October 15th, 2012 | By Erik Johnson
Tagged in: developer links | DevLinks | industry | industry news
In today’s Developer Links: smartphone performance, the importance (or not) of closure in games, and an 8-bit sequencer. Also, in case you’ve had enough articles for now about how to create games, we’ve also got a discussion about why to create.
Why Do You Create? (AltDevBlogADay)
“My friends know I’ve been struggling to write this article for months, struggling with the tone and the question: so I ask you, Why? It’s the most important question you can ask yourself, though asking it is never easy. A recent Edge piece asked some creative directors and leads the question. Some give honestly insightful answer and are worth a read. Though this question extends to every member of a studio or aspiring developer, not just the creative directors of the world.”
Super Crate Box-month! (Vlambeer)
“Rami has finally returned from his two-month journey around the world, visiting Gamescom, PAX Prime, Fantastic Arcade and the Eurogamer Expo to show off LUFTRAUSERS and depending on how nicely you asked, Super Crate Box Vita and Ridiculous Fishing too. we’d love to discuss the whole trip & all the events more than this, but there’s important news we need to get out of the way first. Since Super Crate Box launched in October 2010, we’re declaring October 2012 Super Crate Box month.”
Solving Smartphone Performance Problems (Gamasutra)
“Having issues with performance on your smartphone game? In this technical article, MoMinis programmer Itay Duvdevani explains how he and his colleagues solved what should have been a very simple sorting problem creatively, and upgraded their smartphone game engine in the process.”
Horse Talk: Majdi Takes The Gallop Poll (Octodad Blog)
“I’m Majdi Badri and I am a game designer/ dialogue writer for Young Horses Game Studio. I also write on things and hide them around the office so that Zuhn and Chris become paranoid.”
A Data-Oriented, Data-Driven System for Vector Fields — Part 2 (AltDevBlogADay)
“The more things we add, the more cluttered the system becomes. And the system is still not completely general. No matter how much we add, there will still be some things that the user just can’t do, without disturbing a programmer and get her to add a new effect to the system. This means that the system is not truly data-driven. Whether this is a problem or not depends a lot on your development style.”
Indie Tools: PulseBoy (Roger Hicks/Matt White) (IndieGames.com)
“Rekcahdam, who is probably best known for Celestial Mechanica and the Seedling soundtrack, is the creator of Pulseboy, a web-based musical sequencer that only utilizes 8bit sounds and samples. Currently in beta, PulseBoy was apparently intended to be more of an introduction to the idea of tracks than anything else.”
Meaning and closure? (Bientôt l’été)
“Some people seem to have a problem with Bientôt l’été being meaningless and lacking closure. I honestly don’t know how to respond to that criticism. Other than admitting that perhaps the whole design is a mistake and it’s probably just bad art. This would be unfair, however, towards other people who thoroughly enjoy the game, despite its lack of closure, etc.”
Machinarium PS3 Hits PSN America On October 9th (Amanita Design)
“The game was released on PSN Europe a month ago and now it’s finally coming also to SCEA region (October 9th) and Asia (October 18th). On PSN Europe the game was already downloaded by more than one hundred thousand players with the average rating 92%. The price is $9.99.”
Erik Johnson (291 posts)