No Name Games

I am pretty much addicted to podcasts, and a large portion of them deal with either game development or just games in general.  Thought id sure some of the ones I listen to

The Penny Arcade podcast
Cheap ass gamer
Gamers with jobs
Kropotkin uk gaming news
PC gamer podcast
Sacrcastic gamer podcast
Totally rad show
XBLA insider
Giant bombcast
Video gamer podcast
The geek box
All IGN gaming podcasts
Rebel FM radio
GDC radio
OXM podcast
Top seceret podcast
Bungie podcast
The hot spot
Gay gamer podcast
Blizzcast (Blizzards offical podcast)
Podcastle
Insomniac podcast
Indie game developers podcast
Not another gaming podcast (The gaming podcast I am the host of :-D)

I listen to more, but I believe this is a big enough list for now Enjoy, I know I do!

The creator of a bunch of really cool Indie games like Chalk, Noitu love and recently Noitu love 2 has created an arcade style game with a Zelda theme.  It’s pretty darn fun, full of lots of fast paced action tons  of explosions and has gamepad support (Xbox 360 controller!).

Download here

So make sure to check out the game and if you like this sort of stuff (can’t see how you wouldn’t) go to his website and check out all of his stuff.

Was looking around the internet for some free games to play, and came across these games…  It seems that you can make some pretty decent games using Javascript.  Interesting how this whole area of web game development is pretty much left in the dark thanks  to Flash.  Still pretty cool that you do not require any sort of plugin to play these games, just click and play

I was looking around the Away3D blog, seeing whats the latest for there 3D game engine and found a link to this very interesting game.  It seems to be a 3D game made in flash that runs pretty smooth.  The creators seem to have adopted the whole Animal Crossing scrolling world effect, interesting stuff.  The game is just about DS quality in the graphics, which is pretty good considering the limitations flash has when it comes to doing 3D stuff.  The company that made this game demo; Dangerous Rabbits seem to be putting there focus on doing 3D games in Flash, which is pretty cool…

I must admit Microsoft is doing pretty well in the game development scene these days…  With the birth of XNA, they have made it really easy for just about anyone with a little bit of basic programming knowledge to make a high quality video game pretty easily.  But it seems with there new project Kudo they are going to try and make it even easier for people to make games!  “Kodu is a new visual programming language made specifically for creating games. It is designed to be accessible for children and enjoyable for anyone. The programming environment runs on the Xbox, allowing rapid design iteration using only a game controller for input.”  So really with this new tool it will make it super easy for just about anyone to make a game.  In a sense it’s like RPG Maker but way more mainstream…  So yeah, *claps* bravo Microsoft, bravo.

I thought I would show off a bit more concept work done by one of our artists for our new game…  Enjoy!

This is just some of the new concept art, hope you like it!  Stay tuned, more to come

I am a decent game programmer, but when it comes to actual game design I still have a lot of learning to do…  So I have been looking around the net trying to find some good sources on how to make a quality game design doc, this is what I have found so far.

http://mysimplemindedworld.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/10-game-design-commandments/ I found this article to be pretty interesting, basically it’s a set of do’s and don’t s when it comes to designing, or just well making a game.

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19991019/ryan_01.htm This is a pretty in depth article on game design

http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2008/11/30/creating-a-game-design-document/ brief view on game design

http://digitalworlds.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/the-process-of-game-creation-the-game-design-document/ Gives a nice general idea

http://www.pagtech.com/2006/07/04/how-to-write-a-game-design-doc/

When I go around telling people that you can indeed play games on a Zune about 80% of them say “What is the Zune?”… It tends to frustrate me a little bit simply because everyone is so “I *insert apple product here*” happy… Don’t get me wrong I applaud Steve Jobs for doing what he does best, make his products look sexy and be very appealing. But damn it the Zune is being left in the dust! Sure Microsoft created it in response to the Ipod, but they don’t seem to be really backing it at all. It’s really good media device, and better yet with the latest update to there XNA platform you can create games and applications for it!

At the 2008 GDC they made the announcement that you could make games for the Zune along with the much bigger XNA community games announcement, but still it does not seem to get any type of love or real support. I am not going to say it is the best tool out there, and the way you have to load games on it could be improved, but the fact is that it’s still a viable platform which is being ignored.

With the launch of the new xbox experience (Microsoft revamp of the xbox live interface) they allow you to download lots of community games (games built with Microsoft XNA game framework), which allows for just about anyone to make a quick buck and to get some exposure… Which is great. But why not do the same for Zune games? It would help boost the user base of everything Zune, and allow for Microsoft to expand the visibility of there growing gaming platform.

The Zune already has Wifi capabilities all Microsoft would have to do is simply allow for wireless syncing of the Zune to the Xbox 360 and allow users to transfer Zune games to there Zune. Why they have not done any of this or really pushed the Zune as a gaming platform is beyond me! Considering Apple is already semi-attempting this with the Iphone and Ipod.

Now as for the actual quality of the Zune games, well there is a community out there who likes to make Zune games but you have to do a bit of digging to find them.  The two hottest places to find Zune games would probably have to be http://www.zunerama.com/zune-games-directory.php and http://www.zuneboards.com/forums/download-completed-games-174/

Now I don’t want anyone to think that I am trying to say I want the Zune to dominate all, and take down the Ipod and all that madness, I am simply trying to express my feeling on why this gaming platform is being ignored, it’s almost like Microsoft have distanced themselves so far from this community  that it is now like an underground thing or something.  Not entirely sure why it bothers me so much, I mean everyone is going to keep using a Ipod or Iphone, because that is what they have been told to use by the mainstream media it’s just a shame that Microsoft would release a product that clearly has possiblities and just kind of put it on the back burner, there pulling a Google!

I found this very interesting article that discusses the transition from programming in AS3 (Action Script 3.0) to working in Cocoa (Objective-C).  Basically from creating Flash applications to IPhone applications…  And I must say, the difference between the two languages is pretty dramatic…

Creating a function in AS3 would go like this this.helloWorld(); and in objective-C it looks like this [self helloWorld]; Wow, for anyone who wants to jump into IPhone development who has come from a C#, C++, Java, or AS3 background…  That’s a pretty big difference.  Now for a seasoned programmer who can take in new languages like it’s nothing this really isn’t a hurdle, but once again Apple making it hard to work with the Iphone… Oh my… I am starting to sound like a bit of a Windows fan boy.

http://www.insideria.com/2008/12/actionscript-to-cocoa—protot.html

Before Flash dominated the web game scene Java based games were all the rage!  It was everywhere!  Nothing could stop the awesome power of the “Applet”…  But then Flash came and well Java popularity died off from the client side of the web, Sun Micro Systems began to focus Java on the server side of the web with JSP, and what not.  BUT With the release of JavaFX they are trying to make a come back and reclaim what they had lost so many years ago.

Here are some links to games made with JavaFX so far

http://a.stritzinger.googlepages.com/launch.jnlp just double click the file and it should start installing it

http://blogs.sun.com/chrisoliver/resource/spaceInvaders.jnlp just double click the file and it should start installing it

A lot of the demo’s out that are showcasing JavaFX are for making RIA’s with them, because really Sun Micro Systems is trying whatever they can to catch up to Flash, in the RIA space.

The games so far are not bad…  Not bad at all considering Java has such a rich feature set, but only thing they need to get down is make it easier to launch the games, currently the only way I have seem them do it so far is through “Web start launcher”.  I am pretty curious to see if they can truely make a come back!