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Category Archives: programming

SimCity to License Blizzard’s LocalServer™ Technology

By Jeff | Published: March 22, 2013

Electronic Arts announced today that it intends to license Blizzard Software’s LocalServer™ technology as soon as it becomes available. EA has taken a beating in recent weeks over its decision to make SimCity—an essentially single-player game—require online access as a condition for play. The decision mirrors the approach taken by Blizzard in the development of [...]

Also posted in games, technology | 2 Comments

When Game Development Stinks

By Jeff | Published: March 22, 2013

I discovered a simply awesome indie game on Steam this week, Ultratron by Puppy Games. It is a retro shooter, an homage to the classic Robotron 2084, a visual lollipop of swirling color that leaves your eyes sparkling and pixelated for hours, and a game I can’t stay away from for more than a few [...]

Also posted in games | 16 Comments

Hitting a Dead End with FlasCC

By Jeff | Published: January 1, 2013

I’ve been looking long and hard for a solution to the problem of creating high-performance games that are broadly portable across desktop, mobile, and in-browser platforms. Adobe Flash looks to be the closest solution to what I want, but FlasCC falls far short of offering the performance benefits it promises.

Also posted in games, technology | 5 Comments

The Sorry State of C++ Portability

By Jeff | Published: October 24, 2012

Update: Microsoft have released a preview patch to Visual Studio 2012 that adds additional support for C++11 features, most notably for variadic templates. I’m pleased to see that Microsoft responded so quickly to customer outcry (not only mine) that Visual Studio’s C++11 support was far too backward. They moved much more quickly than I thought [...]

Posted in programming | 57 Comments

The Sorry State of Game Portability

By Jeff | Published: October 24, 2012

Never has it been more desirable to widely port your game. A game created for iPhone and iPad has every reason to move to Android as well. These platforms have the the same form, the same touch interface, roughly the same performance characteristics, and the same graphics system (OpenGL ES 2.0). But why stop with [...]

The Final Solution to the Travelling Salesman Problem

By Jeff | Published: June 22, 2012

The Travelling Salesman Problem has plagued computer science for nearly sixty years. Countless hours have been spent on the problem. Countless millions of dollars—funneled through universities, corporations, and government contracts—have been poured into the quest for a solution. Countless computer scientists—withered, hapless creatures—have gone bald and blind, hunched over diagrams of circuitous graphs and motorway [...]

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Angry Birds “Cloned” Crush the Castle, and That’s Okay

By Jeff | Published: June 21, 2012

When people find out that I developed the iOS version of Crush the Castle, they often respond in a peculiar and surprising way. They come to my defense. “Man, aren’t you angry that Angry Birds ripped you off?” they ask. “They totally stole your idea.” I tell them, no, I’m not angry “Really?” they reply. [...]

Also posted in Crush the Castle, ethics, games, technology | 11 Comments

How Diablo 3′s Networked Standalone Campaign Secures the Auction House

By Jeff | Published: June 21, 2012

Recently I posted an article poking fun at Blizzard’s decision to force single-player Diablo 3 sessions to depend on the battle.net servers. In the article I implied that Blizzard’s decision was a result of technical incompetence—that somehow programming a non-networked game is more difficult than programming a client-server game, and Blizzard developers had failed to [...]

Also posted in games | 3 Comments

Is Valve Too Good to be True?

By Jeff | Published: May 2, 2012

Remarkable evidence leaked from Valve Software over the last few weeks, portraying the company as a game developer’s paradise—awash in wealth, brimming with talent, and providing employees with remarkable trust and freedom. First came an article by programming guru Michael Abrash praising Valve as a workplace and urging others to apply. Then came a copy [...]

Also posted in employment, games | 20 Comments

Programmers are Trees

By Jeff | Published: April 25, 2012

Programmers have opinions. Some programmers like OpenGL, others like DirectX. Some like reallyLongVariableNames. Others like them asap. Some use templates like McGyver uses chewing gum, like Ford Prefect uses towels. Others avoid templates like they were tapeworms. Some programmers like a nice, tight, K&R. unsigned brevity(unsigned i){ return i ? i * brevity( –i ) [...]

Also posted in productivity | 5 Comments

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