Tagged Questions
43
votes
8answers
9k views
Event-driven Communication in a Game Engine: Yes or No?
I am reading Game Coding Complete and the author recommends Event Driven communication among game objects and modules.
Basically, all living game actors should communicate with the key modules ...
35
votes
5answers
3k views
How to avoid the GameManager god object?
I just read an answer to a question about structuring game code. It made me wonder about the ubiquitous GameManager class, and how it often becomes an issue in a production environment. Let me ...
22
votes
4answers
2k views
Appropriate level of granularity for component-based architecture
I'm working on a game with a component-based architecture. An Entity owns a set of Component instances, each of which has a set of Slot instances with which to store, send, and receive values. Factory ...
20
votes
6answers
3k views
Is Test Driven Development viable in game development?
As being Scrum certified, I tend to prone for Agile methodologies while developping a system, and even use some canvas from the Scrum framework to manage my day-to-day work.
Besides, I am wondering ...
15
votes
3answers
4k views
Finite state machine in C++
So, I've read a lot about using FSMs to do game state management, things like what an FSM is, and using a stack or set of states for building one. I've gone through all that. But I'm stuck at writing ...
13
votes
2answers
699 views
How should I check if a player has completed an achievement?
I'm making an MMO game and I just got to a point where I need to implement achievements... How do I do that? The most straight forward thing to do would be to run this once every 100ms,:
for a in ...
12
votes
2answers
980 views
Could I be going crazy with Event Handlers? Am I going the “wrong way” with my design?
I guess I've decided that I really like event handlers. I may be suffering a bit from analysis paralysis, but I'm concerned about making my design unwieldy or running into some other unforeseen ...
11
votes
7answers
767 views
Low coupling and tight cohesion
Of course it depends on the situation. But when a lower lever object or system communicate with an higher level system, should callbacks or events be preferred to keeping a pointer to higher level ...
10
votes
5answers
1k views
Cross platform low level graphic API
When creating a system abstraction is better to have the platform different APIs hidden by a common interface at the lowest level that makes sense.
Taking in account the different modern (with no ...
9
votes
2answers
627 views
Implementing behavior in a simple adventure game
I've been entertaining myself lately by programming a simple text-based adventure game, and I'm stuck on what seems like a very simple design issue.
To give a brief overview: the game is broken down ...
9
votes
1answer
2k views
Separating physics and game logic from UI code
I'm working on a simple block-based puzzle game.
The game play consists pretty much of moving blocks around in the game area, so it's a trivial physics simulation. My implementation, however, is in ...
9
votes
3answers
398 views
Flexible alternatives to many many small polymorphic classes (for use as properties or messages or events) C++
There are two classes in my game that are really useful, but slowly becoming a pain. Message and Property (property is essentially a component).
They both derive from a base class and contain a ...
8
votes
2answers
3k views
Information on seamless MMO server architecture
I'm looking for any material on seamless MMO servers! I do have a few articles in the "Massively Multiplayer Game Development" books and "Game Programming Gems 5." Has anyone experience on that topic ...
8
votes
2answers
418 views
Manage a large number of independent actors in real-time
I am working on a large scale real-time strategy game - ideally with thousands of units active at once - but I am having trouble managing all of the units at once without it becoming astonishingly ...
8
votes
5answers
541 views
How can I update Display settings from an Options screen without restarting?
I'm currently creating a 2D RPG in C++11 with Allegro 5 and boost.
My goal is to somehow update my game settings when an option is changed in the Options Menu. I don't want to force the user to ...
8
votes
1answer
136 views
Broad topics needed for teaching game development
I am going to be doing a presentation on game development to an iPhone user group in the near(ish) future. My audience are iPhone developers, but not necessarily very experienced ones, and this is ...
6
votes
3answers
562 views
Trophies programming design pattern
What design pattern is best for implementing trophies in a game? I am not a games developer, but is it easy for each player's action to check and update conditions that satisfy 50-100 trophies at any ...
6
votes
4answers
347 views
Passing data between engine layers
I am building a software system (game engine with networking support ) that is made up of (roughly) these layers:
Game Layer
Messaging Layer
Networking Layer
Game related data is passed to the ...
5
votes
1answer
651 views
What underlying character stats would you put into your “character” object in an RPG engine
basically I'm making my own RPG/TBS engine named Uruk (making an rpg themed about the epic of gilgamesh) and I am thinking of a combat system similar to the Disgaea franchise or the Super Robot Wars ...
5
votes
2answers
262 views
How to handle game states for a 1/2-player game?
I'm developing a little simon-like game and I'd like to know what the best approach is when it comes down to game states.
What would be the best approach?
Creating different states/screens for ...
5
votes
1answer
292 views
What's the right/standard way of achieving separation of concerns?
Some background:
I want to start developing games, and taking some of the advice given in this site, I've started with something simple and familiar, such as pong, tetris, etc. I want to take as much ...
5
votes
1answer
358 views
Internal Game Organization [closed]
I've been trying to make various sorts of games throughout the past few months, I've had several false starts (currently using python + pygame). I find that what happens is that I get a first pass of ...
