With Section 8: Prejudice, TimeGate took what was planned as a console game and presented it as a $15 downloadable title. Not Only did the team have to change its way of thinking about pricing and presentation, it also had to work out how to shrink assets and scale the design to fit within the download limit. As this sort of story grows more common, the lessons learned here become more important.
Much to everyone's surprise, not least the developers, a tiny iOS adventure game known as Sword & Sworcery was featured twice in Apple's shop and went on to sell over 250,000 units. This game, with its odd visuals, odd design, and odd music, was in turn an odd collaboration by three different creatives. This went both as well and as poorly as you can imagine.
Creating intelligent third-person cameras is rife with difficulty. There are enemies to keep in view, obstacles to avoid, and important objects to highlight. Here, engine programmer Eric Undersander proposes a camera with a sticky collision beam to bypass many of the major issues faced by AI-controlled cameras.
Bill Budge paved the way for user-generated content with his early games Pinball Construction Set and Raster Blaster. But that wasn't really his intention--he just likes making software tools. This interview tried to get at the heart of his love for code.