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Alistair Aitcheson
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« on: April 19, 2011, 02:02:06 AM » |
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I put up a video today: It tells the story of a platform game engine I put together, coming back to it at various times from 2002 to 2010 when I decided to put it on the shelf. It also features a bit on the approach I took to designing and implementing the platformer physics. I hope you enjoy watching! Feel free to let me know your thoughts, and ask me any questions about the project  |
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Alistair Aitcheson
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« Reply #2 on: April 20, 2011, 01:36:32 AM » |
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That was good. I'm watching a couple of your other videos now, as well Glad you enjoyed it! |
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davidp
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« Reply #3 on: April 21, 2011, 12:01:26 AM » |
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Hey man, great video! I really enjoy watching time lapse videos of game engines and this was great |
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Alistair Aitcheson
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« Reply #4 on: April 22, 2011, 03:02:32 AM » |
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Thanks, David, glad you enjoyed it! |
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Areku
Level 1
Well yeah.
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« Reply #5 on: April 22, 2011, 06:02:26 AM » |
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That was actually rather entertaining, and informative too. It is always great to get a glimpse of other developers' methods of work.
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Phil A
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« Reply #6 on: April 22, 2011, 07:00:35 AM » |
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Thanks this was really interesting!
Did you use any aspects of the engine in your completed Greedy Bankers game or was that a fresh codebase (I'm guessing you switched tech at least)? I realise it's a very different game but I struggle with how much an engine is tied to a particular type of game and at what point you move from a "module full of useful functions" to a "well thought out API".
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ANtY
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« Reply #7 on: April 22, 2011, 07:17:21 AM » |
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Great piece of video! I agree with Areku and I'm waiting for more Indie Game Notebooks |
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Alistair Aitcheson
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« Reply #8 on: April 25, 2011, 12:47:07 PM » |
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Good to hear such nice feedback - thanks everyone I enjoy making these, so I'm looking forward to making more. If you're interested, the first in the series Did you use any aspects of the engine in your completed Greedy Bankers game or was that a fresh codebase (I'm guessing you switched tech at least)? I realise it's a very different game but I struggle with how much an engine is tied to a particular type of game and at what point you move from a "module full of useful functions" to a "well thought out API".
The game engine was written in C# with XNA, whereas Greedy Bankers was made in Objective-C with Cocos2D, so Greedy Bankers was done with a fresh codebase. The Bankers prototype was done in XNA, and as far as I remember I recycled a lot of the sprite-drawing code for that. But Cocos2D does sprites very differently to XNA, so I couldn't port the drawing code directly and it was easier just to rewrite it. A lot of what the Forever Engine did was with collision detection and things, so it didn't really have much of a use in Bankers. A lot of the sprite-drawing code was linked to the camera system, which could be controlled by the event-management system. That functionality was re-used in a point-and-click adventure I started for Experimental Gameplay Project but never finished. The main point of the engine was for making platform games, and in such a way that I could bolt in new characters, stage designs, interactive features, and things like that, and it would work off the bat. So I guess it's largely a bunch of useful code for making sonic-physics-style platformers as easily as possible. I guess you could say that the engine is the game itself, except I could take out all the characters, enemies and AI code, make a whole bunch of new ones and create a brand new platform game out of it. I think "game engine" means different things to different people. The Unity and Unreal engines, for example, give you a bunch of tools for making all kinds of games. I guess this is an engine for making a very specific type of game, in the same way as the Aspect engine that was used to make the 8-bit Sonic games. Aspect made all three games from the same basic game code, but added features and made adjustments with each game. Mine's more like that kind of approach. I hope this answers your question |
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jyrsky
Level 0
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« Reply #9 on: April 27, 2011, 10:23:46 AM » |
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Good stuff, you seem to be very talented. Interesting video and the engine looked very good even in it early stages. I'll try to check out your other videos later as well.
I visited your blog too and the animation tutorial caught my eye. I'm trying to do a simple Mario bros clone and animations done by me are pretty bad. You had some good tips there, should help me out.
Thanks again, keep making more videos and good luck with your games.
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Phil A
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« Reply #10 on: April 27, 2011, 10:54:24 AM » |
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I hope this answers your question Very much so, thanks |
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Alistair Aitcheson
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« Reply #11 on: April 29, 2011, 06:45:02 AM » |
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Good stuff, you seem to be very talented. Interesting video and the engine looked very good even in it early stages. I'll try to check out your other videos later as well.
