From paul.kholer at gmail.com Tue Jul 3 23:30:47 2007 From: paul.kholer at gmail.com (paul.kholer paul.kholer) Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 16:30:47 +0300 Subject: [portawiki-discuss] Learn About Creating Computer Games- John Schrerer Message-ID: <19de303e0707030630s1a360a3at9bd606313c89e5c7@mail.gmail.com> John Schrerer I've always loved video games, ever since I first played them on a friend's computer in the afternoon after elementary school. There's something almost magical about the fact that we can move images around and interact with virtual worlds, a living fantasy presented for us to interact with however we please. I've also always wanted to make games myself but, until recently, didn't have the technical knowledge to do so. Now, I'm a second year software engineering student, so if I weren't able to code a game without too many dramas there'd be something drastically wrong. But what about the common person: the person for whom the term 'memory leak' conjures up images of their grandfather, 'pipeline' is where the water flows, and 'blitting' is unheard of? Well, everyone can get in on the game creation process, and you don't even need to learn 'real' programming to do so. So where do games start? With an idea. Games, like all fiction, require an idea to be successful. Sure, in the same way you can just sit down and write a story without foresight, you can jump on in and slap a game together. However, unless you get ridiculously lucky, the best works are usually the ones that have been well thought out beforehand. There are two methods of planning a project. You can start from a known technological standpoint and build your project on top of that or you can just go for the design, add as many features and ideas as you like, and then remove the ones that you can't use when you've decided on the technology you're going to implement the game with. In general, the second type is probably the best one to go with when designing games. When you're first starting out however, the first option will save you many headaches. So, for a first game you're going to want a pretty simple idea. Don't get me wrong, crazy-go-nuts game ideas are fantastic, and there should be more of them out there, but you're not going to be able to create a real world simulator with fifty billion virtual people all interacting real time with your actions having a butterfly effect on the future of the virtual universe when it's just your first game. Really. Many people try it; none that I know of have succeeded. Imitation is the best way to start out. Simple games such as 'Space Invaders', 'Tetris', 'Pacman' or even 'Pong' are great places to start. All are largely simple to create but have some inherent challenges. 'Pacman' for example, requires path finding for the ghosts. I recommend that you start even simpler than that for your very first attempt. 'Space Invaders' is a nice point to jump in. You can make a simple, complete game without much effort and it's almost infinitely extensible. If you're stuck for an idea, pick a genre that you enjoy. Do you love adventure games such as 'Monkey Island', 'Grim Fandango', 'Space Quest', 'King's Quest' etc.? Design one of those. Are you into fighting games like 'Street Fighter', 'Tekken', 'Soul Calibur', 'Mortal Kombat' and so on? Come up with an idea for that. Do you like first person shooters such as 'Quake', 'Half Life' or 'Doom'? I don't recommend it as a first project, but you can always give it a go. Feel free to be as generic as you like, this is a learning experience after all. Now that you have your idea it's time to flesh it out. Don't worry about the technology or the fact that you may not know how to actually implement a game just yet, just grab yourself some paper and a pencil and go crazy with ideas. Describe the main characters, game play, goals, interactions, story, and key mappings, anything you can think of. Make sure you have enough detail so that someone can read through the notes and play through the game in their head with relative accuracy. Changing game design during the coding process is almost always a bad idea. Once it's set, it should remain set until the tweaking phase (I'll go into this more later) or you're likely to enter 'development hell', where the project goes on and on; more and more work is done with less and less outcome. At the end of this period of your game creation, you should have the following: - A written outline of the game's characters and possibly a sketch or two (be they space ships, yellow circles, cars or the prince of the dark kingdom of Falgour, you need to know who or what the player will be and who they will compete against) - A written outline of the story (if there is one, this isn't too vital for 'Space Invaders' or 'Tetris', but for 'Uber Quest: An Adventure of Awesomeness' it's a really good idea) - A description of game play, written or storyboarded. Storyboards are visual representations of ideas. Draw your characters in actions, with arrows showing the flow of action and short written descriptions detailing the events occurring in your image (because some of us aren't fantastic artists and our images can be a little... open to interpretation... ) Now that you have a fleshed out idea, it's time to work out how this will all get put together. If you've gotten to this point and are worried that you're going to have to spend years learning complex programming languages in order to implement your idea, fear not! Others have already done the hard yards for you. There are many RAD (Rapid Application Development) Tools available for game creation, a number of which are available for free online. Some of them still require you to learn