[What are the recommended tools for building and unit testing?]

What are the recommended tools for building and unit testing?

IMO the way to go is haxelib (which is part of haxe) and FlashDevelop. FD has full haxe support and works like an aboslute dream for every target (that reminds me, I need to send them a donation).

FD I think is windows only though. Depending on whether or not you have/use windows that could be a big issue. After that I'm sure you could augment sublime text with a plugin or something like that. At that point you would have to start managing your own build scripts.

As for unit testing. I've never done it in the language because I've only ever really used it to make games on top of a library (haxeflixel) that implements anything I use that might be concievably unit-testable.

I should probably have phrased that question differently. When I wrote "tools for building" I really meant tools for building. I'm the Terminal + Sublime type of developer , so managing my own build scripts is usually my way to roll. What I'm looking for is the equivalent of make, grunt or gradle.

For unit testing I've been looking at MassiveUnit. This is what openfl and flixel are using. But I prefare bdd-style frameworks like mocha.js.
 

So I've started too look curiously at Haxe a tip from an AS3 thread. Haxe was not completely new to me, but last time I saw it it was still obviously someone hobby project and nothing big. But since then haxe appears to have reached the point open source critical mass (with Mozilla and Gamebryo backing OpenFL among other things). Or in other words, it looks seriously cool now.

So (just to start of this general purpose thread) what I'm wondering is:

• Who here is using (or has art least poked around with Haxe)?
• Is it as awesome as it looks at first glance?
• What are the big shortcomings?
• What are the recommended tools for building and unit testing?
• Will it help prevent global warming?

[(This entire post is litterd with MGS1 spoilers)]

(This entire post is litterd with MGS1 spoilers)
A less famous/noticable one is the boss fight with Raven (the big guy in the tank). If you try to play with the Dual Shock he will turn of your annalog stick now and then.

The MGS series is a real oddball when it comes to tone. It have this over the top gritty serious dialogue with talk about nuclear war, gene modification and military conspiracies. It even uses stock documentary fotage, an the first game has an "American History Research Team" in the credits. Then there is the scene where Otakon literally pees his pants. And in MGS 2 you can slip on bird po and distract the guards with an "Idol Magazine 18+". The tone is all over the place.

Spy fiction is usually divided into Martini (James Bond) and Stale Beer (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy). But the MGS should probably just be labeled Acid.

“Flash Player is one of the most ubiquitous and widely distributed pieces of software in the world, and as such, is a target of malicious hackers. We are actively working to improve Flash Player security, and as we did in this case, will work to quickly address issues when they are discovered.”

Someone at Adobe has this has a hotkey macro that pastes this text. It's what they have been saying every time for years. On the other hand I don't think I've heard of any actual cases where it could be proven that a security hole actually the flash player caused any damage. Opening unknown attached files in emails is still the most common cause of security breaches (at least for private individuals).

The only real sad part about the decline of Flash is the myriad of older games that will most likely never bee ported. Mozilla is trying to save them with their JavaScript based SWF-player Shumway. The preformance is not really there yet, but it's looking promising.

One methodology you sometimes see when asking about lie-prone subjects is to give the subject a dice cup and a die, where one third of the sides say "yes", one third say "no", and the remaining third say "truth".  Then you ask something like "Have you ever poached wildlife?", and the subject rolls the die around and looks at it privately, and then says what the die roll told them to say.  It gives the poacher the ability to tell the truth but still retain deniability, because them saying "yes" might be the truth or it might just be that they rolled "yes", and only they know which one.

This is a brilliant way of doing it.

There is also probably a board game idea hidden somewhere in it all. Not a very classy German trade oriented one, but the type your supposed to play drunk (like Kill the Hippises).

you just unwillingly prove the godwin law just now

I did? Good, then it's done and we can move on with this.

has anyone mentioned the number of pages in this thread on this page yet? if not I'm gonna go ahead and do it:

8 pages already, gurls and guise

Yes. We are slowly approaching Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies territory. From her on out, tread carefully.

