Giant List of Classic Game Programmers

I have to admit, I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for the good ol’ 8-bit days. My first computer was an Atari 800, and I had the greatest time learning how to program BASIC and assembly language, inspired by all the great games I played on that system.

For all of you nostalgic souls out there that haven’t yet found The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers, click your way to retro-Mecca now. Just don’t blame me should you forget to return from your pilgrimage. Look up your favorite oldies, find out who programmed/designed them, then see what else they created. You might be surprised about the connections you uncover.

When I get a chance, I’ll post about the list’s revelation that literally stunned me. It’s not anything I would expect to shock anyone else, and it probably reveals more about me than about the list, but hopefully you’ll enjoy reading about it anyway…

Until then…Happy time-hoppin’…

Free games!

"Gratis Gaming" is a list of free PC videogames.  Most of them are commercial games that have since been releassed into the public domain by their creators.  Others were free from the get-go.  In addition to the games themselves, the stories behind their public domain releases make an interesting read.

Steering behaviors

I've seen this steering behaviors article before, but I stumbled across it today and thought I should save a link to it.

Hex-grid map programming

It looks like I might need a hex-grid map for an upcoming project. Here is the best programming reference I found so far.

OpenAL

Since my last post was about open-source audio compression, it is befitting that this post is for an open-source audio lib, OpenAL.

Vorbis audio format

Ogg Vorbis is an audio compression format with open source encoders and decoders.  Might be useful someday.

Rescue on Fractalus designer David Fox

Here is an interview with David Fox who designed (and programmed portions of) Rescue on Fractalus, a game that many of us “old timers” will recall as the first game that actually frightened us.

My brother and I were discussing this game recently, since someone had sent him a .gif of the alien-smashing-the-windshield animation.  There’s some interesting stuff in the interview…like how pirated versions of the game (with pre-release titles like “Behind Jaggi Lines”) leaked about a year before the game actually reached store shelves.

Texture atlases

Here is a good article on texture atlases, which are large textures that pack together many small textures, reducing the number of context switches during rendering. The article covers the principles, the downsides (e.g., texture tiling is not possible), and techniques to help automate atlas creation.

2D game programming links

Lately, my interest in casual games has increased, so I thought it might be worthwhile to investigate currently available 2D graphics options.

Here are some DirectX options. It seems that there isn't a straightforward "blit" operation available since DirectX 8. To do traditional DirectDraw blits, you need to return to DirectX 7.

http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1972.asp

http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1434.asp

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20010629/geczy_01.htm

In addition to the traditional DirectX approach, it is probably a good idea to investigate alternatives, like Pop Cap's open source development platform and wild tangent SDKs.

http://developer.popcap.com/

http://www.wildtangent.com/default.asp?pageID=developer_main

And here's torque's 2D gamebuilder:

http://www.garagegames.com/products/browse/t2d/

Ah…I've found another, SDL (in addition to 2D support, has 3D support + input/sound facilities, etc)

http://www.libsdl.org/index.php

Procedural world generation

Here is a nice series of gamasutra articles that details the creation of a procedurally generated universe, including terrain and textures.  Procedural world-creation is an interesting topic I’d like to explore further at some point.  These articles are a good starting point.

A Real-Time Procedural Universe, Part One: Generating Planetary Bodies  

A Real-Time Procedural Universe, Part Two: Rendering Planetary Bodies

A Real-Time Procedural Universe, Part Three: Matters of Scale

A Real-Time Procedural Universe, Part Four: Dynamic Ground Textures and Objects

Casual games market

A friend of mine sent me this article about casual games development, which tends to get glossed over by the mainstream game industry.  That’s unfortunate; small scale production seems a perfect playground for trying out new and innovative game designs.

In particular, the second page of the article has a lot of good links to developer information.

Ernest Adams, “The End Of Copyright”

[Previously posted to my Blogger blog]

Here is a great “Designer’s Notebook” article by Ernest Adams which appeared on gamasutra recently.

Gamasutra – Designer’s Notebook – “The End Of Copyright”

I agree with almost the entire article. However, I don’t think Copyright will completely die. A few aspects of it will survive, e.g. protection against plagiarism.

I wrote a short email to Ernest about the plagiarism aspects of Copyright. I don’t really expect to get a reply, but you never know…