Organization of a game

My game is getting more complicated and I am trying to organize everything well so I can update it and add to it later and still use good programming practices. Right now I have a GameCore class that contains several protected instances of different manager classes (classes that manage certain components of the game like all of the projectiles, ships, etc). Each of the managers has a reference back to the GameCore, therefore being able to access everything it needs to. I am running into some problems though like a class in my game needs to access another class that it doesn't/shouldn't have access to. Is this design ok, or do you have any better suggestions? Thanks.

mj_cge:
You made a good point. I came up with a new design idea, kind of like the listeners you were talking about. I will have the CollisionManager detect all of the collisions that are present at the current point in time. CollisionManager will have a public method getCollision() that returns the next collision, or null if there is none. The GameCore can then call this method and decide on what action to take. The Collision (not CollisionManager) class will contain the two sprites that collided for referencing.
luisoft:
Yes my code is based on that (at least some of it). BTW, I really like that book. It has helped a lot. Have you read it?

Similar Messages

Backing Up And Restoring iTunes

To my dismay I have to completely reinstall my operating system, which happens to be OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.4. I need to back-up iTunes to my external hard drive and then put it back the way it was after the OS install. Can someone please walk me through the process? Keep in mind I need to retain my playlists, tags, and artwork. Also I should mention that my iTunes Library is already on the external drive. Thanks so much for any assistance.

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/the-complete-guide-to-backing -up-your-itunes-library/
"Backing up the iTunes Library Database
With the above in mind, the simplest solution for backing up the iTunes library database is to simply back up the “iTunes” folder and everything in it. This will include not only the iTunes database itself, but also any Click Wheel iPod Games, iPhone and iPod touch applications, and downloaded and cached album artwork.
Note that if you’re using iTunes 9 and have updated to the new iTunes 9 Media organization, your iPod Games and Mobile Applications will be stored in your iTunes Media folder instead. See Transferring your iTunes Library for more information on this and converting to the new iTunes 9 format.
This will ensure you have a backup of your iTunes library database and related files, but whether or not it includes your media content will depend on how and where you have chosen to store it…"
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive

HT1414 I am restoring a new iPad, using iCloud, with all my old iPads info, it is taking forever, all day and I'm still only an 8th of the way there. Is there any way to speed up all the game down loads or is there a way to re-organize my game icons manu

I am restoring a new iPad, iCloud, with my old iPads info, it has been downloading all day and it's only 2pages in on my game apps out of about 10 pages. Is there a way to speed this process, or is there a way to move my icons so that the games I want are at the beginning of the line as opposed to at the end because their name is alphabetically last

There is no way that I know of to speed up the download. Restoring from an iCloud backup will take as long as it takes in order to download all of your iPads contents. You commited to iCloud and now you have to wait until everything finishes downloading.
This relies on your WiFi connection speed, so unless you can speed that up, you just have to wait.

Can I move an iTunes library from Comp1 to Comp2 through Home Sharing? What happens with the first sync? What happens to 3rd party app data (specifically, game scores/levels)?

I need to move an iTunes library from Computer 1 to Computer 2. Can I do this through Home Sharing, by dragging and dropping library items from one to the other? The library consists of iTunes purchases, home shared items and music/movies from our personal collection. Both computers have had all the accounts authorized, so I don't anticipate an issue there. I'd like to do this so that my son's ipod is impacted as little as possible -- specifically, his game scores/levels and other 3rd party data remain intact after the 1st sync and the organization of his icons remain intact.
Is there a way to do this smoothly and easily, protecting his ipod data/organization?

Sorry, I obviously wasn't clear. If you replicate the library from Computer 1 to Computer 2 by copying it, then all will be well. I routinely sync my iPhone and iPad both at home and at work using a single library that I migrate between the two locations via an external drive which is kept up do date using SyncToy.
Backup the iPod touch on Computer 1.
Copy the entire iTunes folder from Computer 1 to Computer 2, replacing any existing iTunes folder on Computer 2.
Check that content is accessible in the migrated library. (Won't be a problem for a standard iTunes library where all the content is inside the iTunes Media folder which in turn is inside your iTunes folder).
Connect iPod touch to Computer 2.
Sync.
In the unlikely event that something goes wrong (it won't) then you can connect the device back to Computer 1 to restore it.
Note device backups are not stored within the iTunes library and stay on the machine on which they were created. It is theorectically possible to migrate them but there isn't really any point. Once you have synced the iPod with the copy of the library on Computer 2 then Computer 2 will make its own backup of the device.
tt2

