GDNet: Weekend Reading
by Drew -Gaiiden- Sikora · 02/13/2009 (3:19 am) · 0 comments
Journal Land Pick of the Week
Just Glad to Be Here - rmadsen writes in to report that he unfortunately did not survive the second wave of layoffs at his company. However rather than curse fate and berate the industry, he recognizes the "churn" that is an inevitable fact of the games biz, made ever more-so by these sluggish economic climes. He explains the idea behind the more common industry layoffs that happen even in the best of times, and gives helpful advice of preparation for other developers who could be facing a pink slip in the near (or far) future. An uplifting post if there ever was one.
From the Staff
* Gaiiden's Scroll - the Weekly Sitrep, where I announce our partnership with Industry Broadcast and detail the release dates for the three remaining GDNet books, explain what happened to the Wednesday Daily, and list new resources and events
Project Updates
* Adventures in Text-mode - Twisol has put in a lot of time this week on Cripes. Here you can see what one of the game entities looks like in all its ASCII glory. You can check out later posts to read more on the entity development and what kind of maze generation will replace the psychadelic background
* Journal of zedz - zedz has continued to make progress on his shootemup game 'captain courgette' - check it out and download the demo. He's still looking for additional gameplay suggestions so leave him some feedback
* Merry Prankster Games - gdunbar takes the advice he gave earlier on prototyping and user testing and applies it to his own project, laying down ground rules for his prototypes and roughing out some ideas for how we will prototype various systems of his project
* Saga City - late last week sneakyrobot posted a video of his entity editor for
* Ye Olde Ramblings - Telastyn continues to work on his language Tangent, most recently changing some key syntax for reasons he lists in detail. Additional updates are recorded earlier in the week
* The Bag of Holding - while we're on the topic of programming languages, ApochPiQ has seriously dedicated this past week to his own language Epoch, culminating in this post where he outlines the progress made so far. Be sure to page back to earlier posts in the week for the complete story
* Journal of EasilyConfused - EasilyConfused posts a screenshot, video and demo of his new project - now that's the trifecta! Squishy is a Gish-like rolling blob built using the Box2D open source physics engine
* Gauntlets of Recursion (+3) - HopeDagger has a brief update on Skirmish Online, thankfully he didn't forget to include a screenshot with blood splatters.
* Journal of Ysaneya - Ysaneya changes pace a bit and posts a concept art image for Infinity. Fortunately it's just as awesome as the game screenshots, so have a look.
* Journal of Journaling - nordwindranger updates on his WWII tactical combat project with some details on the tactical/strategic simulation and some new screenshots of game vehicles and weapons
* Stompy's Gamedev Journal - Stompy9999 has returned from his gamedev hiatus to resume work on his brawler game Fists of Justice, which he didn't think was all that fun really until he came back and played it again. Stepping away from a project can sometimes be for the best, I've always believed. He also considers creating a design document, which he thinks may have saved him from remaking the fighting system three times.
* Bennu - Demosthenes has a side-by-side comparison of his game Bennu showing off some new graphics, and a video showing off the new additions to the game.
* The Code Zone Bargain Basement Blog - johnhattan had put up Pop Pies 2 for testing earlier this week, and now the game is released for public consumption. Check it out and learn how he decided to solve the color scheme of the pies
* Tachyon Wars - johny5 has a nice mini gallery up of Tachyon Wars, a 4x-type networked 2D game 3 years into development
* Rated N For Nerd - nerd_boy goes into detail and shares some code behind the redesign/reqrite of his lite weight code editor control for .NET, rnfnCodeLite
* Metaphorical Journeys of Happenstance - Ravuya has a new Afterglow screenshot and details on the game's progress.
* Reinvention and Further Development of the Wheel - staaf has an update with screenshots and a demo build for his game Citizen, and his progress towards a full game prototype.
* Journal of Genesis : Origins - vetroXL shows off two screens of his project highlighting parallax mapping
Game Dev Stuffs
* mittentacular - mittens shares his experience with the Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2 beta. In his article he looks at the design behind the game as he plays online matches, comparing and contrasting to other RTS games as well as the original Dawn of War.
* Journal of MrCpaw - MrCpaw has a video tutorial up on YouTube where he shares his opinion on open source software, goes over some progress in his 2D RPG project, shows off some maps and then explains how he links his many map files together. You can also find more on the project reading back in his journal for this past week.
* Digital Playground - OrangyTang has released Analog v0.5, which is a freeform map editor for 2d games that's based on vectors rather than being tile-based
* Big Trouble In Little Chairtown - Drilian follows up his excellent Collision Detection Performance article from back in December with a second volume, this time he tackles mesh vs. mesh tests
Other Stuffs
* The Broken Mind - Falling Sky has begun working on a virtual CPU emulator based off of the virtual CHIP-8 (without the game aspects) and the infamous Z80. Z80? CHIP-8? Sounds like he should get in touch with benryves for obvious reasons
* Readme.txt - Khawk believes in software reuse and he argues why it should be considered as much as possible, with examples of people who believe otherwise
Let's all wave to our newest Journal Land citizen, Saint Retro.
