95% Chimp

I've been learning about proper low level stuff like how to build CPU's and simple computers from the ground up using logic gates. This evenings playtime was a naive - ie without any boolean simplification - implementation of a nibble (4-bit number) to hex display using a 7 segment display. It's pretty klunky as it's completely un-optimised, but it does work...

Day 1 of learning the Go language - or 'golang' to you. First step after a quick browse of the website is to buy 'The Go Programming Languge' book. Normally I'd try to get some decent learning material from the internet before buying a book, but this book has Ken Thompson on the credits, and he's one of the guys who invented Unix, so it's going to be good book. Second step is to install Go on my laptop - took about 2 mins - details on the golang website. All working now so time to start going through the book... So, after a little reading, typing, tutorialing and learning here's what I like about Go: 1) Layout matters. Like Python, Go specifies layout as part of the language. I like this. It stops the eternal 'style' wars and it forces consistency in how code looks. 2) It's syntax is quite expressive - I think that's the correct word. Things like for loops can be quite terse and yet still easy to parse. 3) It seems to have cen...

GDC Classic Postmortem: Warren Robinett's Adventure (Youtube) Classic Game Postmortem: Robotron: 2084 (Youtube, Eugene Jarvis)

This is a collection of freely available talks about game engine architecture...this list will grow as I find stuff. Destiny Multithreading the Entire Destiny Engine (Youtube, GDC2017) Destiny's Multithreaded Rendering Architecture (Youtube, GDC2015) Misc  Game Engine Architecture Club (Youtube channel) No Man's Sky Continuous World Generation in No Man's Sky (Youtube/GDC2017)

Cloning on the App Store is appalling. Flappy Bird clones appeared pretty much immediately and spread their filth all over the place. Now the developers of Threes are complaining about cloning. But it's not every popular game that gets cloned. There are still tons of very successful games on the App Store which haven't been cloned. So what's the difference ? In a nutshell the odds of your game being cloned seem to follow this equation: Success / Complexity Games that make no money don't get cloned. Neither do games that are really complex to develop. But, make a successful, simple to develop game and you're doomed to be cloned. So, going back to Threes, they made a couple of bad mistakes. First they made a game which was very easy to copy - a 2D swipey puzzler with minimal graphics. Second they also charged money for it, when the clones will just go free and live off ad revenue. It's no surprise Three's was cloned really. It's a shame for the ...

Every game I have ever worked on has had crunch or overruns or both. So here I thought I'd document why. This isn't a philosophical piece or a dig at producers. This is just a list of the reasons that actually caused crunch or overrun. I've had 17 good years out of the games industry and I hope to have many many more. Planning is critical, but it isn't a silver bullet. Here, in no particular order, are the reasons: 1. Breaking down the task ahead is tough. No matter how thoroughly you try, and no matter how much you sit in front of Project thinking, you will ALWAYS mis-estimate the job ahead. Main reason for me personally is that I'm normally asked to project tasks for a deliverable I've not done before, from a codebase I'm not fully knowledgeable about. 2. It's hard to visualise the current state of the project. Even with encyclopaedic knowledge of the code (which is impossible these days) there are hidden corners of technical debt and malfunctions ...

After a couple of hours with F1 it's pretty much business as normal. After some very positive reviews I expected the new F1 to be better than previous ones, and it is. I also expected it to fall short in plenty of areas, and it does. I bought the PS3 version so I could use it with my G25, so different versions may have minor differences from this. First off, graphically it's a reasonably pretty game, but not as pretty as those preview videos make out. There's TONS of aliasing and the frame rate drops very often. It feels not quite finished. Physics are moderate, but with decent force feedback. I enjoy GRID and DIRT 2 more, which tells me half the problem is the F1 formula itself. You see, and read this bit twice... F1 cars are pretty crap to drive. Yes they are fast, but that doesn't mean they are fun. And fun is what I'm after. GT5 feels better, as does pretty much every 'proper' PC sim. Yet again the track feels like glass due to there being no proper surf...