At 9/30/13 10:55 AM, Archawn wrote: So I've been using PHP, Python, and JavaScript a lot lately. Makes me wonder why people gave AS3 so much crap when these languages really deserve much more criticism.

Am I the only one that hates dynamic typing? It's abused by a lot of people and results in nearly unreadable code

Diki has given php the criticism that it deserves.

What do you mean by dynamic typing? Haxe does type inference or whatever it's called, but even then I like to specify the class (especially for code-completion reasons). If you mean var a is used as an int and then later it's a string, then yeah I hate that too.

I kinda hated json cuz xml looked nicer to me. But now, I love json very much. Not sure if that's what's making the cutscene engine code simpler or if it's just magic.

At 9/30/13 10:55 AM, Archawn wrote: So I've been using PHP, Python, and JavaScript a lot lately. Makes me wonder why people gave AS3 so much crap when these languages really deserve much more criticism.

Am I the only one that hates dynamic typing? It's abused by a lot of people and results in nearly unreadable code

I KNOW RIGHT

I really miss AS3. I've basically been coding in AS2 (Lua) for the past year on Joe. At least AS2 actually has OOP.

At 10/1/13 01:36 AM, 4urentertainment wrote: I really miss AS3. I've basically been coding in AS2 (Lua) for the past year on Joe. At least AS2 actually has OOP.

4urentertainment, could you, please, elaborate why do you think that AS2 actually has OOP in comparison to AS3, and why are you using AS2 (Lua) instead of AS3?

At 9/27/13 08:55 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote:

At 9/27/13 06:59 PM, Innermike wrote:

At 9/27/13 05:47 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: 1500$ which is fucking nothing when it comes to getting paid for months or even weeks of work

That's like what a month of work pays, not everyone has a Scrooge McDuck money pit at home.

its really not and if thats what you're charging for a months worth of work you're getting ripped off

I never really saw game jams as something professionals do, I think they're more aimed at up and comers. You know, students and the like

At 10/2/13 10:21 AM, kkots wrote:

At 10/1/13 01:36 AM, 4urentertainment wrote: I really miss AS3. I've basically been coding in AS2 (Lua) for the past year on Joe. At least AS2 actually has OOP.

4urentertainment, could you, please, elaborate why do you think that AS2 actually has OOP in comparison to AS3, and why are you using AS2 (Lua) instead of AS3?

He wasn't saying that. He said both AS2 and Lua are bad compared to AS3, and Lua is worse than AS2 because at least AS2 supports OOP natively, whereas Lua does not.

At 9/19/13 07:48 PM, Innermike wrote:

At 9/5/13 01:27 PM, Innermike wrote: Funny how the Reg Lounge just freezes like this for days at a time then we fill up a page in a few hours.

Feels appropriate to quote myself here, two weeks to get to the bottom of this page and I bet the next few will go by in a couple days.

Meanwhile, kicking it in shared accommodation, reading up on design patterns, agile programming and all sorts of other fancy employable things... and missing out on GTAV ;_; This may very well be the first time in my life I'm genuinely bored, the most fun thing I've got going is I started reading japanese kids manga now that I have a a decent amount of raw vocabulary and basic grammar skills, occasionally confusing and frustrating, but fun.

Catching up on the forum after vacation, so excuse the many posts in a row.

I still don't see why you think you're unemployable. I saw your portfolio and it was more than enough to get you a lot of different positions. It doesn't seem to be through lack of trying since I think you said you have applied to many companies and signed up with many recruiters.

Must be a confidence thing? Are you fucking up a lot of interviews or something?

At 10/2/13 10:29 AM, Rustygames wrote: I never really saw game jams as something professionals do, I think they're more aimed at up and comers. You know, students and the like

right when its just a game jam that's fine, but when its a competition instead and the rules state:

"4. EXCLUSIVITY PERIOD : Submitted Games will be exclusively playable on Skybound and All Out War Game Jam partner websites for 2 months (60 calendar days) from launch."

"please do not name the game “All Out War” or “The Walking Dead” or have those phrases in your game name."

and other odd rules, its not really a game jam, its a way for them to basically get free labor from students who don't know better and that's pretty wrong IMO.

At 10/2/13 10:29 AM, Rustygames wrote: I never really saw game jams as something professionals do, I think they're more aimed at up and comers. You know, students and the like

I do game jams all the time and I am a "professional". What does that even mean anyways ? Such a BS term that just means somebody is willing to pay you a bunch of money to write code. It's a very loaded term and I don't take it very seriously. Game jams are tons of fun. I hope I continue to do them until I die. :)

At 10/2/13 10:21 AM, kkots wrote:

At 10/1/13 01:36 AM, 4urentertainment wrote: I really miss AS3. I've basically been coding in AS2 (Lua) for the past year on Joe. At least AS2 actually has OOP.

