In 2012 I will:

1. Work on personal game project and attempt to solve issues highlighted in previous blog post Unsolved Problems.
2. Release a project into the open source world.
3. Participate in the Global Game Jam
4. Do more research into Computer Graphics Effects (Shadows, Post-Processing Effects, Shaders etc.) – I recently bought 3D Graphics with XNA Studio 4.0 (Kindle Edition) So I will probably work my way through that book.
5. Do more research into implementing particular data structures and algorithms. Especially with respect to thread safety (The future is multithreaded after all). In the past I haven’t implemented algorithms purely for the sake of it – But reading about Code Katas and recently implementing a quadtree has demonstrated that independent practice can have huge benefits. Next on the list of implementations to do – BSP Tree, Bloom Filter, OctTree and any others that I think of along the way.
6. Learn F# – I’ve been meaning to learn a functional programming language for a while, and because F# integrates with the rest of dot net I can learn F# and still get things done. See Real World Functional Programming

That’s quite a lot of stuff to work on over the next year and that is only programming and game programming related goals – No mention of personal, professional or financial goals on that list (which I will keep private for now.) I’m not sure how much of the above I will get through but it’s more than enough to get the ball rolling.

Also notice only two goals relate to shipping something – The Global Game Jam, and the Open Source Project. It’s going to be more of a momentum building year than anything else.

• Pre age 17 – Doesn’t really count, dreaming of being a video game coder, Did a couple of programs in Turbo Pascal. Guess the number kind of stuff.
• Age 17-21 – Being a newbie, playing with Visual Basic trying to make video games. Working on lots of unfinished projects cause my skills don’t quite match the vision inside my head.
• Age 21-25 – Attending university, still trying to make games, studying math and later adding computer science, getting a theoretical background but not producing a lot of work, making mostly unfinished projects. During this time I attempted making my first commercial game. Made $1000 which I spent on a bass guitar. Not bad, but not worth the ~18months of part time work on the (terribly coded) game. Learnt a lot.
• Age 26-29 – Working as a *gasp* professional programmer. 2 years doing business software (.Net and databases work) 1 year working for a video game company working on a 3d game for iOS and Android and now doing some (server side) development for photo album making software.

I list the above only for context – As it is only 12 years after I really began programming that I feel I can *begin* to actually make software and to impart advice to others about the craft. I think my apprenticeship stage is largely over and I am now becoming more of a journeyman, where upon I can ask questions and discover for myself the answers. (Through studying theory, learning through trial and error and practice.)

I am currently working on a project in my spare time – But rather than talk about that, I wish to outlay a few problems I have that I think are largely unsolved within my own body of work, or have been sub-optimal when I have done work for previous employers. I wish to use this new project as a test bed for coming up with solutions that will stay with me for at least the next 10 years, if not longer!

Each of the problems are outlined below. (Note: I am mostly using .net or mono stacks to come up with solutions)

1. Performance Profiling: There are a bunch of good profiler tools out for .net, but nothing that quite matches what I want – Per frame profiling. (video games run in tight loops where each loop is refered to as a frame – 30 to 60 frames per second is the standard target for video games.) There was a custom solution at my old job which was easily my favorite tool that helped track down a bunch of performance related issues. So I am working on my own implementation of a C# profiler that I will release as open source in 2012. The idea is that the profiler can be used in production systems and the information will be serialized over TCP/IP so you can get profile traces of your program running on different systems thatn the profiler. e.g Should be able to attach to a mobile phone or a webserver, even if the profiler is running on your desktop. I’ve started coding this part of the project, so be on the lookout soon.
2. Localization: Dealing with languages other than English is a pain (especially when you have a scripting language running a lot of your game specific code.) I think my solution will take the form of a parser to extract all strings from the scripting language and use the English phrase as the hash for a dictionary look-up into the active selected language. The trick is then presenting the data in a nice form for the person responsible for doing localization, as well as easily adding an additional language without having to do a complete recompile.
3. User Interface Design – I don’t know if this will ever be solved completely (It’s still impossible to get complete 100% UI compliance across all the major browsers even with HTML5). But I’m leaning towards developing a solution that uses Xml files to represent the markup for a screen – The document should List all UI elements such as Buttons, images, list boxes, rollover states etc… Which means multiple resolutions and multiple devices can be handled in a data driven way. (Again, no recompile necessary.)
4. Game Engine Architecture/Engineering Practises – How to build an engine so that all the parts can communicate with each other, work in harmony, produce as few bugs as possible and promote that mythical unicorn called code reuse? I’ve started by adopting automated testing, banning singletons from the codebase and encouraging cross-class communication through events. Also looking into using good tools – Visual Studio Professional, Resharper. Introducing static analysis (Which John Carmack seems to rate very highly if you’ve seen his talk at the latest quake con where he discussed the development of Id Software’s latest game – Rage.) As well as bumping up the compiler warning level. Also looking into using a build server and doing continuous integration (Something we do at my current place of work.)
5. Develop cross platform games (PC / Mac / iPad are the current targets) using the .net/mono tools with OpenGL for graphics – Btw there’s a neat OpenGL library for .net/mono called OpenTk

Those 5 items are my current areas of research, at this stage in my career I have made a couple of games, developed a couple of non-game applications, worked at a couple of organizations and those are the areas I have highlighted as being important to solve for the next stage in my development as a programmer.

