Sunlight

The gameplay of my live performance game Cello Fortress is nearly finished, but the graphics are still basic blocks with some crude textures. Recently I've been working on figuring out what style I want for the game, and I've ended up with two possible styles that I like: one dubbed "Surreal Architecture" and the other "Rough Polygons". Since I have a hard time choosing, I figured I'd just ask here. Which style should I use for Cello Fortress? I've also added the pros and cons of each style as I see them. Several are just my personal taste so let me know in the comments if you disagree. "Surreal Architecture" style The basic idea of this style is that you travel through a world of surreal architecture. The surrealism is of the subtle sort: on first sight it might look like normal classical architecture, but if you stop and think for a second you realise this cannot be: buildings are too big and repetitive, it makes no sense to have a city ...

I've added a new cello attack to Cello Fortress! Check this little video for a demo and explanation. :)

To use a 3D model for 3D printing it usually needs to be altered quite a bit, since 3D printing adds a bunch of additional requirements that rendering and games don't care about. I've recently done this for the first time so today I would like to explain the process and show the result. Let's first have a look at the result: Click for high resolution I used a model I made in 2007 of Captain August , a webcomic that ran until 2010. The author of Captain August is a friend of mine, Roderick Leeuwenhart, and I made this 3D print as a birthday gift for him. Awesomenauts players might be familiar with Roderick's work as a writer: he wrote the voice scripts for a bunch of the latest additions to Awesomenauts, including Ksenia, Rocco and the Wildlife Documentary Announcer. Roderick also writes books: he wrote the "Pindakaas en Sushi" series. This title means "Peanut Butter and Sushi", which must be a delicious combination since I personally came up with th...

Most gamers and reviewers these days expect almost any game to have online multiplayer. What they might not realise (or not care about), is that adding online multiplayer makes a game twice as much work to program . Most programmers who build this for the first time hugely underestimate how much work it really is. For those who have never made an online multiplayer game, here are some of the reasons why it doubles the programming effort needed. Before I start, of course note that the real complexity of building multiplayer depends on the game. Adding a multiplayer match-3 minigame to Mass Effect probably wouldn't be much work compared to the main game, but that isn't realistic: big, complex games usually also have big, complex multiplayer features. Roughly doubling the time it takes to program a game when multiplayer is added is in most cases a good guideline. Latency The basic cause of all multiplayer complexities, is that it takes time for a message to travel from one compute...

When creating a new game character it's crucial to get a feel for his in-game poses and movement as quickly as possible. During the visual design of a character you shouldn't just wonder how he looks, but also how he moves. If a character looks cool while standing still but bad while in motion, you have a problem. Not only is this a key part of a character's personality and look, it also helps discover problems early on. Maybe that big weapon is obstructing the dynamic actions your hero needs to do? This is why our artists first draw key animation poses and throw those into the game as quickly as possible. During early development of a new character for Awesomenauts we playtest with just those key poses, without any animation. Less than 10 frames represent the entire movement set of the character. One frame for a jump, one for a fall, a couple for a walk, one for each attack, for sliding to a halt and for idling, and that's roughly it. It's surprising how smooth an...

Solving complex coding problems is hard. What to do when the solution isn't immediately clear? Sometimes you might just get stuck on something, or you might have a solution but are wondering whether there is a better structure or algorithm. No matter how good you are as a programmer, there are always things that are just too complex to easily figure out. How to handle those? The simplistic answer is that you should simply get smarter and more experienced. This is also a lazy answer, as it means you can just keep doing what you do and hope you get better over time. What you can do right now is work on your mental toolbox , your own personal set of approaches and techniques to help your mind tackle topics that are too complex to otherwise solve. By "mental toolbox" I basically just mean a bunch of tricks to help you think. Such tricks are very personal: what works for one person might not work for someone else. The important thing is to try different approaches and find out...

Our awesome introduction trailer for Swords & Soldiers II just went live! Koen made a really nice trailer for our new game, with help from Ralph and Gijs. Swords & Soldiers II is launching on Wii U next week (on Thursday 21 May), exciting times! :D