4urentertainment, could you, please, elaborate why do you think that AS2 actually has OOP in comparison to AS3, and why are you using AS2 (Lua) instead of AS3?

Because he has written his own engine in C++ for Concerned Joe and is using LUA as a scripting language for his game which is common, and is also a smart thing to do.

At 10/2/13 10:00 PM, PrettyMuchBryce wrote: Because he has written his own engine in C++ for Concerned Joe and is using LUA as a scripting language for his game which is common, and is also a smart thing to do.

Did he? I was under the assumption he was using LÖVE. If not then even more props to him.

At 10/2/13 10:32 AM, Rustygames wrote: He wasn't saying that. He said both AS2 and Lua are bad compared to AS3, and Lua is worse than AS2 because at least AS2 supports OOP natively, whereas Lua does not.

Yes, that's what I meant!

At 10/3/13 03:24 AM, Sam wrote:

At 10/2/13 10:00 PM, PrettyMuchBryce wrote: Because he has written his own engine in C++ for Concerned Joe and is using LUA as a scripting language for his game which is common, and is also a smart thing to do.

Did he? I was under the assumption he was using LÖVE. If not then even more props to him.

I was trying to write an engine in C++ to basically be a wrapper for Box2d, SDL and OpenGL, but then realized I was just reinventing the wheel and should find a framework and ended up finding love!

At 10/3/13 04:51 AM, 4urentertainment wrote: I was trying to write an engine in C++ to basically be a wrapper for Box2d, SDL and OpenGL, but then realized I was just reinventing the wheel and should find a framework and ended up finding love!

I couldn't resist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhrBDcQq2DM

At 10/2/13 04:55 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote:

At 10/2/13 10:29 AM, Rustygames wrote: I never really saw game jams as something professionals do, I think they're more aimed at up and comers. You know, students and the like

right when its just a game jam that's fine, but when its a competition instead and the rules state:

"4. EXCLUSIVITY PERIOD : Submitted Games will be exclusively playable on Skybound and All Out War Game Jam partner websites for 2 months (60 calendar days) from launch."

"please do not name the game “All Out War” or “The Walking Dead” or have those phrases in your game name."

and other odd rules, its not really a game jam, its a way for them to basically get free labor from students who don't know better and that's pretty wrong IMO.

Point well made, the exclusivity is a joke. It's a trade for the prizes though, some people might love those prizes enough to sacrifice a few freedoms.

At 10/2/13 09:51 PM, PrettyMuchBryce wrote:

At 10/2/13 10:29 AM, Rustygames wrote: I never really saw game jams as something professionals do, I think they're more aimed at up and comers. You know, students and the like

I do game jams all the time and I am a "professional". What does that even mean anyways ? Such a BS term that just means somebody is willing to pay you a bunch of money to write code. It's a very loaded term and I don't take it very seriously. Game jams are tons of fun. I hope I continue to do them until I die. :)

Yup sorry what I meant was, people don't do them professionally, as in, you aren't looking to make money and a living out of it, it isn't work, it's a hobby, you're not in it for the money.

At 10/4/13 01:42 AM, Zachary wrote: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTQ3NjY

D

That's awesome. It's also nice to see that people haven't given up on the Flash/SWF platform.

There's a student org here at UM for people interested in game development, and I ran into someone yesterday who said something along the lines of "I hate Flash, I hope HTML5 kills it out" with no real reason other than "I just hate it, okay, it's buggy and it never works, ever". Interesting how someone could be so closed-minded about technology that allows people to create awesome web content, among other things.

Kinda makes me think about all the crap I give GameMaker, when really it serves a similar purpose. I guess all it takes to open your mind is someone whose mind is closed to things you're passionate about.

I'm still not a fan of HTML5/JS development. JavaScript is a pain to work with, and as I think I've expressed here before, takes me back to the not-so-good ol' AS2 days. Game dev is hard (not impossible) without proper OOP

At 10/4/13 09:27 AM, Archawn wrote: There's a student org here at UM for people interested in game development, and I ran into someone yesterday who said something along the lines of "I hate Flash, I hope HTML5 kills it out" with no real reason other than "I just hate it, okay, it's buggy and it never works, ever". Interesting how someone could be so closed-minded about technology that allows people to create awesome web content, among other things.

