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This should go quite well.

As now there a few decent games for it(and some experienced developers), it's cheapish, and actually usable.

I just hope it is compatible with the old games.

Have fun!
http://www.holepit.com/

saw a fairly cool laser golf game at the australian game development conference this year.

Was pretty fun. You got to swing an actual golf club.

Have fun!
holepit.com

Anyone know how to capture windows sound output?

I would like to capture it and then broadcast with icecast2.
Found you could use a winamp plugin to source icecast2. However winamp can not capture sound(I think?).

Have fun!
holepit; a winders game.

Some interesting info in their blog
I wonder if djbdns can use SPF records.

Have fun!
holepit

Maybe it was Reservoir Dogs :) I think Quentin Tarantino said it about PF though. Couldn't find where he said it though, so I can't check.

However neither of them were popular at the time of PF; John Travolta and Sam Jackson. Samuel Jackson was pretty much unheard of, and John Travolta was having a big slump in being in big movies at the time. Harvey Keitel produces movies, in that way he is more of a force, not just his appearance in the movie.

Anyway I think the point is that if there is a bigish name making something, then it leads to other people taking notice, and it can snow ball from there.

Have fun!
holepit.com

Very interesting article :)

"""The games biz has nothing like this; we have hobbyists who slap together amateur efforts, and we have big-time people who develop the mainstream products. There's nothing in between, which is one reason why the games industry is so creatively stagnant."""

I do not think that is so true. There are a few independant groups which make wildly popular games. eg Doom, snood, various other 'indies'. Over the last few years the indie game scene has really taken off. I think these people make games for a lot of people not into the mainstream games. For example many of them make games which will run on many computers, not just the latest ones.

A game like snood, for example has gotten very wide public attention(In the multi millions). I've meet a number of non gamer types who have played it. The same with the doom/quake series of games. People who didn't normally play games at that time gave it a go because it was so interesting.

Indie game developers can also afford to make games which do not sell lots of copies, because they are running more efficient businesses. For example instead of making 3-5% of each copy sold they can make 70-90% of each copy sold, and generally make games with much smaller budgets. They rarely do not sell as many copies as the publisher distributed.

Take a look at the igf.com, dexterity.com/forums/. From there you will find lots of indie games, and evidence of such a scene. Check out gametunnel.com, indiegammer.com for reviews of indie games. There are really good original games in there, but also a number of crap games(like other indie, and publisher funded entertainment areas). Also check out ludumdare.com where there are occasionally 48 hour game making comps. Some very interesting ideas have come from there.

Something like the Harvey Keitel effect*1 in pulp fiction is happening in other indie games. One occurance is where one/some of the makers of ufo XCOM are selling a game: Laser Squad Nemesis, http://www.lasersquadnemesis.com/.

*1 Harvey Keitel effect - Having a big name giving more reputation, expertise and funds to an almost unknown group, drawing more attention to it. Like what happened in pulp fiction with Harvey Keitel. Because people knew he was on board, other people agreed to work with them.

Have fun!
holepit.com

After looking through five stores I can not find a suitable sized cod piece!

Also MUD mariages should be able to be consumated. If not, what kind of marriage is it?


Let there be shiney black fuck off metal cod pieces!


Have fun!
holepit

They obviously should have had plans for this.

Not neccessarily a bush fire, but incase this one office goes down.

How can a company this large not have redundancy for something making so much money?

Management should be fired. Or chucked in the fire ;)


Have fun!
holepit

Pretty sure he said game tic, not frame rate?

The difference is the ai/physics/game rules will be updated at 60hz, whilst the rest(sound video) could be updated at a different rate.

The benefits for the fixed rate are a few. It is almost very similar to having your elapsed time calculations between frames being fixed.

The biggest advantage of it is in terms of game play. You can be garaunteed that most players will see a very similar game world each time they play. For example imagine there is a slide which the character has to run down. Then there is a big hole in the ground which the character has to jump over onto a platform past this hole. With a fixed tic rate you can place the platform at such a place that the jump must be timed just right. That is the player will not make the jump unless they jump right from the end. But with a variable tic rate you can not be sure that the player will be able to be at that exact position. Time may move too fast and they may miss the perfect jump location.

Another important reason to have a fixed tic rate is so that motion looks smooth. There is no point in having all animations being updated 300 times a second in one room, then pause for a quater of a second. It would look jerky.