MediaSource 5 Organizer cr

Hello. I'm having a problem with MediaSource 5.0.38 Organizer.
MS5 Player opens and runs just fine, except when I try to open OGGs. I haven't tested this too much, but when I tried to open a Wiktionary pronunciation OGG (the one for "hat" specifically, chosen at random), the player started up, started asking about file type associations, said "hat", and then promptly crashed. I didn't check the error specs for that, because it only happened once. I tried opening an MP3 from another website and it played fine without crashing.
Organizer, on the other hand, starts up (regardless of whether it's through the Start Menu, opening an Internet file through Firefox, etc.), displays the Sources and Now Playing fields (the latter usually contains another Wiktionary OGG for "assuage" which I played before the crashes started), starts the file type association bit, and promptly crashes with a Windows XP "program has encountered an error and needs to close"-type error with these specs:
AppName: ctcmsu.exe
AppVer: 5.2.3.0
ModName: ctpcmlu.ecd
Modver:5.2.4.0
Offset: 000e5bc
Sometimes, the crash is so nasty that it also causes Dr. Watson Postmortem Debugger to crash. This doesn't seem to happen every time, but it happens enough. After the crash, Organizer remains open but frozen until I right-click it on the Taskbar and select close, at which point I am informed that it's not responding and have to click End Task before it closes.
I've updated my sound driver, thought I uninstalled all Creative software (apparently not since "assuage" was still in Now Playing, so I don't know what I missed) and reinstalled, and it still crashes.
After the Player crashed with "hat" I figured I'd try a different file-type. I opened an MP3 from the Internet with Player, and as I said it worked fine. Then I switched to Organizer view and it crashed in the same spot.
Is this something to do with my Library? Other threads lead me to believe it could be, but I don't know how to edit my library besides through Organizer.
I'm using a NOMAD Jukebox Zen Xtra, and have the appropriate driver (ZEN and NOMAD Jukebox Plugin 5.00.22 for Creative MediaSource 5 Player & Organizer) from Creative.com installed. It crashes regardless of whether the player is plugged in. I'm on Windows XP SP2.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

The same bug!
Yesterday I've uninstalled all Creative software with registry cleaning and complete file deleting to solve this problem.
I've installed latest version of drivers. MS5 (only skins and player was selected). Than NEO 6 + from original disk THX Console and Ent/Game/Audio consoles.
Organizer successfully imported my entire collection with mp3's and ogg's. Organizer worked fine for 5 hours and than crashed with error Offset: 000e5bc in ModName: ctpcmlu.ecd.
Now Organizer plays music, generates and plays Smart Playlist, but every attempt to access PC Music Library by clicking on it in the tree leads to error with Offset: 000e5bc in ModName: ctpcmlu.ecd.
I've manually deleted PC Music Library files in Doc_Set_User. No use. Crash during entire collection import. Even tried it with only one MP3 file. Successfully imported, but Organizer crashes every time when I click PC Music Library. So I think I need reinstall all Creative software once again.
Is there any solution?

How to create a game. Basic steps.

