Programming in Python is fun!
October 10, 2008 at 5:04 pm | In Game development, Programming | 2 CommentsTags: productivity, Python, tools
The last few months I’ve been doing more and more with Python. While the games I work on are mostly written in C++, there’s still a lot of room for me to use Python. For example, when dealing with file conversions, data checking, automating processes, and so on.
Two weeks ago, I wrote a tool that packs smaller images into larger ones. I first prototyped the packing algorithm in Python and then translated it to C#, which I used for the tool itself.
Last week, within a few days, I was able to process, verify and preview almost 2000 files for one of our games, converting them from XML into a tight binary format, all packed into custom archive files to keep things easy for the file-system. I spent most of my time thinking about the file formats and the required checks. Writing the tools took little time. Continue reading Programming in Python is fun!…
Bullet consumption
June 21, 2008 at 3:08 pm | In Flash games, Game development, Game idea's, HaXe | Leave a CommentI’ve been prototyping yet another game idea during the last few weeks. Since I’m now a full-time game programmer at Triangle Studios, I have less spare time to devote to game-development. Fortunately, less doesn’t mean nothing at all. 
So here’s BulletEater. A danmaku/bullet-hell game. Except that you’re unable to fire back at turrets, so you’ll just have to survive the bullet patterns. Actually, you’re not completely defenseless: there’s an overcharge mode that allows you to eat bullets, which in turn adds to your score. It does cost you a life however, but lives slowly recharge so that’s simply a matter of surviving long enough. Eating bullets speeds up the recharge process a bit so you may want to save your lives for the really nasty situations.
These are things I’m still thinking about, as they make large bullet patterns easy score-fests instead. So I’m thinking about including laser-beams that can’t be eaten to control the difficulty and challenge some more. If you have any suggestions, feel free to share them.
A little more about level-design
May 18, 2008 at 7:43 pm | In Level-design, Postmortems | Leave a CommentTags: half-life 2 deathmatch, Level-design, planning
Last week I finished dm_mudanchee, a map I started 2.5 years ago. I’ve probably worked on it for 6 or 9 months altogether, which means I had some big hiatus along the way. At some point I had even decided I wouldn’t do any serious level-design anymore…
Creating levels for games like Half-Life 2 can be a very labour-intensive process, especially when there’s a lot of custom content involved. But what’s especially painfull is finding out that your map just isn’t fun… after you’ve put in months of work. I’ve had that happen a lot of times, which often resulted in yet another unfinished, abandoned map.
That’s where I learned the value of planning ahead. dm_mudanchee, despite it’s irregular development process, is the result of proper planning, early playtesting and many more iterations – and sheer persistence, I suppose. When I started, I built a few style test maps: a cave filled with water, some wooden planks here and there, some more caves. I also built quite a few layout tests, that were extensively playtested by me and a few friends. After a few of these maps I settled on a design, which I then filled in, using the style test maps as a guide. 50 versions and quite a bit more playtesting later dm_mudanchee was done.
It’s actually amazing to see how many people don’t plan ahead. Keeping that in mind though, it’s not so amazing to see so many levels, mods and game projects fail.
Anyway, after finishing up that map, I got the hang of level-design again. So I started on another map. I’m still in the layout testing phase, but here’s a rough sketch that shows what I’m working towards (it’s the same tower, drawn twice): a small vtol launchpad, an outpost tower built on top of a rock, surrounded by endless swamps with occasional mountains and other outposts dotted on the horizon.
A little bit of level-design in-between
May 10, 2008 at 3:33 pm | In Game development, Level-design | 3 CommentsDeveloping games takes up quite a bit of my time these days, now that it’s a full-time job for me. Despite that, I’m still working on a game in my spare time, although not as much as I used to do. Fortunately, programming isn’t my only hobby. I still had an old, almost-finished Half-Life 2: Deathmatch level gathering dust on my HD, so I thought, why not finish it for real this time?
So that’s what I’ve been working on the past few days. I’ve fixed up the last few details, with feedback coming from some friends, so here I present you:
AI Wars released
March 1, 2008 at 1:03 am | In Game development, HaXe, Released games | Leave a CommentTags: AI, AI Wars, release
I intended to release AI Wars last week, but some things got in the way. Some people have been asking me about it recently though, so I contacted my friend Inky for the latest version of his AI client and wrapped it all up in a .rar file:
AI Wars download (210 kB)The package contains the server and an AI client, written by Inky. Startup instructions can be found in the readme.txt file. If you’re interested in writing your own AI clients, contact me on this blog or through my portfolio’s contact page and I’ll settle some documentation and code.
Thanks to Mark, who worked with me on the AI Wars server, and Siebe, who built the AI client. And thanks to Jaco and Vassili for their emotional support, of course. Hehe. 
Anyway, enjoy, and please let me know what you think of AI Wars.
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