As we approach this holiday season, there are many blockbuster games on the horizon and a few which have just arrived. Rock Band 2 is out, I have a copy of Spore waiting for my at my apartment's office (damn getting off work after they close!), Warhammer online is about to / has release depending on your version, and we have even more to look forward too: Fallout 3 is a mere month and a half off, and Starcraft 2 is on it's way.
But I have yet to play any of these games, so instead I'm going to do a bit of a review of Civilization 4, which I had somehow neglected to play until about 2 weeks ago. I guess this review is a bit late, seeing as the copy I bought was the "Game of the Year Edition."
You see, when Civ4 came out, I scoffed at the idea of paying fifty bucks for what looked nothing more than upgraded graphics for a game that would be fun in NES era graphics. Plus, I still remembered the features cut when they came out with Civ3 (Really, who cuts multiplayer in a sequel? 1602 A.D. / 1503 A.D. Don't think I didn't notice!).
But I am please to say that Civ4 is more than just a pretty re-skinning: some core game mechanics have been changed, and for the better. Take the new religion system for example, it adds a whole new dynamic to foreign relations (the system for which has also been greatly improved with the addition of much needed feedback) and a new way to expand your power.
While the new additions have given depth to the game, such as with the much improved unit experience system, Civ4 has become no harder to play. One of my room mates was new to the series and had almost no problem jumping right into a game thanks to the clear interface (smiley face good, frowny bad), sensible mechanics (tank beats horse) and surprisingly helpful adviser tips. I know that none of these things are brand new in this version, but they have been refined to improve clarity (hammers instead of shields for production, productivity units of 5 are grouped (5 hammers = 1 anvil)). I also have to admit that I listen to the adviser pop ups much more in this version, although they can still get annoying.
I would like to see more playable scenarios, and the camera can be frustrating if you try to fight it, and occasionally I just want to tell the pop up adviser box to shut the hell up because I know what I'm doing, I mean I'm the emperor of the most powerful nation in the world for crying out loud, but these are minor complaints. In the end, we have a great example of what a sequel should be. Civ4 is more refined, easier yet deeper, and even more fun than it's predecessor.
Although they did get rid of the palace.... unless my people just really hate me (did I mention that you can institute slavery?).
Monday, September 15, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
An Afternoon with Ben Wallace
Hello again everyone, it has been awhile since I have posted here. James wanted to start blogging again, and since he is focusing on doing a Monday post, I said I would have a post up by Wednesday for all of our non-existent readers.
Monday afternoon I had the privilege of meeting and listening to Ben Wallace, Engineering Lead for the Halo series. Ben gave a very interesting presentation on how he developed solutions to creating highly realistic lighting and material for Halo 3. Halo uses the tried and true method of bump mapping to apply textures to their models, and this gives the model much more depth without requiring more vertices. Bump mapping using take a flat texture that has different normal values (how much and in what direction the light bounces off) for different areas on the texture. When this texture is applied to a flat object, that object acquires depth.
Much of the depth on the textures in Halo 3 comes from this technique. This by itself is not a huge contribution to game engineering, however Ben’s techniques for dealing with the massive amount of calculations that need to be performed is more so. Unfortunately for all of you, I did not take any notes during this talk (I wasn’t really thinking about blogging at that time). To sum it up, many calculations need to be done in order to deal with reflections of the world on shiny objects, light reflecting around the world, High Dynamic Range lighting – which is what happens when you are standing in a shadowy area, and there is incredibly bright light coming in from an outside source – and Ben and his team created and modified ways to approximate all of this so that Halo could be played with anything resembling a decent frame rate.
All in all it was an interesting presentation, and Ben is a very nice guy. I have rediscovered why I don’t think I will ever truly be a software engineer like he is, I just don’t have the penchant for learning math and honing my skills to the degree of sharpness that is required. Some things that he did mention at the end: If you want to be a game engineer you should definitely pursue some high end calculus, vector geometry, and other middle level mathematics. Along with that, make sure you are actually working with implementing these kinds of things on your own. Nothing will convince a game company to hire you more than seeing you have the initiative to do work for your own sake.