So, just browsing through these forums, I see many posts by prospective game designers wanting to get started. But many of these questions are so ill-researched or off basis that most people don't even know how to respond.
So here's a quickie guide on how to get started learning to make a game. Notice I didn't say making a game. First you learn, then you make, or else you'll just get frustrated and quit.
Here's the basic steps:
1) You need to learn Java. Seriously, don't even think about writing a game if you don't want to. Get a book. My favorite was one by Ivor Horton. But really, any will do.
If Java is your first programming language, it is important for you to read through the book carefully and do the excercises. This is for you learn what a "programming language" actually is.
All a computer can do is add numbers. A computer itself knows nothing about Mario or how to make Mario jump. So YOU have to figure out, just what does Mario have to do with numbers.
2) Write a simple game, without animation in it.
My first game was Minesweeper. Other examples include Solitaire, or Poker, etc...
This teaches you how to organize a "large" program. Organization is important. If you don't organize, you'll begin writing a game, and eventually get stuck because your code is unreadable, and your bugs will be impossible to trace down. You'll be frustrated and quit.
3) Learn the concepts behind animation and a 2D game.
I see questions like: "I want to make a game, and I drew Mario. Now how to I make him move?". This is for you people.
Animation is drawing a bunch of images in rapid succession. And a game, basically is a logic system that decides which animations to play at any given time.
4) Write a 2D game.
Now, you are ready to attempt an actual game. I started small and wrote a tetris-esque puzzler as my first game with animation. I suggest you do the same, but if you feel ready you can probably jump into a major project now.
5) Learn about 3D.
For those aiming high, you can get started learning the concepts behind 3D now. I suggest you know at least a basic knowledge of trigonometry. This means know your sin, cos, and tan inside out, or else you'll up for a lot of work.
3D is not like 2D. There are quite a few concepts that you will need to learn, and they're not immediately intuitive. Those who have a stronger math background will progress faster. Those who have a weaker background will find it more difficult. But you'll learn a lot along the way. Nothing teaches trig faster than writing a 3D engine.
6) Write a 3D engine.
You're entering the hardcore right about now. Few people on this forum will have experience with this and you'll need to do a lot of thinking. Mainly, just because, there's not many people left to ask.
Some of you will have some ideas on writing this engine. In this case, I recommend you go ahead and try. You might not succeed, but trying will teach you more than anything else.
Those that don't quite have it down yet, or those that tried and didn't quite succeed can follow along with a book that takes you through this step. The book that I used was "Java game programming". It has a very in-depth section on 3D.
7) Make your engine fast.
This step is probably the hardest of all. If you completed step 6, you'll notice that writing a 3D engine, and writing a fast 3D engine is two almost completely different things.
Here's when you'll research into various computer science algorithms and techniques in order to speed up your engine. Actually, this is when you'll probably learn the concept of "algorithm".
This is research! You'll find almost no help at forums for this step. Nothing but hard work.
I can't comment on more than that, as that's as far as I've gotten so far. But that's the basic roadmap.
Good luck on your games.
-Cuppo

Okay I am going to add a few points since they have come up recently.
With relation to what you should know with Java.
Beyond the basics you should get a good grounding in the following
- threading
- networking in Java (if applicable)
Threading
For threading you can use the concurrency tutorial found here http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/essential/concurrency/index.html
Threading is really a must. No kidding. Because you will be unable to do anything performance wise without it. Additionally you can't normally take a non-threaded application and slap threading on it. You need to have a design that incorporates being threaded.
You also don't want to come up with a design to find out later that it's wrong. Don't be afraid to ask questions about your design in general and as how it relates to threading.
Making a good multi-threaded application is actually not all that difficult, once you understand it. But this is the thing that seems to trip up alot of people. I see an awful lot of bad threading code in the Java Programming forum. Tip: If you are using Thread Priorities you are doing something wrong!
Networking
The Java networking tutorial may be found here http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/networking/index.html
This is a basic tutorial though so don't assume you know everything there is to know once you have finished it. If you are serious about your development then I HIGHLY recommend the following book
http://books.google.com/books?id=l6f1jTB_XCYC&dq=Fundamental+Networking+in+Java&psp=1
As a bonus the author is a long-time member on these forums and a regular in the Networking forums.
Networking your program, especially depending on how you will use it is important to design into your game from the get-go. If you are planning to make a multi-player online game you need to know what the limitations are with regards to performance early in your development. If you build a beautiful game but it runs like a dog because of what you did in your networking code it would be a real shame and worse it may not be fixable.
Again don't be afraid to ask questions.
Restatement of CuppoJava's Comments
This is a good thread and that's why I am adding these comments to it. I would also say that I totally agree with the sentiments on what you should expect.
If you are new to Java and expect that in just a few months you are going to crank out a game with a custom 3-d engine you are in for a nasty surprise.
It isn't that we want to be discouraging, but please do try and set yourself realistic goals and time deadlines. You'll find it a much more positive experience and the less frustrated you are the more likely we are to be able to help you. :)

ITunes Library organization in one folder...

I have a Mac Mini which serves as the family Video Server to an AppleTV (and all the other Mac / iDevices we own). It is running Lion 10.7.4, with iTunes 10.6.1.
The iTunes library is set up on a connected Drobo via USB. iTunes runs on the Mac Mini's internal HD (of course), but the Library is located on the Drobo.
This is what I want: I want the iTunes folder (including the iTunes Media folder, and all the xml / library files) to all be on the Drobo, in one self contained folder, as though it was on the Mac Mini. For some reason, iTunes chooses to keep the library files etc, on the Mini itself, when the movie / TV files are on the Drobo. Everything works as it should, but I want a tidy iTunes folder on the Drobo itself, with nothing on the Mini (which will make moving the entire library easier in the future, if necessary).
Regardless of my Choosing to Consolidate library / Organize Libfary (which do nothing not even a progress bar), nothing happens.
Here is the current state of my iTunes:
This is on the Mac Mini: (contains no media files, they're all on the Drobo)
This is on the Drobo: (contains the actual movies and television show files)
This is what I want on the Drobo only, to contain everything in one folder, rather than split between two drives.
Is this possible? If so, how? Do I need to start from scratch? I will if that is the only way.
I currently have a little over 550GB of movies and TV shows.
Thanks,
Sal