I visited your blog too and the animation tutorial caught my eye. I'm trying to do a simple Mario bros clone and animations done by me are pretty bad. You had some good tips there, should help me out.
Thanks again, keep making more videos and good luck with your games.
Thanks very much! Really glad you found the animation tutorial useful too. |
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deadeye
First Manbaby Home
Level 10
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« Reply #12 on: April 30, 2011, 09:53:36 AM » |
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There's a lot of good advice for new game designers/coders here, especially regarding keeping things simple, and avoiding feature creep.
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oahda
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« Reply #13 on: May 11, 2011, 12:35:31 PM » |
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This is interesting stuff. I like it. I'll watch some more of your videos.
I have to ask, though, being the linguistic nerd that I am... Your native language is not English, is it? Your pronunciation is very good, but your ells and your intonation sound odd to my ears, but I can't figure out what accent you have. Where are you from?
No offense! Interesting video, and good English!
If you actually are a native speaker, I stand corrected, and this got even more interesting, haha.
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« Last Edit: May 12, 2011, 01:39:52 PM by Skomakar'n »
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Alistair Aitcheson
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« Reply #14 on: May 11, 2011, 01:31:39 PM » |
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I have to ask, though, being the linguistic nerd that I am... You're native language is not English, is it? Your pronunciation is very good, but your ells and your intonation sound odd to my ears, but I can't figure out what accent you have. Where are you from?
Actually, English is my native language! ^^; My parents are both Scottish, but I grew up in South-West England (Wiltshire, to be precise), so it might be I have an odd mix of the two. Maybe I'm just awkward on camera! No offense taken though  And glad you enjoyed the video! |
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oahda
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« Reply #15 on: May 11, 2011, 02:12:45 PM » |
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I have to ask, though, being the linguistic nerd that I am... You're native language is not English, is it? Your pronunciation is very good, but your ells and your intonation sound odd to my ears, but I can't figure out what accent you have. Where are you from?
Actually, English is my native language! ^^; My parents are both Scottish, but I grew up in South-West England (Wiltshire, to be precise), so it might be I have an odd mix of the two. Maybe I'm just awkward on camera! No offense taken though And glad you enjoyed the video! Haha. That's very interesting then. It all sounds so much like the English that I'm used to, and then there are tiny things here and there that strike me as odd. I'm not a native speaker myself, though, so I guess I haven't had enough exposure to dialectal varieties. You're probably right, though, because you don't sound Scottish at all to me, either. Seeing as you've enrolled and everything, to get your iOS application out there... How long did it take, from sending them the copy of your legal paper(s), until you were able to start transferring your applications to an actual unit? I will probably be enrolling sometime soon, as my company just got the final approval. |
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Alistair Aitcheson
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« Reply #16 on: May 12, 2011, 01:15:48 AM » |
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I think I may just have a weird voice For me there weren't any legal papers that needed sending or anything. As far as I know only US-based developers need to send in papers, and in other territories you deal with the tax and everything on your own (at least you do in the UK). It may be different for companies too - I'm operating as an individual. The sign-up/paperwork process for me was relatively simple in that respect. Sorting out the provisioning profiles for ad-hoc testing was a little complicated, and took a couple of days to decipher what to do, and to distribute the game to testers. Sorting out the banking details and contracts, then uploading, took about a day, but I didn't have to wait on any paperwork for that. After that I had to wait about 7 days for the game to be approved, and then it was ready for me to activate in the App Store. |
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Mipe
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« Reply #17 on: May 12, 2011, 02:16:16 AM » |
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... being the linguistic nerd that I am... You're native language...  |
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oahda
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« Reply #18 on: May 12, 2011, 01:39:25 PM » |
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I think I may just have a weird voice For me there weren't any legal papers that needed sending or anything. As far as I know only US-based developers need to send in papers, and in other territories you deal with the tax and everything on your own (at least you do in the UK). It may be different for companies too - I'm operating as an individual. The sign-up/paperwork process for me was relatively simple in that respect. Sorting out the provisioning profiles for ad-hoc testing was a little complicated, and took a couple of days to decipher what to do, and to distribute the game to testers. Sorting out the banking details and contracts, then uploading, took about a day, but I didn't have to wait on any paperwork for that. After that I had to wait about 7 days for the game to be approved, and then it was ready for me to activate in the App Store. Apple has asked us to fax them our papers as soon as we get them. I didn't think people even used faxes anymore, haha, but luckily my colleague has one, so that won't be a problem. ... being the linguistic nerd that I am... You're native language... OH FUCK *your, obviously I'm so ashamed of myself right now.  |
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