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1500 questions
61
votes
19 answers
Level Design Tips
What are some pitfalls or pieces of good advice when designing levels or maps for a (presumeably 3D but not necessarily) game?
Sean James
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61
votes
10 answers
Moving ships between two planets along a bezier, missing some equations for acceleration
OK, I already posted this over at math.stackechange.com but didn't get any answers :(
First of here's a picture of my problem, the description follows afterwards:
So I got all the points and values set up.
The ship starts out moving around the…
Ivo Wetzel
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61
votes
6 answers
How to calculate the price for acquisition of a mobile game
I searched long and hard thru the Game Dev community here and I didn't manage to find a good enough answer for a situation that I need help with.
Here is the deal - I've spent about a year to single-handedly develop a mobile game which is a mix…
Isaac Clarke
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60
votes
3 answers
What is deferred rendering?
I've heard about deferred rendering and how using it can allow for "lots" of lights in a scene without a huge performance hit, but what is it and (from a high level) how is it implemented?
Tetrad
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60
votes
6 answers
Vertical vs horizontal hex grids, pros and cons
With hex grids, you can choose to arrange the tiles with the pointy sides up, so that you can move along the west-east axis, or you can arrange them with an edge up, so that you can move along the north-south axis.
Horizontal or pointy-side-up hex…
Junuxx
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60
votes
9 answers
How to avoid circular dependencies between Player and World?
I'm working on a 2D game where you can move up, down, left and right. I have essentially two game logic objects:
Player: Has a position relative to the world
World: Draws the map and the player
So far, World depends on Player (i.e. has a reference…
futlib
- 1,467
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60
votes
9 answers
Texture packing algorithm
What is a good texture packing algorithm? Technically, bin packing is NP-hard, so a heuristic is what I'm really after.
deft_code
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60
votes
11 answers
Why is account sharing so bad?
In games where you have to use an account to sign in or otherwise authenticate yourself (e.g MMO games), it is often prohibited to share your account with other people.
For example in the World of Warcraft Official Terms of Use Agreement:
[...] You…
Charanor
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59
votes
8 answers
Why do most video game guns reload without losing unused ammo in the magazine?
If I have picked up 500 spare ammo and I 73/100 bullets in my current gun, why will I end up with 473 spare ammo instead of 400 (losing the 73 unused rounds in the previous magazine)?
Is this just to make it easier on the player?
I want to make a…
alt
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59
votes
7 answers
What are the dangers of self-teaching game development?
I am about to embark upon a journey into game development. Following answers to my last question, I will be using C# and XNA.
However, I don't personally know any other game developers and I don't work in the industry so, as such, will be…
Ste
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59
votes
1 answer
Using component based entity system practically
Yesterday, I've read a presentation from GDC Canada about Attribute / Behaviour entity system and I think it's pretty great. However, I'm not sure how to use it practially, not just in theory. First of all, I'll quickly explain you how this system…
TomsonTom
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59
votes
5 answers
Why not pre-render story parts in a game?
When playing games nowadays there are often story related cut-scenes, during which you cannot interact with the game, you can only listen to it or watch it while it plays.
However in a lot of games these story scenes are rendered live with the game…
Thomas Wagenaar
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59
votes
1 answer
What scripting language should I choose for my game?
In what cases are what scripting languages better than others?
All answers are appreciated, please provide a description, and describe in what cases the language excels in.
Linus
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58
votes
3 answers
Optimizing an XNA 2D game
Does it make sense to implement the logic to skip rendering objects outside the viewport or should I not care about it and let the Framework do it?
smnbss
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58
votes
7 answers
Can I prevent diagonal movement from exploring more of the map?
In a tile-grid where movement in any of 8 directions takes exactly the same amount of turns (chess-board style rules), can I prevent diagonal movement from showing more new tiles than orthogonal movement?
For example: You are the red box in the…
Mr. Smith
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