Make a split library portable
Here are the typical layouts for the iTunes folders:
In the layout above, with the media folder (everything in the red box) inside the library folder, the library is considered to be portable. A portable library can be moved from one path to another without breaking the links between the library and the media and being self-contained is much easier to backup.
You can rearrange things to make a split library portable by taking a number of small steps which don't break the library.
Before you start any media files that are outside of the media folder will need to be consolidated. If the library is in the old style layout then it should ideally be be upgraded to iTunes Media Organisation (Library > Organise Library > Rearrange files in the folder <Media Folder>) to ensure that iPod Games, Mobile Applications etc. are brought inside the media folder.
The basic non-fatal manipulations are:
You can connect to an alternate set of library files by holding down Shift (Win) or Option (Mac) when starting iTunes.
You can move the library files to a new location as long as the media stays put.
You can move the library files and the media together if the media folder is a direct subfolder of the library folder.
If you have already moved/copied the media content from a subfolder of the library folder to a different location then you only need to copy the library files for it to appear as if you have moved the entire library in the way allowed above. I.e. just copy the library files into the parent folder of the media folder.
You can rename the media folder to iTunes Media (if it isn't already) if the media folder is inside the library folder.
iTunes uses the name of the folder holding the library files as the window title. Having made a library "portable" you may need to take a final step of renaming the library folder to iTunes or, if the library files have ended up at the root of a drive, moving all of the library files and content folders into a new folder called iTunes.
After each change you need to open, test and close the relevant library before attempting another change. If a change broke the library, undo it or revert to using the previous set of library files.
In essence all you need to do to make your library portable is copy the library files into the parent folder of the media folder on the external/secondary drive and use the hold-down-shift/option-when-starting-iTunes method to connect to it. Other manipulations may be required to normalize the library so that the library and media folders have standard names.
tt2

How to organize apps into folders and make them stick in iphone 3gs?

Four hours down the drain! Darn, I decided to finally learn how to organize my apps into folders and do it right. Instead I spent four hours and must have got it wrong.
I opened iTunes on my MacBook with my iPhone attached. Then clicked on the iPhone in the left side list of my iTunes. Then clicked on apps which brought up a nice page with all my iPhone apps listed in one window on the left and all the pages of the apps that are on my iPhone in the window on the right. So far this is what I think the User Manual and Help said to do.
At that point I created new folders by dragging one app over another. For example, I would find a photography app and drag it onto another photography app. That automatically created a folder with the name photography. Just what I wanted. I then looked for more photography apps and dragged them to the folder.
This is not too easy because I had eight pages of apps. At first, I would grab an app on a page and drag it to where I knew the corresponding folder would be and put it into the folder.
Later I found another way was to use the list of my apps on the right to put them in apps.
In the end, from what appeared on the screen, it seemed to me that most of my apps were in folders and the folders were either on page one, two, or three. At that point I thought that I should sync the MacBook with the iPhone, I believe, and did so.
When the sync was finished I took the iPhone off the computer and looked at it. NONE of the folders I created, nor the organization into folders of the apps were on my iPhone!
Obviously, I did something wrong since the same mess was on the iPhone as before, with apps all over the place and impossible to locate without taking too much time. This after four hours of work looking at a 13 in. laptop screen!
What I hope is that someone smarter than me will look at what I did and tell me where I went wrong.
I want the apps on the iPhone to be organized into logical folders so it is easier to find them. Something along the lines of a good database, you know?
Thank you for reading to the end of this question,

