Introduction to Windows 8 Game Dev

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TWITTER HASHTAG

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“...6 months ago, comScore reported that for the 3-month period ending in October 2011, 29.2% of mobile subscribers were playing games. A full year ago, only 26.8% of mobile subscribers were playing games on their devices, meaning that this year’s 33.1% represents 26% growth.” *Source: 1 in 3 Mobile Subscribers Playing Games on Devices June 6, 2012 http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/1-in-3-mobile-subscribers-playing-games-on-devices-22256/

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Customers are downloading games more than any other type of app and are willing to pay for them.

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This is a standard PC. It is usually a tower and a freestanding monitor, or an “all-in-one” computer. Typically these have powerful video cards, fast CPUs, lots of RAM, and a keyboard as the default input device.

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This is your standard laptop. Laptops usually have slower GPUs/CPUs, less RAM, and have a track pad plus a keyboard as the default input devices.

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Most if not all new Windows 8 laptops are coming out with touchscreens. These new ultra-thin, touch-enabled laptops will work great with Windows 8 out of the box. Plus, the extra touchscreen allows you to do basic touch testing for your game.

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This is a new category of ultra-portables that are tablets that can dock with a keyboard to become a laptop. They usually have very low-powered CPUs with built-in GPUs. These come in two flavors: Windows 8 and Windows RT, which I will talk about in the next section.

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These are similar to the convertibles but may not have any way to doc with a keyboard to become a “clamshell” form factor. The flagship of these types of devices would be Microsoft’s Surface.

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THERE ARE MANY GREAT FRAMEWORKS FOR

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Unity – most popular cross platform game development tool for 2D and 3D games

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XAML – develop games from scratch using Visual Studio and Blend

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MonoGame – cross platform implementation of the XNA 4.0 framework

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GameMaker - family of products that caters to entry-level developers and seasoned game development professionals to create cross platform games

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GameSalad – create cross platform games rapidly with no code

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Construct2 - cross platform game development for beginners

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CreateJS – suite of modular libraries and tools which work together to enable rich interactive content on open web technologies via HTML5

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ImpactJS - JavaScript Game Engine that allows you to develop stunning cross platform HTML5 Games

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Canvas – and of course you can develop your game from scratch using the Canvas element in HTML5.

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DirectX - DirectX development offers the greatest power to developers by combining programming logic, the DirectX API, and High Level Shading Language (HLSL) programs, together with audio and 3-D visual assets to present a rich, interactive multimedia experience

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Epic Games Unreal Engine 3 (UDK ) – a complete professional framework that provides tools for creating high-quality games and apps, movies and advanced 3D visualizations and simulations

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• CoCos2d-X is a game engine framework based on Cocos2d- iPhone, which consists of expanding supported platforms, with multiple choice of programming languages that share the same API structure. • Programmers can choose to use their preferred language to achieve their targeted platform Native branch written in C++

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ANSWER QUESTIONS ABOUT WINDOWS 8 DEVELOPMENT

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refers the to asset workflow you create for your project. This could be as simple as copying files over by hand into your game’s media folder or writing more complex automation scripts to generate the art for you.

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is a single bitmap image that is drawn to the display; in this case our Canvas Element. To help organize them better, sprites are grouped together into a single image called a sprite sheet.

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http://www.aseprite.org/

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is a large image containing a collection of sub-images, or "atlas" which contains many smaller sub-images. This is used primarily in 3d for textures but is very useful for 2d games as well.

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"filename": "radar-sprite.png", "rotated": false, "trimmed": true, "frame": {"x":0,"y":309,"w":104,"h":104}

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Atlases can consist of uniformly-sized sub-textures, or they can consist of textures of varying sizes (usually restricted to powers of two). *Illustration from http://www.grimrock.net/modding/creating-custom-assets/

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http://renderhjs.net/shoebox/

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• Create Texture Atlas with data file • Extract Sprites • Custom atlas data templates (can create xml, json, text, etc) • Create bitmap fonts • Cross platform • Works with Cocos2d, Unity3d, HTML5 and more.

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http://bit.ly/rr-artwork

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http://bit.ly/jetroid-sprites

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http://bit.ly/tc-sprites

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PLAY WITH ASEPRITE, SHOEBOX AND BFXR

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does not refer to the visual style of the game but the actual game play mechanics themselves.

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is key to capturing your idea down before actually coding.

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is a multi-page document that contains the general concept of a game, its core mechanics. At the very least it should give the reader a clear idea of how the game will look, work and feel.

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a term borrowed from the film industry and represents a “what if” scenario. When drafting a GDD I use a high concept to outline what the game is, its scenario and list any games that may already exist to draw inspiration from.

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games are very visual by nature; most people get bored out of their minds reading a 15-page or more design document with no indication of the artistic style you are envisioning for the game.

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Art by Iñaki Diaz @designatius

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Art by Iñaki Diaz @designatius

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cover how things work and how they will interact with each other. Go into as much detail as possible around actions such as how combat works, leveling up, stats, rewards, etc.

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include things like what properties a game actor may have such as life, weapon values and more. This will be incredibly helpful when you go into development as a point of reference.

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Art by Iñaki Diaz @designatius

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Art by Iñaki Diaz @designatius

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its always better to start big and scale down as needed. The last thing you want to do is limit your imagination or creativity.

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MOST IMPORTANT THING

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SAMLE GAME DESIGN DOCUMENT http://bit.ly/11MvGwr

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some game devs create elaborate sketches to work out their ideas while others simply use sticky notes. There is no right or wrong way to go about this as long as you find a good system for jotting down your ideas.

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http://bit.ly/QiZIAJ

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http://bit.ly/OSC8Mf

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http://bit.ly/RVmZLc

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http://bit.ly/OodKlT

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look back through the history of video games, you will see a natural evolution of one game picking up or modifying another game’s mechanics.

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http://bit.ly/TwTctj

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http://bit.ly/RfqBFj

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doing a small code example or trying to solve a development problem can really get your brain going and help you be way more creative when you sit down to finally code your own game.

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this goes hand in hand with the daily code warm up. I like to pick game systems or interesting mechanics then try to reproduce them or make them better.

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by Raph Koster. This is a great book that attempts to answer the question of “What is fun?” and more importantly “What is a game?” It’s an easy read with absolutely no code and all theory.

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by Scott Rogers. If you are interested in understanding the technical side of game design as in how to build a game design document, pitching games and more practice than theory then this is the book to read.

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by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman. The book is very high level and tries to approach the questions of game design from a very academic point of view.

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LET’S TALK ABOUT YOUR GAME IDEAS

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LET’S LOOK AT SOME

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Windows 8 SDK & Tools http://bit.ly/sdkwin8 Windows 8 Resources http://bit.ly/win8genapp Windows Phone 8 SDK & Tools http://bit.ly/wp8tools

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OPEN DISCUSSION

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Free workshops focused on Game Development here in NYC. These workshops are broken up into beginner and advanced level and will run each Saturday from 10-1pm (beginner) and then 2pm – 5pm (advanced).

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Don’t forget to visit jessefreeman.com for game and Windows 8 development.