In other news, in the next few months, James and I should be starting on a couple new XNA projects for our own enjoyment. I am sure more details will be put up here and we flesh out the ideas we have right now.
Next week – talking about Braid and probably Rock Band 2!!!
-Matt
Monday afternoon I had the privilege of meeting and listening to Ben Wallace, Engineering Lead for the Halo series. Ben gave a very interesting presentation on how he developed solutions to creating highly realistic lighting and material for Halo 3. Halo uses the tried and true method of bump mapping to apply textures to their models, and this gives the model much more depth without requiring more vertices. Bump mapping using take a flat texture that has different normal values (how much and in what direction the light bounces off) for different areas on the texture. When this texture is applied to a flat object, that object acquires depth.
Much of the depth on the textures in Halo 3 comes from this technique. This by itself is not a huge contribution to game engineering, however Ben’s techniques for dealing with the massive amount of calculations that need to be performed is more so. Unfortunately for all of you, I did not take any notes during this talk (I wasn’t really thinking about blogging at that time). To sum it up, many calculations need to be done in order to deal with reflections of the world on shiny objects, light reflecting around the world, High Dynamic Range lighting – which is what happens when you are standing in a shadowy area, and there is incredibly bright light coming in from an outside source – and Ben and his team created and modified ways to approximate all of this so that Halo could be played with anything resembling a decent frame rate.
All in all it was an interesting presentation, and Ben is a very nice guy. I have rediscovered why I don’t think I will ever truly be a software engineer like he is, I just don’t have the penchant for learning math and honing my skills to the degree of sharpness that is required. Some things that he did mention at the end: If you want to be a game engineer you should definitely pursue some high end calculus, vector geometry, and other middle level mathematics. Along with that, make sure you are actually working with implementing these kinds of things on your own. Nothing will convince a game company to hire you more than seeing you have the initiative to do work for your own sake.
In other news, in the next few months, James and I should be starting on a couple new XNA projects for our own enjoyment. I am sure more details will be put up here and we flesh out the ideas we have right now.
Next week – talking about Braid and probably Rock Band 2!!!
-Matt
Monday, September 8, 2008
Dream, Build, Play
AKA: Dream, dream, and dream some more.
Microsoft has set out to, as they say, "democratize" the game industry with XNA.
For those of you who have not heard of XNA (and are too lazy to look it up) here are some helpful links: Gamasutra feature and Official Page. You will also find many references to it in past blog posts, as Matt and I have used it extensively and have even made some video tutorials on it: Blog Post or Download Page.
The idea is to give the power to make games to mere mortals. No longer will games only be produced by huge teams and EA's sweatshops, but by anyone with the with determination and a little bit of know how. XNA (you don't want to know what the acronym stands for) allows you to write games in C# that can then be played on both windows machines and the XBOX360. And other than the account required to play the games on your XBOX, it's all free! And if you sign up for Dream Build Play, you can get a four month Creators Club account free too.
So instead of having to learn C++, one can start of with managed C#, which is much easier to learn. As far as the amateur programmer is concerned, there are no make files or pointers or any of that other confusing C++ stuff. I originally learned how to program in Java, and I must say, the transition was quite smooth.
But XNA is more than just a language choice: there are a multitude of included libraries designed to make writing a game easier, and a plethora of examples and tutorials. There are libraries for interacting with a gamepad, doing matrix operations, and collision detection. I really don't know how they could have made making games any simpler.
But... where are all the games? There are some notable examples, such as some of the previous Dream Build Play competition winners (XBOX.com news), but I haven't really seen a major explosion of indie games. Maybe I haven't given it enough time, and maybe my expectations are too high, but so far the most Dream Build Play has done for me is taught me that "democratize" is actually a real word (I though for sure they had made it up!). I was hoping for a resurgence of the maverick game makers, a new John Carmack or Richard Garriott to show those big game publishers that we don't need them! If a kid gets sick of WWII shooter 12 and thinks he can do better, than gosh darn it he can! All it takes is some dedication and a spot of help from XNA.