OK, I spent another afternoon doing the job started yesterday. Last night (could not sleep, so might as well think) I got to thinking that I really must have missed a step or something because all my work was done on the Mac and I did not recall any time when I transferred the new setup with folders to the iPhone.
Sure enough, when I tried it today I did find that missing step. When looking at the Home Page of the iPhone or any page being worked on, in the lower right hand corner two buttons say
SYNC APPLY
I do not recall using the APPLY button on the first day trying this, but I used it this time.
After making changes, I hit APPLY and the computer began to sync with the iPhone.
This time, although there is nothing telling the user what is going on, the sync actually makes the iPhone pages to look exactly like the pages created on the Mac.
Too bad the instructions and help did not say to do things in this way, which is the only correct way, as far as I can tell.
I have about 155 apps on the iPhone, making the job extra lengthy. However, I never could do it on the iPhone’s tiny screen, even though it is possible, so this was good - working on the larger screen of the MacBook.
There are also some (undocumented?) tricks in using the MacBook for this task. For example, it is possible to create a folder and then, using the list of all apps on the iPhone that is on the left side of screen, open the folder, click on the check box next to any app you want to put in the folder and it will jump right in!
If the check box already has a check mark, just click the box to remove it, click again to put the check mark in the box and voila the app takes off for the folder. This also works to just put apps onto a certain page, if you want to do that, but dragging apps around sometimes works better.
I hope it will not be necessary to do this again because of the time involved, and he need for quite a bit of thinking on how to move the apps and folders around to get everything just where you want it on the iPhone. The work reminded me of an old kids game that has a small square case with, I guess eleven movable numbers, that are all mixed up, and one space that is not filled with a number. You can move the little squares with the numbers around inside the case to try to line the numbers up in order from 1-11 and do it faster than anybody else.
Well, unfortunately lining up all my apps was like that because each page of the iPhone only holds 16 folders or apps and each folder is limited to 12 apps. Starting with 155 apps it takes too much mouse maneuvering to make the process easy.
Finally, the automatic folder names are very broad, as in MUSIC, LIFESTYLE, SPORTS and such, so I often just deleted the given categories and put my in my own. Also, some day I may break down the folders more because twelve apps in one folder means the apps are still pretty much out of view.
I wrote this in case anyone else finds it and has the same irksome product. If I just reinvented the wheel, please do not tell me now.

IPhoto organization in iTunes? It IS supposed to be a LIBRARY you know.

When are we going to see some kind of multiple library function in iTunes similar to the way iPhoto is set up with "Events" organizing the photos. Having one gigantic list of songs that is the only way of viewing your main library (no playlists don't count) is now outdated. Imagine being to have a library for each person in your family all within ONE iTunes, that you can enter like a room? Maybe a cross between Magic Garageband and iPhoto in terms of interface, and an organization combination of Coverflow and Events?
For people who want to have a media center, all their families music in one library but don't want to have to sift through hundreds of Panic! At The Disco songs from your younger siblings when you want to see your own music, you may agree with me that the regular system of scrolling to see songs is as bad as the old iPhoto. Yeah, you can make more than one library, but the software can and has done better, home media organization needs to be the next big step.
Any ideas?

I hardly think expressing frustration and some possible solutions for a certain aspect of a software is 'complaining'. If it sounded like I was complaining I apologize. I actually like iTunes a lot, HOWEVER:
The problem with the way you (and many others) organize your 12,000-tune library (I have 15,000+, but this isn't a contest) is that like iPhoto 6 and earlier versions, the only way to organize/view the HOME location of your photos was in the huge long list of photos, which could be organized by date, title, film roll, etc. The issue has been fixed in iPhoto 7, by having "events", the home location of the photos in your iphoto interface can be viewed in the classic style of a long list, but also through smaller portals, "Events", which also lead you to the home location, rather than an organization of individual photos from different film rolls, which is essentially what an "album" is in iPhoto, or "Playlist" in iTunes.
The problem is not the file structure, the file structure of iTunes is perfect IMO. iTunes->iTunes Music->Artists->Albums->Songs. Perfect. It's just the interface, which has already in a conceptual sense been solved between garageband and iphoto. Some kind of combination of the "Audition" interface, and the classic list of songs, would be a cool way to view in a digital interface something more similar to a physical "Library". Of course, it'd have to be made in a less little-kid-game type of way, more streamlined and cool than simply entertaining. But if one could 'enter' into your library, or I guess, your 'room' of the library and view your music, then you could organize it all in one place and view it like the traditional iTunes library list we have now, while having multiple people's music in one Library, easily backed up, easily accessible with multiple iPods, it'd be great.
Also, it would give way to a iPhoto/Aperture type interface, where there are more buttons... a button for quick "Convert" file types for people who keep most of their library in Lossless but need to convert fast to fit on iPods (seeing how large personal computer HD's are getting hopefully more people will have Lossless-formated libraries in the near future), a button to add to iDisk on MobileMe or something, a button to view what playlists an individual song is currently included in, a button to publish a compilation to iWeb making some kind of Apple designed music-blog. Just something more dynamic, there's tons of cool things that could be built in. All the other iLife apps are super dynamic now, iTunes needs to catch up, at least for the Mac.
I hope I have described the problem well enough, and in at least a vague way described my solutions. Cheers.
Max
P.S. Additions: If there were some kind of "Event" type interface, where you could scroll back and forth over the key photo and view the album artworks (like the way you view the particular Event's photos in iPhoto), then it would bring an importance back to Album Artwork, which I've also posted about, and make viewing album artwork again regular part of listening to music. Not enough people use Coverflow yet, and hopefully as digital music develops, more people will legally obtain music (even if it's free, but legally free), which will include booklets and artwork.

