Following on from my last post, I want to gripe about something. With a lot of third party libraries, one of the goals of people who use the library is to bind it to another language than the one it is developed in. Lots and lots of people want to do this. Consequently, it annoys me (almost as much…

I use Lua. Like, a lot. I use it to generate procedural textures for my poor attempts at 3D modeling and isometric art creation. I use Lua to compile renders into compact little isometric sprite packages and animations. I use Lua to write games, to write demos, just to tinker around with crap. If I…

The Indie's Guide to Video Game Art on the Cheap

I make you deal.

If you're like me, then you're not wealthy. I admit it. I do okay, I keep food on the table and roof over the heads, and every now and then a tank of gas for the truck t…

My problem (well, one of them, anyway) is that I like to experiment. This is great and all, but it means that I end up with a lot of half-completed experiments and one-off demos sitting around, that don't do me a whole lot of good. A lot of things never reach "official" status. For example, I've do…

{

Every few months/years, when I need to take a break from other projects, I pull out the ol' Accidental Noise Library and tinker with it, trying to make something cool/shiny. I'm in the midst of a project Goblinson Crusoe-related (a bit of story writing) and to let the old brainpan drain for a bit, …

The print edition of April 2011 Game Developer Magazine is out, and my article, Creator of Worlds, comprises 7 pages of it. In light of that fact, I've gotten several emails lately from people who read it and would like to experiment. So I'm releasing another binary build of the Accidental Engine, …

I've been re-visiting the crafting system in GC lately. My initial attempt at a crafting system worked like so: Each item drop has a Name. Crafting recipes consist of a string of Names, alphabetized and concatenated together and used as a key to index a recipe table. So if, for example, a recipe re…

So I've gone back to work, but I'm no longer a plumber/concrete guy/drywall guy in Arizona. The wife and I have moved back to Wyoming, and I've gone back to work for one of my old bosses, doing woodworking. Cabinetry, furniture, and CNC wood machining. It's awesome to be back in the shop. I love wo…

Last week, Brandon Sheffield of Game Developer Magazine contacted me (via Dave Astle, who alerted me to the fact that I ought to check my inbox once in awhile) asking permission to re-publish one of my journal posts in the magazine. Today I received the email with the .PDF of the layout and a reque…