a target of X) in 30 seconds or something.

That's a bit different.  It's more of a skill execution than pressing random buttons, and it is explained to the player before embarking upon it.  If you mess up, there's more room for improvement and you understand why.