It can simplify calculations. Allthough this doesn't really matter too much for someone writing a fairly complex physics simulation like they are. But making sure every thing is done within 1/60th of a second is simplified if you know that rate is fixed. If there is time left over you can do some preprocessing for the next frame if you want.

Having a slower than maximum tic rate can also allow you more time to render a purty scene, calculate nice interactions with the world etc.


Have fun!
http://www.holepit.com/

Those people probably have lots of cash, are interested in the game, and are going to buy it.

The differences in sales are so small, and the test probably not rigourous enough for any conclusions.

Demo versions of games are a good idea. So that we can try out games before buying them.

I think demo versions are good for developers too. So they avoid refunds, and agry people. Unless they really believe they have a rock solid game that will work well on everyones weirdo computer setups. Oh and if they know that 99% of the people who buy the game will like it.


Have fun!
http://www.holepit.com/

Hello,

The way I do mouse movement in my current game(http://www.holepit.com/) is to make everything mouse controlled. It takes quite a bit of work to design your game in this way though. Depending on the game you may not be able to do it.

I have the characters follow where the mouse pointer is. So the movement of the character is kind of passive. You do not have to constantly tell it to go forwards. It always goes forwards depending on where the mouse is. Any of the buttons on the mouse will activate the characters special move. It sounds like a very simple control mechanism, and it is :) But most people are able to control it quite well. Of course I also support keyboard control for the second player.

Also on most of todays mice you have a wheel as well. Many also have an extra two buttons. These can all be put to good use. However they should not be required as many people still use old or simple mice with one or two buttons.

Another gaming mechanism not using your hands is the good old dance mat. Put it on the ground and use your feet! A good game for this is pydance! You could probably hook it up to give keyboard events, allthough I haven't done it.

For example with quake 3 style games, a mat and a mouse could control the game quite well. Using the mouse as is, and the mat to side step and select weapons.

If like in my game holepit people made an effort to support control by single hand input devices it can be done.

The atari style joysticks can be controlled with one hand. They were quite amazing in their simplicity, yet a lot of the games on the atari managed to have great gameplay with such a simple controller.

Having to use two hands for input has probabbly raised the dexterity of gamers. But for casual gamers their fine motor skills, and two hand coordination is not so good. Was talking to a fitness instructor who did some reasearch comparing game players to non game players. He found that the non game players generally had better full body control, but the gamers had much better fine motor skills. So having the ability to use one hand allows people who don't play with computers all day to play with a higher level of skill.

Have fun!

ps. if you want to try out an early version of my game to see how the mouse control works email me at me AT holepit.com

Hello,

The way I do mouse movement in my current game(http://www.holepit.com/) is to make everything mouse controlled. It takes quite a bit of work to design your game in this way though. Depending on the game you may not be able to do it.

I have the characters follow where the mouse pointer is. So the movement of the character is kind of passive. You do not have to constantly tell it to go forwards. It always goes forwards depending on where the mouse is. Any of the buttons on the mouse will activate the characters special move. It sounds like a very simple control mechanism, and it is :) But most people are able to control it quite well. Of course I also support keyboard control for the second player.

Also on most of todays mice you have a wheel as well. Many also have an extra two buttons. These can all be put to good use. However they should not be required as many people still use old or simple mice with one or two buttons.

Another gaming mechanism not using your hands is the good old dance mat. Put it on the ground and use your feet! A good game for this is pydance! You could probably hook it up to give keyboard events, allthough I haven't done it.

For example with quake 3 style games, a mat and a mouse could control the game quite well. Using the mouse as is, and the mat to side step and select weapons.

If like in my game holepit people made an effort to support control by single hand input devices it can be done.

The atari style joysticks can be controlled with one hand. They were quite amazing in their simplicity, yet a lot of the games on the atari managed to have great gameplay with such a simple controller.

Having to use two hands for input has probabbly raised the dexterity of gamers. But for casual gamers their fine motor skills, and two hand coordination is not so good. Was talking to a fitness instructor who did some reasearch comparing game players to non game players. He found that the non game players generally had better full body control, but the gamers had much better fine motor skills. So having the ability to use one hand allows people who don't play with computers all day to play with a higher level of skill.

Have fun!

ps. if you want to try out an early version of my game to see how the mouse control works email me at me AT holepit.com