Tag Archives: making games

Utopian Pig Studio – Indie Game Innovation at its Best

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I would like to introduce Utopian Pig Studio, which will serve as the brand of my indie game innovation starting with Pig Pinball. Pig Pinball’s vision is to bring the indie spark of creativity to pinball by introducing unique game modes and pigs. The “standard” game mode has turrets shooting missiles towards your ball. The “Brick Buster” mode is a hybrid of pinball with breakout. Another mode that is still a work-in-progress is the pig farming mode. In this mode, you catch wild pigs in the field and care for them on your ranch. The twist being that all this is done on a pinball table.

Get the game (alpha version) while it’s still free and get all future updates to the game, which includes the full release version when it comes out. Optionally, you may choose to pay in order to support development of the game. What you are still waiting for? Go download Pig Pinball and enjoy some indie innovative fun!

Game Making Programs

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If you read my last post on how to begin making computer games, you know that you have to understand the basics of programming in order to really be able to make your own games.  If you are absolutely adamant on using pure C++ to make games, go ahead and use DirectX.  I started trying to learn it and found out that while it can be fairly flexible and powerful since it lets you work with graphics hardware at a very low level, it requires a large time commitment and understanding at that low level.  It was difficult to do even the basics without having to memorize many functions with really long names.  Unless you really like low level code and don’t mind memorizing long function names, it can be a really great thing to know.  Knowing DirectX will surely be helpful if you’re looking to get a job in the video game industry. Continue reading →

How to Begin Making Computer Games

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So You Want to Make a Computer Game?

You’ve played a lot of games and want to make your own now.  Perhaps you always found yourself thinking up ways to improve the games you play.  Maybe you have been making improved versions of games by modding existing games.  Or maybe you think it would just be really cool to build your own game.  How do you do it? What do you need to know?  And how much of it do you need to know?  I’ll tell you that you do not need a lot to get started.  A basic knowledge of procedural programming is required to start making “real” games.  Although there are many game making programs out there and some even have a drag-and-drop interface, I would highly recommend that you learn the basics of procedural programming for two reasons:

  1. Understand the logic behind games – Games are just programs.  Very fun and complex programs, but deep down they are just programs.  If you learn the logic behind programs you will be able to more easily understand how to make things in your game work.
  2. Make Better Games – Being able to write code will give you immense freedom in making everything in your game behave the way you want it to.  Without programming, you will be rather limited in the kinds of games you can make.

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