But the industry has changed to much, and the best we seem to be able to do with XNA is make some slick looking arcade-style or casual games. Even so, and please correct me if I'm misinformed, we haven't seen an explosion of these games either. XBOX Live has had some successful arcade games (such as geometry wars and Matt mentioned "Braid") but we have yet to see a gaming revolution. I don't see people buying XBOX 360s just so they can play these games, and I definitely don't see "democratized" game making. But what can I expect? After all, a democracy depends on the involvement of it's people, and I certainly haven't done my part.
Which brings me back to the start of this post: despite being interested in games and even making some with XNA (such as the demo one Matt and I made for the video tutorials), I have yet to make a concerted effort to enter in the Dream Build Play competition. I have plenty of ideas and was really excited about this iteration of the competition, but now the deadline is looming and I have nothing to submit. I've got the "dream" part down, but have yet to execute on the "build."
Well, I think it's time for that to change. Although it's a bit late for this competition...
Microsoft has set out to, as they say, "democratize" the game industry with XNA.
For those of you who have not heard of XNA (and are too lazy to look it up) here are some helpful links: Gamasutra feature and Official Page. You will also find many references to it in past blog posts, as Matt and I have used it extensively and have even made some video tutorials on it: Blog Post or Download Page.
The idea is to give the power to make games to mere mortals. No longer will games only be produced by huge teams and EA's sweatshops, but by anyone with the with determination and a little bit of know how. XNA (you don't want to know what the acronym stands for) allows you to write games in C# that can then be played on both windows machines and the XBOX360. And other than the account required to play the games on your XBOX, it's all free! And if you sign up for Dream Build Play, you can get a four month Creators Club account free too.
So instead of having to learn C++, one can start of with managed C#, which is much easier to learn. As far as the amateur programmer is concerned, there are no make files or pointers or any of that other confusing C++ stuff. I originally learned how to program in Java, and I must say, the transition was quite smooth.
But XNA is more than just a language choice: there are a multitude of included libraries designed to make writing a game easier, and a plethora of examples and tutorials. There are libraries for interacting with a gamepad, doing matrix operations, and collision detection. I really don't know how they could have made making games any simpler.
But... where are all the games? There are some notable examples, such as some of the previous Dream Build Play competition winners (XBOX.com news), but I haven't really seen a major explosion of indie games. Maybe I haven't given it enough time, and maybe my expectations are too high, but so far the most Dream Build Play has done for me is taught me that "democratize" is actually a real word (I though for sure they had made it up!). I was hoping for a resurgence of the maverick game makers, a new John Carmack or Richard Garriott to show those big game publishers that we don't need them! If a kid gets sick of WWII shooter 12 and thinks he can do better, than gosh darn it he can! All it takes is some dedication and a spot of help from XNA.
But the industry has changed to much, and the best we seem to be able to do with XNA is make some slick looking arcade-style or casual games. Even so, and please correct me if I'm misinformed, we haven't seen an explosion of these games either. XBOX Live has had some successful arcade games (such as geometry wars and Matt mentioned "Braid") but we have yet to see a gaming revolution. I don't see people buying XBOX 360s just so they can play these games, and I definitely don't see "democratized" game making. But what can I expect? After all, a democracy depends on the involvement of it's people, and I certainly haven't done my part.
Which brings me back to the start of this post: despite being interested in games and even making some with XNA (such as the demo one Matt and I made for the video tutorials), I have yet to make a concerted effort to enter in the Dream Build Play competition. I have plenty of ideas and was really excited about this iteration of the competition, but now the deadline is looming and I have nothing to submit. I've got the "dream" part down, but have yet to execute on the "build."
Well, I think it's time for that to change. Although it's a bit late for this competition...
