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From time to time I get a “bug” to look into the past history of software and the UFO things that come up in the history of software.  Now don’t get me wrong, I really do not believe in UFOs visiting us secretly, after all if they were going come all that way, why not tell everyone?  In 1952...

Here is an interesting discussion of game design using C++, very nice: http://javilop.com/game-development/c-game-programming-tutorial-non-tile-based-arbitrary-positioned-entity-engine-like-in-braid-or-aquaria-games/ Sadly, they use Visual Studio 2008, but you shouldn’t have any problem using Visual...

Oh well, let’s hope Unity will support Windows Phone 8, it is a nice tool, a little dependent on Adobe. At Microsoft with Expression Blend and XNA the “free” tools from Microsoft are pretty close to being as useful as Unity in my opinion. (Get started developing Windows Phone 7 by going to http://create...

Well if you are attending a graphic programming class, you may want to see how to use DirectX with GDI.  The sample makes more sense if you first read the following URL: Direct2D and GDI Interoperability Overview After you read that URL, then go to the sample at: Direct2D GDI Interop Sample Direct3D...

Well with the post on communicating with space aliens, you might be thinking that I am having a mental health problem or I am channeling George Noory or Art Bell from Coast to Coast AM . The real reason is that I have recently completed Joseph Campbells audio book titled: Mythology and the Individual...

This is an interesting tutorial, although it more like a reading and viewing of a slide deck and not a true tutorial. Video Games and Artificial Intelligence Other tutorials or papers you might want to take a look at are: Paper from 1996, easy read for anyone who has taken probabilities: ftp://ftp.research...

In this blog post, no back story, just pure UML today. In this case “Create an Account” is used by a Gamer coming to your site. The “Create an Account” is included in the User Profile and Security Use Cases (at least at this point of analysis). Now both the User Profile and...

I just got my aluminum hat tuned up. Communicating with an unknown recipient is something fasinates me. Strangely enough, there are a number of early branches of computer language design in developing artificial intelligence, as well as communication theory. One of the early articles, and it reads...

Practical use of Artificial Intelligence: Making Beer In other articles I have discussed artificial intelligence in games and the cognitive types. Another practical use of artificial intelligence is to use it to help in brewing beer. An article (Threapleton and Wilson) , http://www.neurosolutions...

Share this post, pretty please! : You might be thinking: “How do I move my game characters around?”  Let’s talk about moving characters, I think about movement in the following manner: Your game program needs to move the characters/actors/objects The player needs to move the character/actors/objects...

I am exploring a way to gather models, sprites, and tools to build more of these kinds of assets.  Exotic Sounds like missile launches, spaceships and so forth seem to be a big problem for some people, although there seems to be plenty of sound files around for me.  Music that is game like...

Interesting isn’t it that the game design discussion on the Software Engineering Institute site seems to end around 2005, just as life gets interesting for game design.  First of all the XBox team at Microsoft releases the XNA Game Studio, allowing for the first time for people, students, professors...

No more clunky interop with Visio like in VS 2005 and VS 2008.  UML is back in the Visual Studio Team Suite 2010 CTP. You will need to install Visual Studio Team Suite 2010, which is all of the versions put together, Database, Developer, Architect and Test, then you will be able to view and experiment...

Ok, the Motorized (or Motorised for the English speaking) barstool is interesting because it is much like a go-cart which has a center of gravity as low as possible, except that the driver is riding quite a bit above the ground.  With the driver and their center of gravity acting like a pendulum...

There are two computer languages that can be easily be used on the XBox 360 : C# and F# In game design, and certainly shared source games like MechCommander are a great way to investigate the architecture of a professionally designed game.  Dreamspark gives students access to the Game Studio 3.0...

Oh, oh, lack of focus right?  Lua and Artificial Intelligence, WTF, well I get in trouble with “lack of focus” from time to time…ok, all of the time.  Life is like taking a walk on the beach, you see the ocean, the birds, and the sand.  Then you look more carefully at the waves, you lose...

If you like to play WOW, then you might want to add on some tools to make your game.  In this blog I will contrast the two excellent tools, the WOW Addon Tools from the Blizzard Site and the AddOn Studio for WOW that is an open source project on Codeplex . Keep in mind that even though the Visual...

Daniel Fernandez with his usual genius has created a great application that you can download from http://www.codeplex.com/addonstudio that allows you to work with WOW, but use the Visual Studio shell.  This is a great way to get into programming and to have fun. If you are a teacher that wants to...

It's Christmas time and what better thing to do than to build a game to give away as a Christmas gift? Especially one that works on many different devices? To get started you will need to make sure you have one of the versions of Visual Studio Express, Visual Studio Professional or Visual Studio Team...

Creating Videos are an important in improving your web presence. Google YouTube is a popular way to go, but you are limited in the size and length of your video to around 10 minutes. To get around that limitations, one of the easy ways to get more time for your video is to use the http://video.msn.com...

As Dan Waters points on his excellent blog post about working in the game industry , you have to be known to be hired. If you are playing games on line, make sure to go for the badges and protect your gamertags. You need to blog, and you need to blog in a disciplined manner, I didn't for the past three...

Here are the items you will need to have to follow along with this blog, for college students attending an accredited college in the US, all of the following are free, except for the Visual Studio Team System (VSTS), if you attend a school that has MSDNAA you have access to that version of: If you...

Wow, with the new CTP release of the XNA Game Studio 3.0 you can create games that work on the Zune. Since we only talk about things you can do using the Express products on this blog, you will need to download VC# 2008 Express. However, if you have access to the Visual Studio 2008 Professional or VSTS...

Well the space aliens were asking me about code snippets again, and they were curious if they had to create a separate file for each of the code snippets and put them in the same folder, or could they put them all in the same file. Then again, if you think that these space aliens might be able cross...

Well, let's take a look at our next component, we got the Blue Screen Game (that is: A cornflower blue screen is shown on the screen). You might be asking yourself: "I am a java developer, this C# stuff confuses me", or you might be new to the game design and programming. Today, I am including a bunch...