Most Popular
1500 questions
427
votes
1 answer
How can I effectively manage a hobby game project?
How can I successfully finish a hobby game project in my free time?
How do I motivate myself to keep it up and drive right through to the finish without losing interest or motivation along the way?
Michael Klement
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320
votes
1 answer
What are good games to "earn your wings" with?
I believe that in order to become a good game developer, you need to make games.
From a programmer's perspective, what are some good entry level games to get your hands dirty? What skills and challenges do each of these games teach you?
Drew
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312
votes
14 answers
How can I find an optimum set of colors for 10 players?
I want to give each of 10 players a unique identifying color. Is there an optimum set of colors for this? How do I create one?
Every set I've come up with contains colors that are too similar.
Update: I was asked below what this is for (fair…
David Thielen
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271
votes
11 answers
When should I use a fixed or variable time step?
Should a game loop be based on fixed or variable time steps? Is one always superior, or does the right choice vary by game?
Variable time step
Physics updates are passed a "time elapsed since last update" argument and are hence framerate-dependent.…
Nick Sonneveld
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252
votes
36 answers
How to prevent the "Too awesome to use" syndrome?
When you give the player a rare but powerful item which can only be used once but is never really required to proceed, most players will not use it at all, because they are waiting for the perfect moment. But even when this moment comes, they will…
Philipp
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214
votes
4 answers
How can I store game metadata in a .png file?
Spore allows player-created creatures to be shared by exporting a .png file. That .png is a photo of the creature, but if it's imported into the game, the creature's information (such as textures, size, and shape) also come with it.
How can I…
ibrabeicker
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206
votes
17 answers
How does a single non-artistic programmer make a game?
I'd like to try my hand at making games. In making some simple ones, I realised I can't do art!
I've tried to find others to help: Most existing teams wouldn't want me because of my limited experience (I'm in high school) and I've been unable to…
user7383
192
votes
35 answers
How do you prevent inflation in a virtual economy?
With your typical MMORPG, players can usually farm the world for raw materials essentially forever. Monsters/mineral veins/etc are usually on some sort of respawn timer, so other than time there really isn't a good way to limit the amount of new…
Tetrad
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185
votes
1 answer
What is the role of "systems" in a component-based entity architecture?
I've been reading a lot about entity components and systems and have thought that the idea of an entity just being an ID is quite interesting.
However I don't know how this completely works with the components aspect or the systems aspect. A…
bio595
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172
votes
10 answers
Why is it so bad to optimize too early?
After looking into optimization a bit, I have discovered (literally everywhere) that it seems to be a universally recognized sin to optimize a game too early.
I really don't understand this, would it not be incredibly difficult to change some of the…
mr-matt
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170
votes
13 answers
What math should all game programmers know?
Simple enough question: What math should all game programmers have a firm grasp of in order to be successful?
I'm not specifically talking about rendering math or anything in the niche areas of game programming, more specifically just things that…
Tetrad
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169
votes
3 answers
What is Vulkan and how does it differ from OpenGL?
Khronos Group (the standards body behind OpenGL) has just announced Vulkan:
Vulkan is the new generation, open standard API for high-efficiency access to graphics and compute on modern GPUs. This ground-up design, previously referred to as the Next…
Anko
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160
votes
8 answers
Why are MVC & TDD not employed more in game architecture?
I will preface this by saying I haven't looked a huge amount of game source, nor built much in the way of games.
But coming from trying to employ 'enterprise' coding practices in web apps, looking at game source code seriously hurts my head:
"What…
timoxley
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160
votes
25 answers
How do I get players to say "no" when they are afraid of missing out on sidequests or XP?
In my RPG, I have a companion NPC who is overconfident in his abilities and lacks self-control. I wanted to create a few situations where the player needs to reign them in and tell them "no". One such situation basically boiled down to…
Thunderforge
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158
votes
31 answers
Must read game development books
Let's make a list of the best books that every game developer should read.
Each answer should have a single book (by title and optionally author), a link to buy the book, and a short synopsis of what the book is about.
DFectuoso
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