http://www.glest.org/

After some time and quite some expectation, a new version has been released that includes the single most awaited feature in the history of the game: Multiplayer!

At this point the multiplayer feature is reduced to the bare bones, but it works. We are hoping on the community to help us test it

Kurt Busiek is (among other things) a comic scriptwriter. Not so many years ago, Image Comics started to publish a work by him: Astro City. If I can remember correctly, since my memory is made of cork, Busiek had been already working for some time in the human perspective of the super-heroic experience. With his work, he tried to answer questions such as, how does a journalist view super heroes?, or, what are the feelings of someone who suddenly acquires great power? Read the rest of this article »

http://www.gamedevmap.com/index.php

Publishers, development studios with a staff of five or more, studios with previously published games, and studios under contract with a publisher are listed.

Gamedevmap is a growing database of video game companies. For the sake of general curiosity, you can spot at a glance the most prominent areas for video game developing -this is a little tricky though, since the spots don´t give visual information on the number of companies on each one of them-. However, I believe that this link will be most valuable for those interested in entering the business, since it saves countless headaches searching for the companies´ locations and sites. Beware that not every company is covered: the webmasters rely on the readers´ help to complete the list, so this could be your opportunity to add a spot!

A video game is not that different from any other software development; it perhaps depends more on hardware, but even so it is very similar. When you describe a program you need the client´s opinion and plenty of information to determine how the issue was being taken prior to the new development. In the end it is obvious that albeit there won´t be much relation between the analysis and the final development, that relation will still be more or less recognizeable.

But, what about video games? To start with, Read the rest of this article »

http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/

NetLogo is a programmable modeling environment for simulating natural and social phenomena. It is particularly well suited for modeling complex systems developing over time. Modelers can give instructions to hundreds or thousands of independent “agents” all operating concurrently. This makes it possible to explore the connection between the micro-level behavior of individuals and the macro-level patterns that emerge from the interaction of many individuals.

3.1 features a new suite of link primitives, configurable world topologies, randomized agent ordering, and a new tie primitive.

NetLogo is one of those cool, easy-to-understand program languages, like processing, that I keep in my linkshelf with the hope to learn one day and become a really cool artist. I want to configure world topologies!!

Now talking seriously (as if I ever did), NetLogo, by the way based on the famous (at least when I was a kid) LOGO language, really IS an impressive programming environment for at least three reasons: it is easy to learn so students can use it; it is written in java, which means that the programs can be executed from within the web browser, like the examples here; and it has a very wide scope of applications, from biology to art. All in all, this is a highly interesting and worthwhile environment that I´ll keep on wanting to try for a long time.

http://www.glest.org/

In case you haven´t read my previous articles on it, Glest is a Free, open-source 3d Real Time Strategy Game, designed in a way so that it is easy to customize and expand. Glest has been in continuous development for several years, and has received awards in the Art Futura and Mundos Digitales spanish international festivals. Finally we have released the official 2.0 version, which includes many add-ons that we hope will enhance gameplay. Read the rest of this article »

http://www.artbytucho.blogspot.com/

A few days ago my good friend Tucho Fernández opened his new blog, “Art by Tucho”, where he is regularly posting samples of his drawings and 3D models. Tucho and I worked together in the Glest project and he is now also working for the video games company Traganarion Studios. As for his art, the quality of his paintings is elloquent enough. I would add that he´s especially talented for drawing things of an organic nature, especially fantasy creatures and dinosaurs, but in my opinion that´s only because that´s his preference. I have been trying to make him draw robots and spaceships since I first met him, though, and the Battle Machine is the best example that he is equally skillful at drawing almost anything.

Masculinity can be defined by two aspects: the cocktail adrenalin+ testosterone added to the liking for shooters.

Shooters, generally on a coin-op platform, were a dominant genre in the realm of early videogames. It´s easy to recall Galaxian, or Tempest, one of the first games to bring deepness to game mechanics. I would like to highlight one among them: Robotron 2084, the first game I ever knew that needed two joysticks to be used simultaneously, one for movement and the other for shooting.