Yeah I've noticed that too. Air and openfl are great, but no one ever mentions them. I think it was day9's post about making an html5 game with artillery where every comment was like "flash is dead, long live html5." I don't get why there's so much hate, that game is html5 for a reason, not because flash is dead.

If I could find a gamedev club on campus, that might be great. I tried joining a robotics club, but none of the people I emailed ever responded... I want to join something interesting, but fuck if students and profs aren't responsible enough to check and respond to their emails.

Yay, i'm 21 today. lol

All that aside, I got a new $150 studio microphone. It's amazing :o
https://soundcloud.com/egg82/test-edited
(noise reduction because I haven't quite figured out the built-in stuff yet)

At 10/4/13 04:58 PM, egg82 wrote: Yay, i'm 21 today. lol

New study in progress: does egg code while he's legally wasted? Let's find out.

At 10/3/13 03:57 PM, Rustygames wrote: Yup sorry what I meant was, people don't do them professionally, as in, you aren't looking to make money and a living out of it, it isn't work, it's a hobby, you're not in it for the money.

Ah yeah. I agree. My bad. I think misunderstood what you were saying before.

I think it's funny too about how some people say Flash is dead long live HTML5 yada yada. It's just easy for people to latch onto. Personally I think there is a big place for HTML5 games on the web. I still think there is a place for flash, though. Definitely not for websites anymore, but for games -- sure. Actually right now we still aren't in a world where HTML5 has penetrated all of the market yet. If you were to build a game today for the web only, and you wanted to target the most people possible in the door, and have a rich experience, flash is still your best option. Obviously won't stay that way forever, though.

Anyways - wars have been fought over this. Some people feel more strongly about it than others. Personally I think, a technology is just a technology. If you sucked at making games in flash you will probably still suck in HTML5. The product itself is the most important thing and if you make something really good then people will find a way to play it.

Has anyone here actually built an HTML5 game?

Everything works just fine for me in HTML5, but the only thing that really makes it unattractive to me is the face mobiles get it soooo wrong. The main problem of course being that I can't full screen display my games on mobile. It's such a massive pain in the arse to get the game fitting to the window on all devices/ browsers regardless of orientation and user zoom/drag events.

If anyone knows what I'm talking about on screen sizes please let me know I'm not alone in this pain...

At 10/5/13 01:18 PM, Rustygames wrote: If anyone knows what I'm talking about on screen sizes please let me know I'm not alone in this pain...

You are not the only one.... If only they made every mobile screen the same size! And then you got tablets, etc. And its hard to say, well if you have this screen size, well then screw you, but even harder to make it possible for all screen sizes.

At 10/5/13 02:20 PM, swishcheese wrote:

At 10/5/13 01:18 PM, Rustygames wrote: If anyone knows what I'm talking about on screen sizes please let me know I'm not alone in this pain...

You are not the only one.... If only they made every mobile screen the same size! And then you got tablets, etc. And its hard to say, well if you have this screen size, well then screw you, but even harder to make it possible for all screen sizes.

Well the varying sizes I can deal with, but I literally can't get the game to just full screen. Try it, make a canvas which is just a red square, and try and make that fit full screen on every device/browser (just try a couple, like chrome and stock on android and safari on iOS6 and 7).

On chrome it can work pretty well, but on stock browser user zoom is allowed even when you use the viewport meta data to disable it. Orientation also has crazy effects on that fake "zoom" level. You can't even detect the fake zoom level either so you're fucked basically.

iOS6 safari works okay in full screen mode if you do some tricks, but in iOS7 it's been removed and the address bar at the top and bottom are always visible making your screen size tiny.

Basically it's just a massive headache, loads of work arounds and hacks, to make a game fit on the screen on different devices. I hate it

At 10/5/13 03:04 PM, Rustygames wrote: Basically it's just a massive headache, loads of work arounds and hacks, to make a game fit on the screen on different devices. I hate it

With openfl, you can listen for Event.RESIZE. Along with stageW/H and Capabilities.screenResolutionX/Y, you should be able to resize to any device.

At 10/5/13 03:10 PM, MSGhero wrote:

At 10/5/13 03:04 PM, Rustygames wrote: Basically it's just a massive headache, loads of work arounds and hacks, to make a game fit on the screen on different devices. I hate it

With openfl, you can listen for Event.RESIZE. Along with stageW/H and Capabilities.screenResolutionX/Y, you should be able to resize to any device.

Have you tried it?

Resize events haven't been enough, the virtual browser zoom is the main problem and there is no event for it.

