Most games have what's called an "update cycle". One way or another, there are a bunch of entities/objects with an update () function, which is called periodically (usually every frame.) These might control enemy logic, particle positions, animations, etc.

Here is something that I have found to be incredibly helpful in reducing bugs.

Things are full tilt ahead on Texas these days, though I'm not blogging about it too much. I'm really just too busy!

Here Sam is hanging out at the beach, near a Faery Stone. These stones have the ability to warp you around the map, once you've visited them.

It's all pretty standard stuff, if you ask me... =)

First, to everybody in Canada and the USA: Happy Canada Day and Happy America Day; we're somewhere between them (July 2) right now. I had a great day yesterday riding with some friends, one who is visiting from the USA.

I had a special four part blog series prepared but, really, it was boring and not my style. I'd rather just blog about what I'm doing at the moment or whatever strikes my fancy.

Drones

Finally comes the magic: drones. Where my preferred design differs at least a little from other designers is that my objects do not have per-frame logic. Instead, objects are essentially static, and respond only to events (such as clicking).

Drones are essentially entities that only have per-frame update logic. They are not tied to a specific object, and do not have a physical or visible representation.

La Tour Part I: World Elements

I recently got a question from a friend about the basics of how I do game development (how am I doing 3D, how does my engine work, tc.), so that seemed as good a reason as any to get back on it with my blog (this blog has been inactive for I think a month or more!)

So it begins! A four part tour of how I do game development...

World vs. Play

First, I made a couple games in March. Actually, I finished five games, the other three are here.

Hence I've not done a great job blogging or even working on Texas, which I've just picked up again today. At any rate neither of these games is released yet, but should be soon:

The Cutting Room Floor

Lately I have been advancing Texas by leaps and bounds. It's true that the game is still a fair ways off, but it's coming together wonderfully. Here's part of what has happened to the overworld in the past two weeks:

Note: Left is before, right is after. As you can see, I also spent too much time refining the original map graphic.

I'm just about ready to launch another Alpha (read: at least a couple weeks solid of fixing, tidying up, etc.) I'm in the state of development where I'm just kind of walking around making notes about what's broken and what seems to be missing.

Problem: Trekking to the Cave is Boring

Early on you have to trek along a river bank to a cave; this is a nice enough trek but a bit empty-feeling. I really wanted to solve this, but somehow felt I should avoid the obvious thing of having enemies along the path.