Dev Links: The Right Touch
Today’s Developer Links include a few articles on getting started making games – though one of them may not be entirely serious.
How Do I Get Started Programming Games??? (Team Meat Blog)
“…I legitimately feel bad when I don’t respond because these are people that are just reaching out and want someone to shed some light game development. They are doing the same thing I did with that M.I.T. professor so many years ago. They are interested in what I do and want to know how to do it, they want to be a part of game development in some way. Well, I want to help but don’t have the time, knowledge, or desire to be a teacher …so here we are. This is an FAQ for anyone who wants some advice in some way from me about making games.”
Gaming New Year Resolution – Backlog Tackling! (Zeboyd Games)
“Like many gamers, I have way more games than I have time to play them. It’s just so tempting to buy new games when they’re in a huge sale even if I have no intention of playing them at the time of purchase. That stops in 2013! Basically, I’ve gamified the act of reducing my backlog.”
Understanding Challenge (Gamasutra)
“What is challenge? Talking about challenge is difficult when the vocabulary we have is limited to ‘physical’ or ‘mental.’ It doesn’t give us the necessary tools to examine games with any sort of substance. The Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics (MDA) framework states ‘Charades emphasizes Fellowship over Challenge; Quake provides Challenge as a main element of gameplay.’ We inherently recognize that the challenges between these games are significantly different, but there is no language available to explain that difference. We need to move away from vague, ambiguous words like “physical” or “mental” and toward a more definitive vocabulary. But what?”
The Hold Up (distractionware: devlog)
“So, first of all, this post is 90% good news! Super Hexagon on Android is basically done. It’s been basically done for a while, in fact – we sent out beta test copies before Christmas. (We being myself and the coder who’s handling the android port, Laurence Muller of EpicWindmill.)”
Networking Tips and Tricks Part 1 (AltDevLogADay)
“Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted to AltDevBlogADay! Life has been massively crazy for the past six months or so, and I’m nearing the end of my time in school. In almost 30 days, I will be a college graduate! In the midst of our final project sprint, I was asked by a friend of mine if I ever thought about doing a blog post about networking.”
BattleBlock Theater Is Being Watched (The Behemoth Development Blog)
“Happy new year! Hope all the holidays have been well and that you all had a chance to spend some time with your loved ones your video games. We certainly did. It’s only been a week since the start of 2013 and we’ve been extremely active in BattleBlock Theater development. Here are some mini updates for you folks:…”
How To Launch Your Game Development Career In 2013 (Kotaku)
“Okay. You need one original idea that no one has ever had before. Try this: Everything we do is a game. Games are systems, and since everything is, like, totally a system, you can almost say life is a game. Find yourself at the kind of party where everyone is ‘seeking capital’. Raise your glass enigmatically to your lips as you tell an attractive member of the opposite sex: ‘I think life is a game.’ Oh man. You’re on your way.”
2012 Postmortem and 2013 Goals (Olofson Arcade)
“Over at the indiegamer forums, we have this annual tradition of someone starting a thread where we report our activities and progress during the year that passed, and our plans for the coming year. This is an adaption of my post.”
