Game Programming
Although I hate computer programming, I still get the urge now and again to do some game programming. I have some experience at it; I worked as a programmer on SWAT 3: Elite Edition and on other titles at Sierra. Since I'm not very motivated, I don't expect that I'll ever actually produce anything, but I thought it might be interesting to write some articles about the process and about some of the things that I actually know about.
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There are basically three kinds of games that I fantasize about writing. In order of increasing complexity, I'd like to do: a solitaire game; a puzzle game something like The Fool's Errand; and a content-heavy, complex role-playing game like Morrowind or Neverwinter Nights. Obviously, these three games have pretty different needs and requirements, and will take differing amounts of work that I'll never get around to doing. But they have some things in common, and I think it'll be reasonable to write some core libraries that support all three. So here's some documents about pieces that I know I'll need:
| Overview | What do I really plan to do? How am I going to go about it? What do I expect to accomplish? Why should you care? |
| The File Manager | All games load files. A game might have hundreds or thousands of data files -- 3D models, textures, scripts, audio files, and so on. This is the module that keeps track of all the game's data files. |
| The Resource Manager | The resource manager is the piece of code that keeps track of what resources are loaded at any given time and making sure that any given resource is only loaded once. |
| Scripting | Scripting systems are a cheap and easy way to implement complex behavior; they're also a great way to let your users mod your game. Note, this is an old doc that I haven't looked at in a while. |
| Profiling | Coming "soon". |
| A Menu System | Coming "soon". |
| App State Management | Coming "soon". |
Game links:
