Game Developer magazine is dedicated to covering the video games industry. It is mostly meant for developers, the “insiders”, as opposed to it being geared towards gamers. Its stories deal with trends in the industry, new technologies, dissection of game projects after their completion, and other such tidbits. Game Developer is also sort of the paper edition of Gamasutra.
I mentioned it briefly in a previous blog post, but you can get a free subscription to Game Developer magazine delivered to your door – as long as you qualify. You have to be employed in the interactive entertainment industry (in any capacity) to get the free subscription.
XOP Black is a cool little shmup (shoot ‘em up). It’s actually a sequel to 2002’s XOP. Christopher (based in Toronto), one the talents behind the game sent me a message to check it out. Even if you’re not a fan of these types of games, I suggest you give this one a try. It’s good.
(note: game plays and looks better than it may seem in the video)
XOP Black is a vertical scrolling shooter – think 1942, with R-Type style graphics. The game is simple to play, but can get intense. You control a spaceship while hordes of enemies rain down upon you. There’s no explanation needed; the aliens are baddies and are simply trying to kill you – you are on the way to destruction, make your time.
The game is for Windows and was written in C and Allegro. Created just for fun, the download is totally free!
Today for the first time ever it is Family Day in Ontario – and most people get the day off. I know that for some, this extra holiday means more gaming time.
Over the last week or so I’ve been researching private MMORPG servers. These are servers essentially run by fans, that host commercial MMO games such as World of Warcraft, Lineage 2, and Everquest – and possibly all other commercially available MMOs. The difference is that gamers can join these servers and play for free, with no monthly fees (minus the purchase of the original game discs).
From a legal standpoint, the people that run these servers say they are protected because all the network/server-side code that is used to run the games was programmed by them and was not copied or stolen from the game company. Therefore, since I don’t believe there is an EULA stating otherwise, gamers technically have the option of either joining a pay-for-play server, or a free server since they are the owners of the original game discs. I haven’t heard of any game companies trying to shut down these private servers on any mass scale, so I think they are fairly safe legally.
One of the pay-for-play MMOs I used to play is old school Everquest. Even when I first tried the game back in 2001 or so, the graphics weren’t the greatest. However it had great gameplay and good music and sound effects. A few years later I found out you could play the game for free using server emulator software. Back then, these emulators were essentially a work in progress. There were few MOBs that stood around and did nothing, no working quests, and a lot was broken. I even think one had to host their own session as opposed to logging into a remote host server. Now more than 5 years later, there are literally hundreds of MMO host servers that run games with working quests, working MOBs, lots of players, and even original content. They are just as good as the commercially run servers; and sometimes even better if you factor in having a good player community.
So I’ve been contemplating checking these private servers out. I have Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies in my collection to experiment with. I may even consider buying WoW (yes, shamefully I’ve never played it) and EQ 2 (saw it for $5 at FutureShop the other day) and see how they are. But for certain, whatever I end up playing – it’ll be hours and hours of never-ending fun.
Okay, call me ignorant but I had no idea that St.Catherines, Ontario based Silicon Knights was suing Epic over the Unreal 3 engine. The original news story can be found here.
Anyway, this first started in July of 2007, and it’s basically SK (who licensed the Unreal 3 engine from Epic) saying that Epic delivered a buggy product and was unwilling to properly support it; thus leading to delays in the development of SK’s upcoming game Too Human (currently scheduled for a May 6 release).
This got me thinking about how a relatively small company like SK (who have around 165 employees), could have the guts to sue a big company like Epic. Not to belittle SK, but I didn’t think they had the clout to be able to do something like that. If this all turns in SK’s favour, then perhaps they can get part or all of the reportedly $750,000 licensing fee that the Unreal 3 engine costs. The court case is still ongoing.
This also got me thinking about using game engines in general. There are basically two routes that can be taken: create your own game engine, or use someone else’s.
If nothing on the market exists for the type of game you want to make then you have to create your own. This however takes time and resources (ie programmers).
If you chose someone else’s engine, then you save yourself development time, but then there’s the cost of licensing – unless the engine is free (or at least very cheap).
Here are a few free (or cheap) 3D engines available:
Panda 3D, Irrlicht, Crystal Space 3D, and Power Render. Power Render is not free, but is a relatively cheap commercial grade 3D development engine. The company that makes it, Ergerter Software, is based out of London, ON.
Mini Cubes is an addictive little Flash game that you can play online at Spore Productions. You gain points by clicking on groups of same-coloured cubes, making them explode for points. The more cubes that explode, the more points you get. It’s one of those simple, yet addictive puzzle games that let’s you pass the time. During last summer there was a period when I played the game almost non-stop for 2 solid weeks. I started playing it again recently; quick fun during work hours.
Mini Cubes was developed by Spore Productions, a multimedia company out of Cambridge, Ontario. They have a nice site with many more flash games that you can play for free.
Posted by Sim@CanDevs 
Posted by Sim@CanDevs 
Posted by Sim@CanDevs 