App Organization...

Hello,
I am very new to this discussion forum, so please bare with me. I already use iTunes 9, and I have the newest iPhone OS. So, I am well aware of how easy it is to drag and drop icons to the desired pages in order to easily organize your apps.
I am a total app junkie. I don't waste my time with a lot of the free ones, I have mostly paid apps, and I have well over 320 installed on my phone. In other words, I have a nice little investment in my apps, most of which are games, a lot of productivity, and quite a bit of communication and network tools.
I keep all of my music on my 100GB Zumo Cloud Drive - it has worked great for me. With that said, I already have 9GB of apps on my phone LOL... As I said, I am addicted to my apps!
My main complaint is with organizing and REMEMBERING what apps I have on the phone, especially when I am away and not docked with iTunes. I usually launch apps from the Finder, and not using the icon, so that's no big deal. But remembering which apps I have on my phone, especially since I have long exceeded 11 pages and all of my apps are not represented by icons, proves frustrating at best.
What I have done so far, is keep an alphabetical list of all the apps installed on my phone, as a note in Evernote, and I have the Evernote icon on my first page on the phone. Then, when I wish to retrieve a certain app but can't remember the name, I launch Evernote, find the app, then exit to the Finder, and I type the name of the app in.
Does anyone out there have any better ideas on app organization? I would be so grateful and happy to find an easier way. Many friends of mine have "jailbroken" their phones, and they have many third party apps that organize the contents into folders, much like a PC or a Mac. However, I have no such desire - I would really rather not jailbreak my phone. I like the way it works right now, and I really like iTunes. But once you get into so many apps the way I have, it becomes a quasi-nightmare to keep things organized.
So again, ANY ideas out there would be very VERY much appreciated. Thanks, I hope you all have a terrific day!

I really don't think there's much anyone can add to what you've said. Apple does not provide a good way to organize your apps other than putting them on different pages and since you have so many, your only way of launching them is using Finder. The remembering part is up to you. i.e. it's your choice to have so many that you can't remember them. I only have about 75 and can't remember all of them... I can't imagine trying to remember 320. If you want something better, I think you have only two choices... delete some apps or jailbreak.

How to collect/organize user requirements?

Hello everyone,
I have been a self taught LV programmer for years now, who never focused much on the UI design process, at the beginning of a big LV project. Now, I am about to embark on a big project, as a team leader, I have started thinking about the methods my fellow LV developers use to collect/organize and evaluate the end-users needs/requirements in a big LV project. I would really appreciate if anyone could point me towards some reading materials or your input on how to approach this phase of a LV project. Specifically, I would like to know about the methods that have worked for you before and how you have approached this design process of a LV project.

I can not cite any written material of the top of my head. I will drop some ideas.
1) Ask for the "Elevator Speach". The "Elevator Speach" is the answer you would give if you suddenly found yourself alone on an elevator with the president of your company and they ask "So what does that application do?" The elevator speach should just one or two sentances. Once you get the speach write it down and keep it in mind throught the life of the application development. It helps to constrain scope and in the end the application has to do what is in the speach or it is useless.
2) Ask about some of the "dreams" and "nice to have" functionality and also the "core functionality" (this is a technical version of the elevator speach). Keep seperate lists and share these with your customer so they know up front that they are not going to see the "dreams" until after the core is done.
3) Avoid asking the user how they think things should be done. Decide for yourself what is the best way, then present your ideas to the user. That way you can design things so that you can take advantage of the software environment.
4) When presenting your ideas, leave a small obvious flaw in the demo so the user can give you some constructive feed-back. They often feel that they are doing their job if they do not offer feed-back. Make their job easier. If you present a perfect app, they will have to work very hard to find something for you to change and it will probably complicate your life.
5) Once you find the person that knows of the technical stuff associated with the application, have them go through a "game" of pretending the application is done, and let them tell you what they plan on doing and what they expect. These will be you "use cases".
OK done for now, gotta get to work!
Ben
Ben Rayner
I am currently active on.. MainStream Preppers
Rayner's Ridge is under construction