Another issue with polls like this that – whether or not they are anonymous polls – most of us tend to think/claim we have a "higher" moral standard than we actually live "up" to. It's not like the the average GameStop customer walks in to the store and states:

well yea that's one of the fundamental problems with self reported data. it's called "social desirability bias".

oops i wanted to type more on this but forgot. it's super hard to design a good survey for a "sensitive" subject like this. the problem with media reports on these studies is that they never talk about the methodology. i'd love to see what the questionnaire actually looked like because that can make a HUGE difference.

but ok it's only meant to be exploratory and i guess the results do tell us that (surprise surprise) what PR people think the audience wants is not necessarily identical to what the audience actually wants. but for some proper data, a (well designed ofc) controlled experiment or a panel study would be much better. they should actually analyze people's playing habits.

If one could device a way to –  temporarily or permanently – disable the lying portion on the brain, then we could gather much more relevant research data. It may be possible using chemicals or surgery. But there are unfortunately some moral problems with this.

What we do get from serves (assuming participants are gathered in an acceptable manner) is the ability peek into the perceived "right" answer. We do not get to know what everyone thinks, but we do get to know what everyone thinks that everyone else thinks they should think.

There was a great article about in The Mary Sue a few days ago about how not even teenage boys like how women portrayed mainstream AAA video games of today. I'm just going to leave it here and then run for cover. 

It's worth noting that the survey you're talking about was shared on social media by prominent social justice activists and their followers were encouraged to participate. So the data is likely to be skewed towards teens who are interested in social justice (and thus more likely to care about representation of women in games).

This is a valuable point. Where the article comes from should also be taken into consideration. This it The Mary Sue we are talking about. I doubt they would ever report on a study that "proved" that the average teenage boy actually likes Kate Upton, except possibly to at the same time critique that study. Do not get me wrong here. I like The Mary Sue, just pointing out that just like any other media outlet they do have their own agenda.

Another issue with polls like this that – whether or not they are anonymous polls – most of us tend to think/claim we have a "higher" moral standard than we actually live "up" to. It's not like the the average GameStop customer walks in to the store and states:

- "Blimey! The protagonist on this front cover is magnificently fit and obviously heterosexual, what a fine specimen of caucasian supremacy. And this mademoiselle who is clinging to him has the most bodacious bossoms and the most spectacularly crafted rump I have cast my monocle clad gaze upon this century. This will definitely cure my issues of low self esteem for the duratioon of the 8-12 hours of the first play through. Hurry clerk, I must consume this fine work of literature post haste!"

But there is no denying that those games do sell their fair share.

There was a great article about in The Mary Sue a few days ago about how not even teenage boys like how women portrayed mainstream AAA video games of today. I'm just going to leave it here and then run for cover. 

Hello. I making a RPG game with turn based combat and having trouble with some mechanics. I'm not sure of the over world aspect of the game should be platformer or top-down. I'm doing this in game maker and not using the 3D. (Platformer like child of light or top down like final fantasy or bravely default.) if I do platformer it would be easier on the graphics side by harder on the design side. Then if I do top down it would be the other way around. And if I do top down in not sure if I should have enemies walking around or if should just be a random encounter. I'm thinking of a chroma squad styled view of the world atm due to the similar sized sprites I have. Sorry if there I any spelling errors im typing this on a phone because this literally is keeping me up till 1:00am. Thanks in advance. Also I would be glad to give out more info if needed.

It does not sound like you have any special mechanic that benefits from the platforming. Top down view is simpler to navigate, this is why most traditional (W&J)RPG:s use them. Having the player  do a lot of jumping around will not really help a game that is probably more about strategic preparation and less about real time input.