I haven’t updated this website in a long time. The short of the story is that I took a job with a game dev company which didn’t allow me to have much time for development outside of work.

But now I have since left and returned to doing .Net work which pays better and gives me more free time. So now I can start doing indie game dev work again – And spend more time writing blog posts, with a more technical bent, which is a direction I’ve been wanting to head in for a while now.

I have lots of plans but don’t want to announce them just yet.

Let’s just say 2012 is going to be a good year for Tiny Frog.

It *is* coming – It’s taken a bit longer than I had hoped. I really can’t get used to OSX and Xcode – Although Objective-C has been getting easier for me and it’s a nice little language, if only Xcode was more like Visual Studio with it’s great intellisense support.

The biggest issue I have found with iPhone game programming is the MASSIVE difference in performance between the iPhone simulator and the actual device – The simulator is actually just an x86 version running on your Mac within a nice looking iPhone chrome. But the actual device is alot less powerfull than a full desktop PC. Don’t get me wrong it’s still pretty powerful – So long as you program it the way it is intended to be programmed. Desktop PCs are so powerful that we often do things in an inefficent way because, well hey – It runs fine on most modern computers. On a mobile device you have to actually start thinking about performance – Which I actually kind of enjoy, unfortunately alot of my time is spent on getting the game to perform well and less on putting the actual game togeather.

But like I said, it is coming along – There is one fully playable level (on normal difficulty with a boss) and I’ve got a couple of in-game menu screens, I’ve shown it to a few people and the reception so far has been pretty positive.

Should I make another guess as to when it’s going to be done? Ok, how about in another three months time? August 31st perhaps?

NINE-HUNDRED AND SIXTY SEVEN GAMES!!

Ok, so alot of them aren’t going to be very well polished and more than a few will probably downright suck. But it’s an awesome experience and a great chance to meet new people and to try something completely different. If you have even the slightest interest in making a video game, and even if you’ve never made one before you really owe it to yourself to give it a go next year.

Last time I participated in the Game Jam I produced the prototype for RoboFortress which I later remade without too many modifications in flash in order to place it on this website. My experience from last year was very different from this year. Last year I worked all by myself because I wanted to see if I could complete a game from start to finish all on my own. This year I decided to work on a team, which was very different. To tell the truth I think the optimal number of people on a team for this competition is 2 or 3 – Any more than that and you really need to have a dedicated producer who is responsible for managing the project and is final arbitor on any decisions that need to be made.

My team was quite large (5 people) and alot of time was spent just trying to communicate with each other. And sometimes it can be very hard to communicate an idea when you’ve had very little sleep and have been living off red bull and greasy takeaways.

Next year I think I would like to participate in a group of 2 or 3.

So what about the game we made?

Well, it was a point and click graphic adventure game and you can play it here (Plays in a browser – Silverlight plugin required.) The goal is to get onto the roof and find what awaits you. The original plan was far more complex let me assure you

I’d never made a point and click adventure game before and I wanted to give it a go, which I suppose is what the Global Game Jam is all about.

I think I’d like to make a larger graphic adventure at some point, but now I know what I’d do differently.

PS: Please do not look at the code – It is a complete hack job

Above is a picture of my very unfinished port of the game running in the Apple iPhone Simulator.  I’m back at work on monday so I’m going to try to get as much done as possible over the next few days.

Hopefully it won’t be too long before I can get the game out.

I’m going to set an internal target date of March 31st 2010 to have it finished by, if only to help with motivating me to complete the project in a reasonable timeframe.

Note: This is not a best games list, or any other such nonsense – Just a bunch of games that I enjoyed the most. My favorites if you will.

For more than half of the decade I was a student so I didn’t have nearly enough money to purchase all the games that I would have liked to play and even now I don’t own any of the latest consoles – Only just last year did I get a PS2 and only just this year did I get a Nintendo DS, so the selection made here is from games that I’ve played that I had the most fun with.