Of course, the genre never died. People everywhere, especially asians as it seems, keep on devouring one shooter after another: Ikaruga, Bangai-O, Radiant Silvergun… Read the rest of this article »

Last Updated 01.07.06

If you have ever been to this site before, you most likely have seen the “cool lil´pic” to the left, in the sidebar. As the sentence said, the pictures there were… little, so clicking on them had no effect. Well, from now on not only can you click on the picture, but I encourage you to do so! Every week I´ll be adding a new flash game playable within the site, which can either be accesed from www.envelooponline.com/nan/games, or directly (and more conveniently, I believe) from said space in the sidebar.

This said, I thought on keeping the lil´ pictures along with the games´ pictures in the sidebar, but I thought I risked cluttering the area too much. Anyway, if you would like to see the little pics too, just let me now. I hope that you enjoy this new feature, brought you by nan! MwaHahahahaha!! (another step in the making of a media empire, Pinky!!)

Update 01.07.06 As part of the site´s latest (still ongoing) updates, I removed entirely the “little image” from the sidebar, since now games can be accessed from the main navigation menu. More important, I changed the way the games´pages are made (now they´re part of /nan and I can create them within wordpress), so it is much easier for me to add new games.

http://www.arcadeflyers.net/

a repository for arcade related promotional flyers that are used by the arcade industry to promote the sales of their games.

The product of a fusion between two already big flyer collections, the Arcade Flyer Archive is, since 1999, an evergrowing showcase of arcade flyers and a paradise for the video game enthusiast.

In wandering through the many images available (usually there are several flyers for a single videogame,) you will find amazing artworks covering the entire story of arcades from 1971 to almost yesterday (the database is constantly updated). From an aesthetical point of view this is enough to Read the rest of this article »

I hate fighting games. My first contact with them was the Street Fighter 2 coin-op, and already then I thought it was a ridiculous game. That´s strange, because I could finish the first Double Dragon without blinking, but there was no chemistry. It was a game without power-ups, where in order to get the control dynamics you had to Read the rest of this article »

http://www.glest.org/

Since rc3 and rc4 were released very close to each other, I´ll include here both versions´ features:

rc3:

- Final icons for the new units (you will not be able to see that until the data rc3 is uploaded, which should be soon).

- Shared vision for allies: This has a very nice side effect, CPU controlled factions will support each other, this will not always happen though, only when they have enough soldiers on their bases.

- Now you can play in every start location even with 2 or 3 factions in 4 player maps.

- Improved results screen, now it has a score and the team of each faction.

rc4:

This version includes increased projectile accuracy, ranged units now hit moving slow or close enemy units.

Don´t forget to share your thoughts on Glest in the Forum

So far I have dedicated many hours to create a good fistful of tools to develop 3D multimedia applications in real time, that is: video games. After erecting structures for Finite State Machines, scripts, messages and (soon soon) triggers, I decided to merge the whole thing into a single concept, and try to bring out errors, bugs, etc. I thought it would be quick and easy to make “a small game”. I was wrong. Read the rest of this article »

Oh Women, that beautiful 50% of the population which handle more than 50% of the small consumer´s money! Let´s go over a few quick facts related to girls and interactive computing:

1. A sane woman will never enter a Micro, Game, Microplay -or whatever they are called. Have you payed attention to those places? They are full of nerds, have enormous cardboard figures of a half naked Lara Croft on display -or worse: featuring a six-feet-high Mario!… If they were searching for ways to repel girls, they really Read the rest of this article »

http://aiplanet.sourceforge.net/

The next evolution will be leaner and meaner, with some cool features you might not expect.

Finally, after two years, Dave Kerr has released an update of aiplanet, the open source dynamic ecosystem simulation. Furthermore, he has also announced that a new version is in the works, one that, in his own words, will be “a radical improvement on the first version”. For this to happen, he´s working on a new engine, called AIR, which will not only add new features but also make the development much easier. Aiplanet V2 will probably take many months to be released, but it is already very good news to know that new work is being done.

Besides this announcement, it also worths to read the interview that Tom Barbalet, from Biota, made to Dave just a few days ago. The interview gives an excellent overview not only on the underlining principles behind aiplanet, but also on the development process of an amateur project. Read the rest of this article »