Dev Links: The Big Guns
Among the topics under discussion in today’s Developer Links is the Wii U, which despite its name is not a video game university. But if it were a video game university, then it might be a place where you could learn some of the other things in today’s Developer’s Links, like how to handle instructions in games, how to optimize patch sizes, and how to recognize common personalities, phenomena, and phrasings in the game development industry.
Game Dev Students Give Wii U Mixed Marks At Early Demo (Ars Technica)
“About 150 Club Nintendo members had received a golden ticket for each night of this four-day junket, but I was more interested in talking to the invited students from DePaul University’s Game Dev program. These were undergraduates and graduate students who had made the decision to come to a four-year, liberal arts school to study up on how to make modern games. They weren’t just here to see if the Wii U’s unique touchscreen tablet controller made it a system worth buying. They were also evaluating potential career paths, sizing up the development potential of what will be the first of the several systems that could shape the opening decade of their young careers.”
Fun With Package Sorting (The Witness)
“A couple of months ago I was playing Super Monday Night Combat; a much-anticipated weekly update came along, but its file size was over 800MB! MNC is an Unreal Engine game and Unreal, like many game engines (and like The Witness), packages its data files together for robustness and speed. This package format interacts with the patch delivery system of any online distribution service, though.”
Back From Holiday, And Mac Testers… (Cliffski.com)
“Sooo… that’s enough time sat on a beach reading books. Especially if you sunburn easily and then really hurt your foot kicking a beam, and have to limp everywhere. At least there was a tropical storm to liven things up! I’m not back in the world of debugging, huge towering inboxes, and 1,001 things to do before breakfast. (Not to mention no more huge buffest at breakfast…darn…). I miss the cocktails and the live music 🙁 (Also it’s amazing the quality of the musicians just playing in restaurants in the caribbean).”
Voodoo At Origin! (AltDevBlogADay)
“We all love bugs they are like nuggets of entertainment for programmers that sit roughly between the extremes of love and hate. There are some bugs however that years after they have been squished still come to mind, indeed ask any engineer about bugs and he / she will undoubtedly have a story or two to tell.”
Instructions, Conventions Or A Stupid Avatar (Bientôt l’été)
“I have redone the in-game hints and instructions to match with the interaction redesign and the new focus on mouse controls rather than keyboard. They almost seem redundant now that the interactions have become so simple. But I don’t want players to not know how to play. Exploration is fun but exploration of controls is not very interesting. It is also completely meaningless.”
Horse Talk: Devon Explains It All (Octodad blog)
“‘Horse Talk’ is a new series here on the Octodad blog where we’ll be running some intra-team Young Horses interviews. First up we quiz Devon Scott-Tunkin.”
Ugly Baby Beats (Dejobaan Games)
“What do these numbers have in common? 0.4748333320, 0.9506041660, 1.4263749990, 1.9021458320, 2.3779166660, 2.8536874990, 3.3178541660, 3.7820208320, 4.2577916660, 4.7335624990, 5.2093333320, 5.6851041660, 6.1492708320, 6.6250416660, 7.0892083320, 7.5649791660, 8.040749999000001, 8.516520831999999, 8.9806874990, 9.4564583320, 9.932229166000001, 10.4079999990, 10.8837708320, 11.3479374990, 11.8237083320, 12.2994791660, …”
Cliff Bleszinski’s Game Development Flashcards (Gamasutra)
“As of this summer, I’ll have been making games for 20 years professionally. I’ve led the design on character mascot platform games, first-person shooters, single-player campaigns, multiplayer experiences, and much more. I’ve worked with some of the most amazing programmers, artists, animators, writers, and producers around. Throughout this time period, I’ve noticed patterns in how we, as creative professionals, tend to communicate.”
