Doolwind's Game Coding Blog

I spent last week at GDC and 1.5 days of that in Game Connection. I was taking prototypes Bane Games’ next games to show publishers to see if we could get a funding or publishing deal for them. Today’s article is my thoughts about Game Connection and whether other Indie’s should go next year.

(more…)

The SOLID principles are a set of 5 software development principles coined by “Uncle Bob” (Robert C. Martin).  They are a set of guidelines for Object Oriented Design (OOD), specifically for class design.  They are widely used by agile business programmers however they are generally unknown amongst game developers.  This article describes the principles and frames them in common game development situations.

(more…)

Since the release of Flick Buddies, I’ve been prototyping game ideas for our next game. The best of these prototypes we’re taking to GDC to show publishers. Today I’m sharing my list of tips for creating prototypes.

(more…)

Do you find it hard to stay motivated when working from home? After my last post I received a lot of comments from people stating that the biggest challenge they face is staying motivated. Today I discuss the ways I keep myself motivated while working full-time from home.

(more…)

Now that I’m officially a full-time indie game developer, for the first time in my life I am working from home full-time on games. Many of my game developer friends have also started working full-time from home in the past few months, partly because of all the game studios shutting down in our city recently. Working from home has its own set of unique challenges that aren’t initially obvious. Today’s entry is a list of tips I use to be as productive as I can while striking a good work-life balance.

(more…)

Many people know I think Company of Heroes is the greatest RTS of all time. Today I found out that Company of Heroes Online (CoHO), the free to play spin-off from the CoH series is shutting down.  This made me irrationally sad, considering it’s “just a computer game”. I’ve been playing CoHO for at least an hour per day for the past few months and loving it. The main differences between CoH and CoHO are in the MMO style commander that you level up over time to receive new abilities you can use in battle. There is a lot of misinformation around on the internet and after my last successful “Facts, Verdict, Solution”, I thought I’d do one for Company of Heroes Online:

(more…)

I hear a lot of game developers refusing to use Unity for web games because of penetration. David Edery made a point of discussing this during his keynote at GCAP last year. Today I’ve decided to formulate my thoughts on why I disagree with this argument and why I think you should be using Unity.

(more…)

We’ve just finished our first iPhone/iPad game with Unity 3, Flick Buddies.  This post is a review of our experiences with Unity including its pros and cons.  The review is slightly slanted toward iOS development however I touch on stand-alone and web-player builds as we created these versions in parallel.

(more…)

Flick Buddies has just been released around the world for iPad and iPhone.  You can grab it from the App Store below:

(more…)

For the past three months I’ve been secretly working on a new project, Flick Buddies. Along with Shauno from Squid Tank we’ve been busily putting together a multiplayer action game for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. The game is built around a simple premise of flicking little characters from your corner into the goal. With lots of obstacles to dodge and special abilities to help you score while stopping your opponents from scoring. Flick Buddies supports up to 4 players on a single iPad or iPhone/iPod Touch.

(more…)