dave's blog of art and programming

Category: Games

  • Fast HTML5 sprite rendering

    After quite a lot of experimentation with HTML5 canvas, I’ve figured out a way to use it with the kind of big isometric game worlds used for Germination X which are built from hundreds of overlapping sprites. There are lots of good resources out there on low level optimisations, but I needed to rethink my…

  • Germination X: More on platform independence

    More detail on yesterday’s HTML5 canvas version of Germination X. The game engine it uses (known in the source code as “truffle”) is carved up into several layers in order to allow it to make use of HaXe’s cross platform abilities. This is exactly the same concept as used with console games – you set…

  • Germination X in HTML5 canvas

    I’ve spent a couple of days on an experimental not-quite-working-yet port of Germination X to HTML5. Port is probably a slightly misleading word, as it’s actually running exactly the same HaXE code, it’s just compiled to Javascript rather than swf with a load of extra Javascript filling in the stuff needed to replace Flash. The…

  • Germination X at Loading Bar, Falmouth

    Where better for doing a game focus group test than in a games cafe? We had a fantastic turn out last night – we actually ran out of space! This was the third Lirec focus test using Germination X, but the first I’ve been physically involved in, and the biggest public event about this game…

  • GX: Ancient oaks and tutorial info

    Three hundred multicoloured oaks have been scattered around the Germination X world. These trees are all that remains of an ancient forest and require multiple players to find and sow plants around them in order to rejuvenate them into their former glory. This provides a simple additional community activity as well a first attempt at…

  • GX: Spirit personalities, asking players for help, twitter

    Another Germination X server update happened yesterday, concentrating on the plant spirits. We needed to log the emotional state of the spirits, so I thought twitter could be used for this, similar to the Naked on Pluto cleaner bot. In this case though, all three plant spirits have accounts, so they can have little conversations…

  • GX: soil conditions, glowing plants and empathic spirits

    Along with setting up interactive installations, the last week has been a fairly intense code sprint on Germination X, based on feedback from the second focus study by SICS/mobile life in Stockholm. In order to get a more interesting world, and shake things up a little, soil conditions now vary quite dramatically. Some areas are…

  • Germination X: striving for simplicity

    In late December the Mobile Life Centre in Stockholm ran the first focus test for Germination X, and last week I met up with them to get the feedback in detail. Even for a small study of 5 players, this was very detailed – but the broad conclusions were that the underlying ‘ecological model’ of…

  • Serious/educational games interview with Kara Frame

    An interview with Kara Frame, who is studying Educational Technology at San Francisco State University. Please tell us who you are, your role in designing games and why you became interested in “serious games”? My background is in computer graphics programming for the games and film industries, but for the last 3 years I’ve been…

  • GX: Intelligent butterflies etc

    Over the last couple of weeks Germination X has managed to attract 70 players picking and planting in a permaculture world, with plants now covering 92 5×5 tiles – watch out Zynga 🙂 This week has seen some more additions, firstly giving gifts to spirits has a large effect on their emotions positive and negative,…