Game Levels in iPhone App

I am working small card board game, in which I have three levels. I have finished completing level. I need to move to next level. I have a Main View.m, in which I have written code in all touches methods. I am little bit lost in setting levels and game play. Can somebody point me to right direction or any code samples?
Thanks in Advance
Ravi

It sounds like you should make several decisions about your program structure before thinking about how to code it. Here are some questions that might help organize your thinking:
1) Do I need a different view for each level, or can I just change the logic and/or a few minor details of the main view (like labels, background images, etc.)?
2) Should I be using at least one view controller? If the view or logic for each level is quite different, maybe I want a separate nib file with a different view controller/view combination for each level.
3) What kind of transition should take place when the user moves to the next level? This question applies even if the view stays the same, but if the view will change, I need to decide what kind of animation I want.
4) What kind of support will I need for saving the game? As I think about the structure for each level it might be good to think about how much information needs to be saved for each level. This is secondary to the above questions, but it's helpful to organize state variables before coding begins.
HTH!

Best practice game design

Having decided to use java to develop what will be for the most part a 2D (overhead) tile-based RPG game I'm wondering what the best practice is for designing a game like this.
At the minute I'm intending on using a 'state' system, varying game states (main game, shop, battle, world map etc., state transitions and single use states to create further immersion in the game) implement a State interface that defines how the main game engine interacts with the state (mainly a tick method called on each game loop). When the program wants to switch the game state it makes a call to the main engine, something like setState(State).
Has anyone written an RPG along these lines? What kind of memory usage did you have, and did you encounter any problems along the way with this design?

So far, I've identified two perspectives.
The first is to consider yourself as a sort of "overmind" that tracks each object within the game as a seperate entity. The primary advantage seems to be that it is trivial to add objects as you go along. The primary disadvantage is dealing with all the message passing.
For example, say you are fighting a horde of goblins when a dragon flies overhead and breathes fire on the battlefield. You would have to call each goblin instance, and have that particular goblin check to see if it dies, and if so, call its death routine. You would have to call your own player object, and have it check to see if you are carrying potions. Each potion then would have to check to see if it boils and explodes in reaction to the dragon breath. And so on. But it would be trivial to add an orc to the battle, or change the dragon into an evil wizard.
This consumes quite a bit of memory (for all the objects and references), and it can be a little tricky incorporating it into the game loop.
The other aspect is to code the player as the "center of the universe" and everything happens with respect to that player. It becomes easier find relevant objects and interact with them, but it becomes much harder to just drop an object in place.
Using the prior example, the dragon becomes your combatant. Damage is done to a goblin in the array and it dies. The next enemy in your array dies. Do so much damage to your inventory and remove them as appropriate. Keeping track of what's going on appears to be much more straightforward, but it would be harder to add the evil wizard to the mix.
This consumes less memory - the game is only worried about things that happen around you as opposed to well... a whole bunch of "entities" at the same time, and is significantly faster and easier to add to the game loop.
State machines tend to follow this approach, event driven games tend to follow the prior approach.
Obviously, I don't code games for a living. I would think that most games these days are somewhat of a mish-mash. Use a basic state machine as in the FF7 example to keep track of broad activities, and within each activity, let the objects manage themselves in response to events.
For example, each game tick could switch among movement activities, "peaceful magic" activities, battle activities, clean up activities (such as death and xp rewards), and finally general inventory and shop activities, skipping steps as appropriate.
And say within the movement event, you could have an monster object scream and add itself to the battle mode queue if it detects your player object within such and such a distance.
Anyway, I've been toying with the idea of coding or volunteernig to work on an RPG as well, so I'd be interested in hearing from you guys on how to organize things too.

How Can I organize code with frames ?

