Lord British Wants *You* to Port His RPG…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 17, 2014

This looks like fun for programmers around here… Before there was Ultima, before there was even Akalabeth: World of Doom, there was…. DnD1. On a PDP 11 mini-computer. There’s a one-month contest going on at Richard Garriott’s Portalarium – a contest to port his first computer RPG to Unity and to the browser. This is […]

Filed Under: Programming - Comments: Read the First Comment

Game Development: Tool Add-Ons and Keeping Up-To-Date

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 12, 2014

This isn’t really an update on Frayed Knights 2 status. I’m overdue to give you one, I know.  This is more of a general-purpose post about game development, but of course my point of reference is Frayed Knights 2. It naturally looms large in my mind and consumes a good deal of my focus. One […]

Filed Under: Game Development, Programming - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

The Joys of Crappy AI, and the Importance of Obviousness

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 9, 2013

Read most articles about game AI, and you’ll see a call for improvement. “Why can’t we have better AI?” As it turns out – and this is an open secret in the game dev community – players often don’t like it. That’s why. A recent article, Artificial Intelligence?, on MMORPG.com, discusses one failed attempt to […]

Filed Under: Design, Programming - Comments: 7 Comments to Read

The Era of Flash Comes to an End?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 25, 2013

When things end with a whimper, they aren’t exactly newsworthy.  I mean, when there’s an official sunset – some kind of milestone / gravestone where people can officially recognize its passing – by that point it has been practically dead and forgotten and only barely considered news. And bold proclamations of its upcoming demise when […]

Filed Under: Biz, Programming - Comments: 8 Comments to Read

Programming: Algorithms, Deltas, and Exceptions

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 18, 2012

Sometimes I am a little slow, and need to be taught a lesson a number of times. My very first day on my first game development job, I was confronted with the design document for the game that would one day be Twisted Metal (actually, I was introduced to both that doc and the Warhawk […]

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A Couple of 2D Game-Making Options

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 8, 2012

As most folks reading this are well aware, 2D games have made a resurgence, and it’s not restricted to indies. Nor are indies restricted to 2D. But modern technology has really blown the doors off the potential of 2D games from the bad ol’ days where developers had to hand-roll assembly code routines for sprite […]

Filed Under: Programming - Comments: 14 Comments to Read

Advancing the Role of Role-Playing – An Example Project

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 13, 2012

My big rant yesterday about improving the “role-playing” experience in computer & console RPGs seemed to strike a nerve, based on comments received on the blog, in twitter, and in emails. The gist of it was probably summed up by Justin Keverne on Twitter: “The designer in me looks at that and nods, the programmer […]

Filed Under: Design, Programming - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

Programming, Gear-Shifting, and The Zone

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 9, 2012

One of the things I need to get better at as an indie is shifting gears. Or, more correctly, task-switching. As an indie, I don’t have the luxury of specialization, or concentrating on any one task for too long. I have to be agile. I have to wear lots of hats. It gets very, very […]

Filed Under: Production, Programming - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

Six Ways to Avoid “Development Paralysis”

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 22, 2012

There’s a term called “Analysis Paralysis” where the final decision is long-delayed while an analysis and deliberation of options goes far beyond a reasonable amount of time. While there’s a lot of discussion about it, what it really comes down to is fear – fear of making the wrong decision. By putting off a decision, […]

Filed Under: Game Development, Programming - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

Using Genetic Algorithms In Games

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 18, 2012

Because my upcoming post on my experiences developing Jet Moto is getting kinda long, I thought I’d break out this story for your entertainment. Programmers will especially get a kick out of it. An interesting aspect of the development of Jet Moto was that we did not do anything like the traditional racing game approach. […]

Filed Under: Design, Game Development, Programming - Comments: 6 Comments to Read

Unity C# Question

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 6, 2012

Maybe someone here who is more familiar with Unity and/or C# can give me a hand here. Using the Monodevelop IDE, I had the following code (somewhat modified here)… public class RoomGeo : MonoBehaviour { public string[] wallResources= {“wall1a”,”wall2a”,”wall4a”}; void CreateWallVisual(int index) { int val = m_RoomTemplates[0].walls[index].wallID; string strname = “Tiles/”+wallResources2[val]; } } Okay, all […]

Filed Under: Programming - Comments: 8 Comments to Read

RIP Dennis Ritchie

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 13, 2011

Dennis Ritchie, 1941 – 2011 Creator of the “C” programming language, by far the most influential programming language of all time. Also a key developer of the Unix operating system. If you have ever used Java, C#, Javascript, PHP, C++, TorqueScript, or one of a slew of other programming and “scripting” languages, Ritchie was a […]

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Thief’s 3D Rendering

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 11, 2011

This one’s for the programmers.  I got a kick out of it, I expect a few others will, but it probably won’t be too exciting for most readers. My apologies. Sean Barrett has written up a high-to-medium-level explanation of the software 3D rendering he did for Looking Glass’s Thief: The Dark Project. He mentions previous […]

Filed Under: Programming - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

Ultima VI Technical Documents Online

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 10, 2011

Here is some of the internal documentation used for the development of Ultima VI… Ultima VI Technical Documents at Ultima Aiera These pages include details on the conversation scripting and the data format for the world editor. If you are the kind of person who likes to get “under the hood” of favorite games, these […]

Filed Under: Programming, Retro - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

Tips For Part-Time Indies

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 17, 2011

So here’s an article for those who want to make games as indies, but are somewhat addicted to things like eating and can’t yet quit the day job: “Indie and a Day Job: Making It Work” at Gamasutra He’s got some great suggestions here, to which I’d like to add a few of my own: […]

Filed Under: Game Development, Programming - Comments: 12 Comments to Read

My First Dungeon That I Wroted All By Myself

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 20, 2011

Dunno why my brain was going there, but for some reason I was thinking of the first(ish) RPG I ever wrote. No, it wasn’t Hackenslash. I don’t remember if it even had a name. It was a game for the Commodore 64 that I wrote (in BASIC!) when I was a kid. For sure, it […]

Filed Under: Programming, Retro - Comments: 10 Comments to Read



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