4
votes
2answers
307 views
Mobile Multiplayer games and coping with high latency
I'm currently researching regarding a design for an online (realtime) mobile multiplayer game.
As such, i'm taking into consideration that latencies (lag) is going to be high (perhaps higher than ...
4
votes
4answers
310 views
Networking gampeplay - Sending controller inputs vs. sending game actions
I'm reading about techniques for implementing game networking.
Some of the resources i've read state that it is a common practice (at least for some games) to send the actual controller input across ...
3
votes
3answers
279 views
Should each UI screen contain the list of screens on the stack or should I use a manager class?
I have a Screen class that encapsulates the updating and rendering of several distinct states, such as the menu, gameplay, and credits. A stack of screens exists on which the screens themselves need ...
3
votes
2answers
330 views
Starting a Game Dev Incubator - Engines to Start With?
I'm currently in the process of developing a technology incubator in my region to cater to game development professionals and aspiring devs and I'm curious about what engines are best to use, with ...
3
votes
1answer
544 views
Organizing platformer game into classes
I'm making a platformer game and I'm having some trouble wrapping my head around how to organize my classes. I'm wondering what the best way to have everything interact would be without passing ...
2
votes
4answers
770 views
How to make a game without OOP? [closed]
I am currenty studying game development and practicing making games.
I use a lot of OOP in my games. For example, each missile that is shot is an instance of a Missile object, and added to a list of ...
2
votes
3answers
389 views
C++ Namespace vs Reference passed around like crazy - Implement a quest journal
May sound funny, but that's what the question is about.
Suppose you have this situation:
http://i48.tinypic.com/whl6pk.jpg
Red squares are data types. Hexagons are methods and Journal is the main ...
2
votes
1answer
309 views
Techniques for separating game model from presentation
I am creating a simple 2D game using XNA.
The elements that make up the game world are what i refer to as the "model".
For instance, in a board game, i would have a GameBoard class that stores ...
2
votes
1answer
97 views
Where should the collision response/resolution code go?
I've got a collision response/resolution function that does the same for any pair of two entities. It's is in the World class right now.
But right before that function is invoked, I have some ...
2
votes
4answers
289 views
Getting into the details of game engine programming [closed]
I am interested in learning game programming, but I really have an interest in the lower level engineering in games. I have OpenGL experience, and I am really interested in learning more about ...
2
votes
2answers
205 views
Expandable 2d environment by spawning and controlling individual tiles
what is the best way to implement an environment that is "expandable" in every direction so that when the player moves in any direction a new row or column of tiles that can be manipulated ...
1
vote
5answers
1k views
Most efficient language for rewriting a tile-based board game as a video game? [closed]
I've been working on a hex-based board game. Every time I make changes, especially changes that require redesigning the map, it takes a good chunk of time and money. It might be more efficient to ...
1
vote
2answers
129 views
Should the game update loop compensate for slowness
I am building a game engine and considering the design for the core game loop that will drive the game.
In the most basic form, the implementation looks similar to this (in pseudo-code):
while ...
1
vote
1answer
128 views
How do you get player to interact with level?
I suffer from this problem where I have say a class called Player and a class called Level. Now the only way I can figure out how to say make the player interact with the level is if I do something ...
1
vote
2answers
59 views
Decoupling the entity from whatever controls it
In a lot of games the player can choose whether an entity will be controlled by the AI or by the player. For example in the game Little Fighter 2, the player can choose how many of a maximum of 8 ...
1
vote
1answer
144 views
3D Location Handling
I am thinking about making a simulator type game that will involve having lots of small objects in a 3D space. What is the typical solution for handling these objects? The first thing that comes to ...
1
vote
2answers
270 views
How to store different abilities in player class?
So, I have a player class with basic actions.
During the gameplay he unlocks new abilities.
I don't know how to store new actions within the player class.
To be precise - I know how, but my method ...
0
votes
4answers
713 views
Separating game logic from animation
For non-game applications the model-view-controller pattern is typical where data, logic, and visuals are separated. But for a game how would you architect the game logic and the animation system in ...
0
votes
2answers
283 views
Question on methods in Object Oriented Programming [closed]
I’m learning Java at the minute (first language), and as a project I’m looking at developing a simple puzzle game.
My question relates to the methods within a class. I have my Block type class; it ...
0
votes
1answer
41 views
How can I avoid type checking in the physics side of collision handling?
I have a class responsible for handling the physics side of collisions. When the collision detector spots a collision, it notifies both entities in the collision to take care of gameplay. It also ...
0
votes
4answers
491 views
Programming Paradigm for Games [closed]
Which programming paradigm resembles or best suits the Game design or game engine programming?
by paradigm I mean the Imperative, Object oriented, Functional, etc. I came to know that functional ...
-4
votes
1answer
205 views
What technologies are used for Game development now days? [closed]
Whenever I ask a question about game development in an online forum I always get suggestions like learning line drawing algorithms, bit level image manipulation and video decompression etc.
However ...