Choosing the right tools for the job

Building a game is hard work, we all know that. On this tough process you are going to need any help you can get, and for this reason you have to do yourself a favour and use the right tools for the job.

By tools I mean, of course, a proper game engine or framework that suits your needs.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you are thinking: “but I’m a pro!, I don’t need nobody’s help on this!, I will build my own game engine from scratch, and it will completely rock the competition!”. Ok, that may be the case for you, Mr genius programmer, but for the rest of us mortals we can do fine by getting along using some of the best frameworks and game engines the great minds in the industry have developed and refined for us to use. You can keep your custom-made-and-slow-as-@$#* engine for yourself. Good luck with it.

 

Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to be that rough with you. Come along, we are going to review a few things you may want to have in mind when choosing the engine that will make your dream game come true. Let’s roll.

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Software made for fun, but still software

I have very bad news for some of you: video games are nothing more than colorful software with funny things like zombies, but at the end every videogame is nothing more than a complex software project.

What I’m writing about today? Why all those bad news? Today I’m going to talk about something boring for almost every developer, something necessary that all of us tried to avoid at least once, what must not be named!: Software documentation

Software made for fun, but still software

Boss doesn`t like documentation either

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Building small towards big things

Let’s say you wan’t to become a game developer at some point in your life. Let’s also say that achieving this goal is your top priority in life right now. It may be because you don’t like your current job (if you have one) or because making games has been your life long dream. It does not really matter why you wan’t to do this, at least not for me. It just matters to you.

What matters to me is the fact that achieving this goal is not easy. In fact, it is way easier to screw up by making simple -yet not so obvious- mistakes along the way. Today we are going to talk about one of the most important: not trying to build something so big that it can eat your dreams in one big gulp.

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Don’t let your projects squash your dreams!

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Getting ready for Ludum Dare

Howdy!

It’s amazing, cause it feels like it happened almost yesterday, but Ludum Dare is back again for more crazy game development action with Ludum Dare 30 taking place just this weekend.

Here at StrandedSoft we are big fans of this event, where people from all over the globe set up on a proposed theme and try to make a game around it over the course of 48 hours. Graphics, code, art, gameplay, everything has to be done in just one weekend from start to finish.

 

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It’s awesome.

But it is also difficult to build up the courage and commitment to take part in it and manage to finish your game on time. This is going to be my third Ludum Dare, and I’m absolutely no pro or expert on the matter, but sure as hell I have a few tips for the newcomer that I’ve learnt along the way.

 

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Playing as a videogame developer

Sometimes a player asks himself something like ” Wow, how the *%¿! is this made?!” Feeling curious about how a part of a game is made is the first symptom of the gamedev curse and never ever playing a game will be the same. Where there was some portals now there is a code challenge and those awesome shooting mechanics are a nice case of study… it’s the gamedev curse and no one can escape his touch (muahahahaha!) Lots of “how to design games” guides or professional game designers talk about playing games as advice. For me it’s not only a good advice, it’s a must. For me anyone who wants to make games should play other games as much as possible, any kind of games, from AAA games to the last indie scene’s hidden gem. Play , play, play and then look for more interesting games to play as research, using every game as a resource of new ideas and challenges.

We love gaming @wallpapertrade

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