Monday, September 1, 2008
Steam
Let me start this post by saying that I love the idea behind Steam, Valve's gaming platform (http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php). Being able to buy a game, download it, and then have it automatically update seems like such a great idea that I find it hard to believe that it's not more popular. With a high speed connection, it's ridiculous that one would have to drive all the way to a store to buy a game! Just download and play! So easy and convenient! Sign me up!
And I did sign up, I bought a few games through Steam, and I must admit, I was loving it. I could browse the store, try out demos, and I knew that if I ever bought a new computer, I could just re-download all of the games without the hassle of trying to find those long lost cd keys. Not to mention not having to pop a disk in to my pc every time I wanted to play a game (what is this, a console?).
Unfortunately my early optimism has been steam rolled by a horrible UI, debilitating DRM, poor network connectivity, and resource hog. Not to mention the fact that I am no longer able to play Team Fortress 2.
Steam can take a long time to load, and has increased my windows start time. That bugs me. It also does not work on networks with a DMZ. That bugs my room mate, who is kind enough to switch the option off (thus making his self-hosted site inaccessible when I want to play a game). For some reason, Steam still does not work on my network, and the UI gives no indication as to why, or even that a problem exists. This drives me nuts, because I don't even have an error number to start looking for help with. Finally, I can't play TF2, which downright infuriates me because I paid for the game.
Well, I might be able to play... I hit the launch button about an hour ago, and it appears that the game is finally updating. Finally. Two weeks ago I decided I wanted to see what was new in the Heavy update, and since then it has been an ordeal trying to update steam and get it to run a game. Although the whole time Steam was able to keep me updated on when all of my friends where online playing. GAH!
And when you get down to, all the convenience that is potentially gained by this content delivery system has been totally obliterated by the all of the problems I have run into. I like the idea, but thus far the implementation has left a lot to be desired.
And I did sign up, I bought a few games through Steam, and I must admit, I was loving it. I could browse the store, try out demos, and I knew that if I ever bought a new computer, I could just re-download all of the games without the hassle of trying to find those long lost cd keys. Not to mention not having to pop a disk in to my pc every time I wanted to play a game (what is this, a console?).
Unfortunately my early optimism has been steam rolled by a horrible UI, debilitating DRM, poor network connectivity, and resource hog. Not to mention the fact that I am no longer able to play Team Fortress 2.
Steam can take a long time to load, and has increased my windows start time. That bugs me. It also does not work on networks with a DMZ. That bugs my room mate, who is kind enough to switch the option off (thus making his self-hosted site inaccessible when I want to play a game). For some reason, Steam still does not work on my network, and the UI gives no indication as to why, or even that a problem exists. This drives me nuts, because I don't even have an error number to start looking for help with. Finally, I can't play TF2, which downright infuriates me because I paid for the game.
Well, I might be able to play... I hit the launch button about an hour ago, and it appears that the game is finally updating. Finally. Two weeks ago I decided I wanted to see what was new in the Heavy update, and since then it has been an ordeal trying to update steam and get it to run a game. Although the whole time Steam was able to keep me updated on when all of my friends where online playing. GAH!
And when you get down to, all the convenience that is potentially gained by this content delivery system has been totally obliterated by the all of the problems I have run into. I like the idea, but thus far the implementation has left a lot to be desired.
Monday, August 25, 2008
You would if you had robot ears.
Many people have heard of Jonathan Coulton, the artist who wrote "Still Alive" for Portal, as well as the famous "Code Monkey." A hilarious singer / songwriter who isn't afraid to write songs related to computer science, he also has a pretty sweet take on music piracy (see the "Already Stole It?" section on his site: http://www.jonathancoulton.com/store/downloads/).
But Jonathan isn't the only one representing for computer science. Take a look at Monzy's "So Much Drama in the PhD: http://www.monzy.com/intro/drama_lyrics.html. With lyrics like:
Your mom circulates like a public key,
Servicing more requests than HTTP.
