Goddammit I love being a student. I've just got all the Microsoft development tools, plus windows server edition, completely free :D

but in 40k you decide armour based on a dice roll, ie: 2+, 3+, 4+, 5+ and 6+, therefore there are 5 different armour types...

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/minecraft-if-you-build-it-they-will-play-2361873.html?9

Code:

void main()
{
}

Is perfectly valid C.

But not c++ iirc

hmm, it's possible that I may be wrong about the porting issue  

I've just generally found that porting after using mingw has been eaiser, not due to using any particular windows stuff (glut/SDL and opengl each time) but because of libraries (.a vs .lib) and things like that.

[EDIT]
Actually, tbh, I'm probably talking absolute shit, really, use whatever compiler you want. As someone earlier said, there are ways of working around issues you may come across, and realistically if you're porting something there's going to be a bit of work anyway, so switching compilers wont make much difference.

The way I see it, if you're planning on porting to linux any time in the future, Mingw/gcc is the way to go. If however, you plan on sticking to windows for the foreseeable future VC++ will do. However, beware, as often your users will need to install the Visual C++ re-distributable for your audience to be able to play it.

Some embedded programming, specifically for AVR chips. I'm really enjoying the challenge of trying to fit my code into 1k (I'm using the attiny13);

The only problem is that you get bullshit code like this:

Code:

#define F_CPU 1000000UL // Define software reference clock for delay duration
#include <avr/io.h>
#include <util/delay.h>
#define LED PB0
int i ;
 
 int main (void)
 {
DDRB = 0xFF; // OC0A on PB0
PORTB = 0xFC;
TCCR0A |= ((1 << COM0A1) | (1 << COM0A0) | (1<<COM0B0) | (1<<COM0B1) // COM0A1 - COM0A0 (Set OC0A on Compare Match, clear OC0A at TOP)
| (1 << WGM01) | (1 << WGM00)); // WGM01 - WGM00 (set fast PWM)
OCR0A = 0; // initialize Output Compare Register A to 0
OCR0B = 0;
TCCR0B |= (1 << CS01); // Start timer at Fcpu / 256
 
for (;;)
{
 
for (i = 0 ; i < 255 ; i++ ) // For loop (Up counter 0 - 255)
{
OCR0A = i; // Update Output Compare Register (PWM 0 - 255)
OCR0B = 255-i;
_delay_ms(10);
}
 
for (i = 255 ; i > 1 ; i-- ) // For loop (down counter 255 - 0 )
{
OCR0A = i; // Update Output Compare Register (PWM 0 - 255)
OCR0B = 255-i;
_delay_ms(10);
}
}
 }

So what's happened of interest while I've been away?

ME

Ruck over?

That's great!

It reminds me of some of the superbrothers stuff....

I'm just going to reccommend what I'm currently listening to:

The Young and the Old - Madness
Land of Hope and Glory - Madness (especially the john peel session version)
Dust Devil - Madness
Won't Get Fooled Again - The Who
My Generation - The Who
Behind Blue Eyes - The Who
The Passenger - Iggy Pop

The problem is that most people here think that 13 year old "ideas guys" are the same as industry directors, producers, and planners.

Think of the industry guy as more like a director; he's got to work with the set designers, costume people and other stuff to make sure it works. In the end, the overall theme of the game is his, but individual elements are more down to other people.

Note I'm mostly talking about AAA games here, for most indie games it's radically different, as people often don't have such well defined "roles".

I agree with paul, the question is pharased badly, and to be honest, I dont think it's going to be possible to find a question that asks the correct things.

A girl named Eva (totally unrelated to the infamous one here) who I met on omegle a couple weeks ago.

More kudos to her than there are kudos in the entire world.

anyone can create a program, not just a programmer

Not so. Sure, you could use gamemaker, but who wrote that? A programmer. Or, you could use basic, on a BBC Micro, but who wrote Basic? A programmer.

The point is, eventually, if you go back far enough, you'll find a programmer. This is the point that seperates games from other mediums; their interactivity, and for this, you need a programmer.

However, this only answers the question "which is most important" if it is interpreted as "which is most essential"

I think it's a programmer, as without a programmer, there is no game.

EDIT:
however, if it's interpreted as "which is most important to the design" then I feel that the programmer isn't as important as any other member of the team, aside from possibly defining the limits of what's possible. As an example of this, the original metal gear's design (top down, cover, rooms) stems from what was possible on the hardware at the time.

I think he may be miss-seeing it as The Shocker...

[immersed into the world]

The artist and musician's are NEEDED so the player can be immersed into the world you want to create.

I dissagree, have you ever played a text adventure? or a game like elite?

I think programmer, mostly because of what Gilbert's said, but also as I feel that the medium is designed by it's reactiveness, and the interactiviy, which I feel mostly comes from the programmer.

Those two emoticons together give a really nice sense of perspective...

whatever, the point is that it's filesize shouldn't really be a deterrent.

I guess XML is particularly useful during development, as it's human readable. This means that before release, you can tweak and change levels really easily.

If you want a smaller filesize for distribution, you could always "bake" or "compile" your XML into a binary format with a new parser...