I'll look into OpenFL to double check though, anything is worth a try at this point

At 10/5/13 09:15 PM, Rustygames wrote:

At 10/5/13 03:10 PM, MSGhero wrote:

At 10/5/13 03:04 PM, Rustygames wrote: Basically it's just a massive headache, loads of work arounds and hacks, to make a game fit on the screen on different devices. I hate it

With openfl, you can listen for Event.RESIZE. Along with stageW/H and Capabilities.screenResolutionX/Y, you should be able to resize to any device.

Have you tried it?

Resize events haven't been enough, the virtual browser zoom is the main problem and there is no event for it.

I'll look into OpenFL to double check though, anything is worth a try at this point

Also although this is my worst gripe, there are still a lot more issues which are caused by:
different browsers
different browser versions
different OS'
different OS versions
device (Samsung S3 and S4 have different quirks even on the same browser and OS for example)

Being at the mercy of all these variables makes it a nightmare to build anything. Additionally every time a new phone/os/browser comes out you have to update your entire back catalog of games. iOS7 for example has caused a huge stir (here)

None of this was an issue with the Flash plugin (except the odd bug with a new player) because it was governed by a single organisation and you could have confidence developing it once would work in all browsers.

I have to build HTML5 content for commercial reasons which I won't bore you with, but the sooner I can get back to doing Flash for web and Air for Android/iOS the better!

At 10/5/13 09:15 PM, Rustygames wrote: Have you tried it?

Nah, I've only been using swf export. The game would be kinda hard to use on mobile (wouldn't be able to hold the device and play), and we were never planning to do anything else with it besides swf.

Juggernaut 2:

Progress: really good, way faster than before
Reusability: I can copy pasta everything and just replace assets and cutscene data
File size so far: 3.16 MB
Audio so far: 155MB

...anyone know any good speech compression formats?

At 10/6/13 04:03 PM, MSGhero wrote: Juggernaut 2:

Progress: really good, way faster than before
Reusability: I can copy pasta everything and just replace assets and cutscene data
File size so far: 3.16 MB
Audio so far: 155MB

...anyone know any good speech compression formats?

Copy and paste what exactly?

The first one was very short, it was like a demo/teaser to me (unless I missed a big chunk of it which is possible!)

Since we're doing game updates:

I got saving and loading more or less finished on mine. I was pleasantly surprised to see I'd already done the DB schema and back end processing code when I went to finish the front end after a month long hiatus.

Next is converting a multi-player only Java back end into a single player mode. Going to just have an AI which takes control of any would-be user interactions making some basic decision making. Sounds easier than it is methinks ;).

Good news is it won't involve any front end work so I don't have to look at that slightly messy, year old AS3 which I naively thought would be architecturally robust enough to endure the weight of what it's supposed to accomplish.

At 10/7/13 12:43 PM, Rustygames wrote: Copy and paste what exactly?

The entirety of the source code. I'm in the process of rewriting the entire engine to be more robust and less shitty. The next one in the series will (hopefully) be a re-skinned version of this game with the necessary changes.

The first one was very short, it was like a demo/teaser to me (unless I missed a big chunk of it which is possible!)

I think you missed some stuff. I don't remember exactly, but I added beta testers well before it was done.

Since we're doing game updates:

I got saving and loading more or less finished on mine. I was pleasantly surprised to see I'd already done the DB schema and back end processing code when I went to finish the front end after a month long hiatus.

What game is this exactly? Was it that card game, or was that someone else's?

At 10/7/13 01:45 PM, MSGhero wrote:

At 10/7/13 12:43 PM, Rustygames wrote: Copy and paste what exactly?

The entirety of the source code. I'm in the process of rewriting the entire engine to be more robust and less shitty. The next one in the series will (hopefully) be a re-skinned version of this game with the necessary changes.

The first one was very short, it was like a demo/teaser to me (unless I missed a big chunk of it which is possible!)

I think you missed some stuff. I don't remember exactly, but I added beta testers well before it was done.

Ahhh okay. Yeah it was the beta I played. I will have to give that a play now it's out!

Since we're doing game updates:

I got saving and loading more or less finished on mine. I was pleasantly surprised to see I'd already done the DB schema and back end processing code when I went to finish the front end after a month long hiatus.

What game is this exactly? Was it that card game, or was that someone else's?

Yeah it's the card game :)
By saving and loading I should have said it's a deck builder which allows you to make a deck, save it into a slot (6 slots for different decks), and then load it for later.

It checks on the server to make sure you've built a valid deck out of cards that you actually own (to stop those naughty little front end hackers) and saves it to the db linked to your user account. User login (and everything else!) is all server side so there is no opportunity for any funny business.