I used to be Flash game dev, but then I took a Flash coder day job to the knee. The plan was to use what I learned in my day job for my hobby endeavours. But the plan backfired because working with flash in my day job made spare time coding feel like work (I even used the same IDE ). So after a while I jumped ship to HTML5.

Flash did a lot of scouting for the web and made things possible long before browsers and the W3C could catch up. But open standards tend to win over proprietary platforms in the long run, so I think the decline of the Flash platform is a good change.

That said, As3 has some very good ideas; It does more things right than it gets credit for. The optional (but recommended) type safety is probably the best of them. I can not recall another language that does that so seamlessly.

These days, most of the serious AS3 developers have transitioned over to OpenFL. This is a HAXE-based port of the AS3 development environment that allows for much broader support. It allows traditional Flash AS3 devs to code up projects in the structure that they're familiar with, but build their projects to a whole slew of different platforms and devices. (including the Flash player, if you really want to)

I did not know this. Will check it out.   

Serious answer but why is Suikoden 3 like the only game I've ever seen with sensible female armor that incorporate some boob room without being stupid? Suik in general has really good female representation though and the best part is the game doesn't even draw attention to it.

Fire Emblem games manage this on a few occasions.



But name dropping FE is a bit of a cheat because thoese games seem to be going for the Absolute Territory.






(Also, a to women fighting in high heels for some reason)

Wait a sec, guys. Do we ever ask ourselves this question for male protagonists? No? Ok.

Good point. Perhaps we should ask that question more often. 

National Geographics has a cool little interactive novel about the Salem Witch hunts. It's not much of a "game", but it does a good job at putting you in the shoes of an accused. There are some ideas in it worth building new things on top of.

http://education.nationalgeographic.com/media/salem-witch-trials-interactive/

And my answer is none at all, so, never too early. Well there's an exception, it's too early to open a devlog if you don't know if you are going to commit to developing the game and actually finish and publish it, because it can hurt your reputation a bit.

But that may also help whip you in actually keep working on and finish it. Never underestimate the power of self-inflicted shame and guilt. 

That said, I fear people grossly neglect code / functionality design. Whenever people talk about planning and design, it's always about the story or the graphics. In my mind, those things are important to keep flexible and should evolve with the game as you develop it.

Programming requires forethought unless you want to regularly waste time rewriting code. Write notes about features you want in the game, draw out and brainstorm how you will program core systems in your game, and comment code as you develop it. It's all standard practice professionally, it works for solo hobbyists as well.

Word. Your going to end up rewriting a lot regardless of how much you plan. Having a good holistic understanding of your architecture means you know how it needs to change when (not "if" but "when") it has to change.

"wall of text"

(Pardon the text wall. Working wit operative IT management for a few years has caused me to grow a sore spot and admittedly a "strong opinion"  in in this this topic.)

Not a problem at all. I know its not a great strategy and occasionally you'll get away with it in a very small game project. As I move towards the bigger stuff, my planning and design really needs to get better. GIMME THAT SELF-DISCIPLINE.

Please do not misunderstand. It was not my intention to criticize your approach. Rather I meant to praise it.

Having to much of a plan can be just as damaging to a project as having to little of it. Add the fact that making that surplus planing, even thou it is excessive, still requires considerable effort. This is effort that could have been spent on something more useful to the project goal. Seen in this light it's perfectly reasonable to conclude that having to much plan is actually a little worse then having to little of it.

That's a pretty good one. I can imagine a few players having complaints about that, alto they mightn not be able to phrase it that way them selves. Bonus points for a HBTQ-angle to it (it would make them furious for some unknown reason).

sorry, but what's an 'HBTQ-angle' ?

Ops. I mean LGBTQ. Apparently the HBTQ acronym is only used in Sweden.

That's a pretty good one. I can imagine a few players having complaints about that, alto they mightn not be able to phrase it that way them selves. Bonus points for a HBTQ-angle to it (it would make them furious for some unknown reason).

Anyone who has taken a shower has had at least one good idea.