Just Glad to Be Here - rmadsen writes in to report that he unfortunately did not survive the second wave of layoffs at his company. However rather than curse fate and berate the industry, he recognizes the "churn" that is an inevitable fact of the games biz, made ever more-so by these sluggish economic climes. He explains the idea behind the more common industry layoffs that happen even in the best of times, and gives helpful advice of preparation for other developers who could be facing a pink slip in the near (or far) future. An uplifting post if there ever was one.
From the Staff
* Gaiiden's Scroll - the Weekly Sitrep, where I announce our partnership with Industry Broadcast and detail the release dates for the three remaining GDNet books, explain what happened to the Wednesday Daily, and list new resources and events
Project Updates
* Adventures in Text-mode - Twisol has put in a lot of time this week on Cripes. Here you can see what one of the game entities looks like in all its ASCII glory. You can check out later posts to read more on the entity development and what kind of maze generation will replace the psychadelic background
* Journal of zedz - zedz has continued to make progress on his shootemup game 'captain courgette' - check it out and download the demo. He's still looking for additional gameplay suggestions so leave him some feedback
* Merry Prankster Games - gdunbar takes the advice he gave earlier on prototyping and user testing and applies it to his own project, laying down ground rules for his prototypes and roughing out some ideas for how we will prototype various systems of his project
* Saga City - late last week sneakyrobot posted a video of his entity editor for
* Ye Olde Ramblings - Telastyn continues to work on his language Tangent, most recently changing some key syntax for reasons he lists in detail. Additional updates are recorded earlier in the week
* The Bag of Holding - while we're on the topic of programming languages, ApochPiQ has seriously dedicated this past week to his own language Epoch, culminating in this post where he outlines the progress made so far. Be sure to page back to earlier posts in the week for the complete story
* Journal of EasilyConfused - EasilyConfused posts a screenshot, video and demo of his new project - now that's the trifecta! Squishy is a Gish-like rolling blob built using the Box2D open source physics engine
* Gauntlets of Recursion (+3) - HopeDagger has a brief update on Skirmish Online, thankfully he didn't forget to include a screenshot with blood splatters.
* Journal of Ysaneya - Ysaneya changes pace a bit and posts a concept art image for Infinity. Fortunately it's just as awesome as the game screenshots, so have a look.
* Journal of Journaling - nordwindranger updates on his WWII tactical combat project with some details on the tactical/strategic simulation and some new screenshots of game vehicles and weapons
* Stompy's Gamedev Journal - Stompy9999 has returned from his gamedev hiatus to resume work on his brawler game Fists of Justice, which he didn't think was all that fun really until he came back and played it again. Stepping away from a project can sometimes be for the best, I've always believed. He also considers creating a design document, which he thinks may have saved him from remaking the fighting system three times.
* Bennu - Demosthenes has a side-by-side comparison of his game Bennu showing off some new graphics, and a video showing off the new additions to the game.
* The Code Zone Bargain Basement Blog - johnhattan had put up Pop Pies 2 for testing earlier this week, and now the game is released for public consumption. Check it out and learn how he decided to solve the color scheme of the pies
* Tachyon Wars - johny5 has a nice mini gallery up of Tachyon Wars, a 4x-type networked 2D game 3 years into development
* Rated N For Nerd - nerd_boy goes into detail and shares some code behind the redesign/reqrite of his lite weight code editor control for .NET, rnfnCodeLite
* Metaphorical Journeys of Happenstance - Ravuya has a new Afterglow screenshot and details on the game's progress.
* Reinvention and Further Development of the Wheel - staaf has an update with screenshots and a demo build for his game Citizen, and his progress towards a full game prototype.
* Journal of Genesis : Origins - vetroXL shows off two screens of his project highlighting parallax mapping
Game Dev Stuffs
* mittentacular - mittens shares his experience with the Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2 beta. In his article he looks at the design behind the game as he plays online matches, comparing and contrasting to other RTS games as well as the original Dawn of War.
* Journal of MrCpaw - MrCpaw has a video tutorial up on YouTube where he shares his opinion on open source software, goes over some progress in his 2D RPG project, shows off some maps and then explains how he links his many map files together. You can also find more on the project reading back in his journal for this past week.
* Digital Playground - OrangyTang has released Analog v0.5, which is a freeform map editor for 2d games that's based on vectors rather than being tile-based
* Big Trouble In Little Chairtown - Drilian follows up his excellent Collision Detection Performance article from back in December with a second volume, this time he tackles mesh vs. mesh tests
Other Stuffs
* The Broken Mind - Falling Sky has begun working on a virtual CPU emulator based off of the virtual CHIP-8 (without the game aspects) and the infamous Z80. Z80? CHIP-8? Sounds like he should get in touch with benryves for obvious reasons
* Readme.txt - Khawk believes in software reuse and he argues why it should be considered as much as possible, with examples of people who believe otherwise
Let's all wave to our newest Journal Land citizen, Saint Retro.
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