Hello everyone,
I try to make a very simple game but I have a question. Would you give me a hand, please ? I'm not a native English speaker, so I hope you get my question
My game consists of many levels ( a level on each frame ). Each level ( or each frame ) consists of white walls, a green ball, a colorful star, and a yellow key... as you can see in the picture. The green ball should move between the walls without hitting them, and It must hit the key to collect it. When the key is collected, a wall will disappear so that the ball can reach the star, then a player wins. When the ball hits any one of these walls a game over message will appear.
Each frame has different number of walls and each wall is a movie clip on the main stage. The walls are not inside a container or something like that. The instance names of the walls are wall1 , wall2 , wall3 ... and so on.
I also have a layer for action script and I wrote the following code:
if (player.hitTestObject(wall1) || player.hitTestObject(wall2) || player.hitTestObject(wall3) || player.hitTestObject(wall4) )
trace ( "second try" ) ;
gameOver.visible = true ;
doThisFn = false ;
It works for the frames that Has wall1 , wall2 , wall3 and wall4.
If wall4 (for example) doesn't exist on frame 3 (for example), an error occurs saing : " #2007: Parameter hitTestObject must be non-null. "
My question is, How to organize the action script layer and the frames so that the error doesn't occur ?
I thought of an Idea which is to make a copy of wall4 on layer 3, and I will put wall4 in a place where the user will not see it. I don't think this is a good solution.
I had another Idea, I will make many keyframes ( by pressing F6 ) on the action script layer. and I will modify the code of each keyframe so that the walls that are in IF statement will mach the walls on each frame. but this will take a lot of effort !!
Would you suggest a smarter solution, please ? such as a For loop or an array.. I don't know how ?
Thanks in advance,

//you can initialize an array, eg,
var wallA:Array=[];
//reset it on each frame, eg,
wallA.length=0;
//populate it on each frame eg,
for(var i:int=0;i<1000;i++){
if(this['wall'+i]){
wallA.push(this['wall'+i]);
// and then use that array in your hittests, eg
function wallHitTestF():Boolean{
for(i=0;i<wallA.length;i++){
if(player.hitTestObject(wallA[i])){
return true;
return false;

How to organize variables for file saving and scalability?

Hello,
I have created several CVI applications that store production data for numerous machines. To organize the data for file saving I have implemented structures. This has worked well with one limitation, the inability to scale the structure at a later date without invalidating existing files. I would like to consider alternative approaches that would allow scalability.
Here's an example of my current method...
// Definition of structure per machine.
struct machine_1
   int int_param_1, int_param_2, int_param_3;
   double dbl_param_1, dbl_param2, dbl_param3;
struct machine_2
   int int_param_1, int_param_2, int_param_3;
   double dbl_param_1, dbl_param2, dbl_param3;
// Definition of inclusive structure. (Member name and structure tag name are the same.)
struct
   struct machine_1   machine_1;
   struct machine_2   machine_2;
} machine_parameters;
To assign a value to a structure variable:
// Assign value.
machine_parameters.machine_1. dbl_param_2 = 77.47;
Then when it comes time to save the populated structures:
// Save structure.
error = fwrite (&machine_parameters, sizeof(machine_parameters), 1, dest);
The problem comes later when multiple files already exist and one of the machine structures needs an additional variable added. For example, if I need to add int_param_4 to the machine_1 structure. Adding this variable will invalidate the previously saved files because they were saved with a different structure and will not be able to be opened with a new structure containing one additional variable due to the structure definition mismatch.
I have added spare variables per data type to the structures for each machine, but it's a losing game. If I add 10 spare variables, I end up needing to store 11 more pieces of data.
Is there a better approach?
Thanks,
Aaron T.

One simple way is to output the data as ASCII comma separated values, with a newline character at the end of each row of data.
I.E., the only structure to your file data is a "row" of CSV's, with the file containing some number of rows.
Then, you load the data into Excel, and it will parse the CSV's for you and when it sees the newline, put the next set of CSV's on the next row of the worksheet.
If you ever need to expand the number of items in a row, you just add them as you generate data, pushing the newline to the right, the extra data extending the row.
So you get an Excel worksheet filled with rows of (possibly varying length) data.   So long as you add data at the end of the row when you redefine what you're saving, anything reading the file should see the same stuff that was always there.
You can write a macro to reformat or parse the CSV's once they're in the spreadsheet. With Excel 2007 supporting very large worksheets, you can put a lot of data into one. I think they expose a C interface for writing fast data manipulation of cell data now too - sort of a fast macro from the Excel viewpoint. I think the number of columns is 16384 and 1 million rows in a "Big Grid". The Excel 2007 engine is multi-threaded and you can tell it how many cores to use on a multicore machine.
So the only problem I see is the loss of local structure (your C structs get serialized and get concatenated to one another) but you could re-introduce the structure with a macro.
Or, if you were to write out serialized binary values and then view the file data using a hex editor like Neo, you can tell Neo what your C structs were and it will pick up binary file data and put it back into the C structs for viewing.
Or use MatLab to read the CSV's and reformat it.
Or use the CVI SQL interface and write it out as database records. I think the SQL toolkit costs extra, maybe it comes with the FDS.
Menchar

Organization of a game

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for