• 10) Platypus - (PC, Horizontal Shooter). Anthony Flack’s game made entirely of clay reminded me just how much fun arcade shooters could be. This one is exceptionally well polished and has great visuals, it’s also a blast to play with friends. (There is an XBox live version available)

• 9) Shin Megami Tensi : Persona 3 – (PS2,  jRPG) – The Shin Megami series has been long running in Japan, but only recently has it crossed over to western shores. Persona 3 is a very dark game, and is set in a modern day Japanese school. Persona 3 showed me that not all jRPGs are just Final Fantasy knock offs. (It took me 70 hours to finish this game, which is why I haven’t ordered the sequal, even though I’ve heard that it’s better.)

• 5 Days a Stranger and the rest of the John DeFoe quadrilogy – (PC Freeware, Adventure) – A series of free point and click adventure games that pay excellent tribute to the adventure games of old, but also provide a very grown up and rather scary story. The games are all free, if you have a PC this is a must play.

• 7) Arcanium : Of Magick and Steamworks Arcania – (PC, cRPG) At the turn of the decade I was looking for the next Fallout game, hardly any RPGs featured turn based combat any more and jRPGs just weren’t quite what I was into. Enter Arcanium, developed by some members of the original Fallout and set in a steampunk universe. The game is flawed and the graphics rather dull, but it was the closest thing to what I wanted at the time.

• 6) Heroes of Might and Magic III - (PC, Strategy) Technically this game was released in 1999, but I didn’t play it until a few years later so I’m including it on this list, and boy did I play it alot. This is my favoriate in the series. IV sucked, V is pretty good, but doesn’t have the charm that III has.

• 5) Gradius V – (PS2, Horizontal Shooter) This game is freaking awesome, and looks great on the PS2 – Its very challenging and requires alot of practise, memorization and skill to get through the game. (I haven’t managed to yet.)

• 4) Mario and Luigi : Bowsers Inside Story – (Nintendo DS, Action RPG) This is probably the best looking game on the DS ever made, It was only released a couple months ago, but I’m already prepared to put it on my favoriate games of the decade list. I’ve not played any of the other Mario RPGs, but I’m tempted to take a look at them after I finish up with this one.

• 3) Portal (PC, First Person Puzzle Game) – It’s Portal, one of the most quirky games ever, what with its short play time (2-3 hours for a first play through) interesting and original puzzle concept, insane computer and catchy poppy end song. What’s not to like?

• 2) Cave Story (PC Freeware, Adventure Platformer) I originally dismissed this game after only playing it for 10 minutes and then quiting. But, once you get out of the first cave the game takes on a life of it’s own and it probably one of the best games I’ve ever played. Developed by one man over a period of 5 years, this guys got talent. I think an updated version is coming to wii-ware soonish?

• 1) Psychonauts – (PC, PS2, Xbox, 3rd person Adventure Platformer) – Best game ever, great characters, dialog, story and freaking awesome level design. Tim Schafer is a genius. Pity he only makes one game every 5 years or so.

There you have it. My own personal list of my favoriate 10 games of the last decade.

What were yours?

Play the game here

Use WASD keys or Arrow Keys to move and use the mouse to shoot the bad guys.

This game is a port of my entry for the 48 hour game jam. Originally it was written with the XNA framework in C# but I decided it would be a prime candidate to test the flash waters. Although this time around I added ‘Easy’ and ‘Normal’ difficulties.

I’ve got a couple more flash game ideas floating around in my notebook (aka scraps of paper strewn about my bedroom.) So hopefully we’ll see another release before too long.

Let me know what you think. Good and bad – I’ll write a future post on my first experiences with flash and Robofortress itself at a later date.

After that I’m going to have a go at making Attack of the Meeplings II in flash. Here are my thoughts based on the feedback for the first game.

• The game is too hard (Casual gamers like the retro look and feel, but the game is too hard. I’ve noticed lots of inexperienced video game players don’t even use the up and down arrow keys at first) – I’m going to have to put a bit more thought into easy/medium/hard difficulty levels
• The game is too easy (Experienced players, esp those used to playing more hardcore shooters find the game too easy. They are only challenged ~30+ minutes in after the game speeds up fast enough for them. Yes, I know this is directly opposite to the first point but it shows how games sometimes have two (or more) very different audiences.
• The game doesn’t have any powerups People have commented on the simplicity of the game. Which is of course intentional. But it feels pretty good to be big and powerful so I’ll look at adding a couple powerups.
• The music is awesome The sequal will feature more awesome music!

Also I think I will cut it down to 2 stages – Most people don’t even get through one loop of the game and I like the infinite looping concept. For the hardcore players the speed increase per loop needs to be greater each time.

If you have any other feedback on Attack of the Meeplings or ideas for Attack of the Meeplings II please leave a comment.