She keeps all her ports open like Windows ME,
Oh, there's so much drama in the PhD.
How can one not love his music? Okay, so I've only listened to that one song, but I really didn't feel like hunting through his blog to find more. Really, why do some people feel the need to write irrelevant blogs than no one even reads? His last post had a measly eight comments for crying out loud.
If you listen to his song, you may catch wind of a bit of a rap war between Monzy and a MC++ (http://www.mcplusplus.com/). Well, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news, MC++ has two albums for free download on his site, and I can say with confidence that it is the best hardcore gangsta rap that has ever been made about coding. Ever. The bad news is that the rap war is over, and MC++ has no one to battle.
Except Max Flow, the AI program that he writes for the specific purpose of rap battling! You really need to check these songs out, there are hilarious and of amazingly high quality. These guys don't mess around. The lyrics are smart, and it takes a few sessions to get everything that they are saying. For example, "Master and Apprentice" has some biting commentary on the state of hip-hop today buried in there.
So next time your coding and listening to some pounding techno ("Are you afraid of it?" "No, I just don't like techno."), change things up a bit and listening people rap about coding, as you're coding.
But Jonathan isn't the only one representing for computer science. Take a look at Monzy's "So Much Drama in the PhD: http://www.monzy.com/intro/drama_lyrics.html. With lyrics like:
Your mom circulates like a public key,
Servicing more requests than HTTP.
She keeps all her ports open like Windows ME,
Oh, there's so much drama in the PhD.
How can one not love his music? Okay, so I've only listened to that one song, but I really didn't feel like hunting through his blog to find more. Really, why do some people feel the need to write irrelevant blogs than no one even reads? His last post had a measly eight comments for crying out loud.
If you listen to his song, you may catch wind of a bit of a rap war between Monzy and a MC++ (http://www.mcplusplus.com/). Well, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news, MC++ has two albums for free download on his site, and I can say with confidence that it is the best hardcore gangsta rap that has ever been made about coding. Ever. The bad news is that the rap war is over, and MC++ has no one to battle.
Except Max Flow, the AI program that he writes for the specific purpose of rap battling! You really need to check these songs out, there are hilarious and of amazingly high quality. These guys don't mess around. The lyrics are smart, and it takes a few sessions to get everything that they are saying. For example, "Master and Apprentice" has some biting commentary on the state of hip-hop today buried in there.
So next time your coding and listening to some pounding techno ("Are you afraid of it?" "No, I just don't like techno."), change things up a bit and listening people rap about coding, as you're coding.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Where did all of the updates go?
As Matt mentioned, we have finally finished our XNA tutorial videos. Matt and I are extremely proud of these videos, and hope that they will be of use to fellow amateur game developers. Each of the videos took hours to produce, from writing the code, filming, editing, and revisions. And that is why we have not been updating this blog.
Actually, that's not true. In our packed schedules we still managed to find time for Rock Band. Thank you Harmonix for bringing us such a genuinely fun and accessible game. I love rocking out, and it's great being able to get all my friends to play, even the non-gamers.
Matt and I graduate in two and a half weeks, at which point we are going to have to change the description of this blog. And hopefully we will have even less time to update it, as we will be employed in the game industry. We'll see.
Actually, that's not true. In our packed schedules we still managed to find time for Rock Band. Thank you Harmonix for bringing us such a genuinely fun and accessible game. I love rocking out, and it's great being able to get all my friends to play, even the non-gamers.
Matt and I graduate in two and a half weeks, at which point we are going to have to change the description of this blog. And hopefully we will have even less time to update it, as we will be employed in the game industry. We'll see.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
SMP is DONE!
Well, all those people who read this blog (are there any?) good news. The tutorials for XNA are finally done. I am mainly posting here in hopes that people Googling for beginner tutorials will find their way here, and can then be passed on to the real site.
XNA Tutorials
Enjoy, and please give us feedback!
XNA Tutorials
Enjoy, and please give us feedback!
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