a 'scripting language' (a simplified programming language made for a specific task) but in general this isn't too complicated or involved. I've compiled a brief list of some of these I have found at the end of the article. The free ones are listed first, organized by game genre. Well, that should be enough to get you started in the creation of your game. The most important thing to remember once you've gotten this far is that you need to complete your game. Many people start a project and then lose interest and it fails, or they keep moving on to one new project after another without finishing anything. Start small, build a working (if simple) game that is, above all else, complete. When you get to this stage you will always have a huge number of things that you wish to change, fix etc. but you'll get a great feeling from knowing that it is, in its way, finished. >From this point, you can start the tweaking phase. Play your game a few times and ask others to do the same. Take note of what isn't fun or could be better and change things here. At this stage, it is more important than ever to keep backups of previous versions so that if a change doesn't work you can go back and try something different without losing any of your work. It is at this point that you can add all new features, improve graphics and sounds, whatever you please, safe in the knowledge that you're working on a solid foundation. When you're happy with your game, why not share it with the world? There are many cheap or free places out there for you to host your files on and then you can jump on link lists and forums and let everyone know about your creation. Well, I hope that this has been a helpful introduction into the art of creating games. It's a great deal of fun, and can open whole new avenues of creative expression for you to explore. Jump in and have fun! http://www.videoprofessor.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.mindrot.org/pipermail/portawiki-discuss/attachments/20070703/22332da9/attachment-0001.html From paul.kholer at gmail.com Wed Jul 4 05:09:04 2007 From: paul.kholer at gmail.com (paul.kholer paul.kholer) Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 22:09:04 +0300 Subject: [portawiki-discuss] Frontier Natural Products Co-op Gets Green With Energy - Joe Merlo Message-ID: <19de303e0707031209l20dcd742v68d723fec43a2f02@mail.gmail.com> Joe Merlo Frontier Natural Products Co-op, a leading U.S. manufacturer and marketer of natural and organic products, announced today that it has purchased enough renewable energy credits from the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) to equal 100 percent of the electrical energy used at its Iowa and Colorado facilities. "Sustainability drives our decision-making process at Frontier. As a natural products industry leader, we are committed to a sustainable business model that includes our suppliers, our employees, and our co-operative owners," said Kathy Larson, Frontier's Vice President of Sustainability and Education. "Offsetting our environmental footprint with Green Tags for wind and solar power is a logical extension of that commitment." The renewable energy credits offered by BEF offset the global warming pollution impacts of conventional electricity generation. Green Tags are created when renewable energy sources ? such as solar and wind power ? are substituted for energy traditionally generated by burning fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas. This purchase is the most recent of many sustainability initiatives the company has undertaken during its 30-year history. A pioneer in sourcing and selling organic herbs, spices, and botanicals, Frontier has supported and established organic growers throughout the world. The company seeks out Fair Trade Certified? suppliers and has established Well Earth, its own ethical and sustainable sourcing certification program for many of its other products. Frontier has incorporated energy-efficient technology into the design of all its facilities over the years, culminating in its recent "cool-roof" warehouse expansion that features high-efficiency heating and cooling systems and energy-saving lighting design with T-5 fluorescent bulbs and motion detectors. Beginning in February and continuing through July 2007, Bonneville and Frontier have teamed up to offer an incentive for others to take part in supporting climate-neutral sources of energy. Customers can purchase BEF Green Tags to offset the environmental impacts of the energy they use in their homes and for commuting. With each Green Tag purchase of $120 or more, customers receive a complimentary Frontier Natural Products gift pack with products from the popular natural brands Frontier, Simply Organic and Aura Cacia. Visitors can then use BEF's carbon calculator to learn how many Green Tags it takes to offset their energy use and be eligible for the free gifts with their purchase. "Frontier's business, its employees, and its customers are enriched by the company's commitment to sustainability," said Tom Starrs, vice president of the Bonneville Environmental Foundation. "Buying Green Tags is another manifestation of that commitment ? one that helps to promote a clean and sustainable energy future." http://www.energyautomation.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.mindrot.org/pipermail/portawiki-discuss/attachments/20070703/68b7f5b5/attachment.html From paul.kholer at gmail.com Wed Jul 4 06:24:34 2007 From: paul.kholer at gmail.com (paul.kholer paul.kholer) Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 23:24:34 +0300 Subject: [portawiki-discuss] Chanel Your Prosperity Energy Today - Energy Automation Systems Message-ID: <19de303e0707031324tb2672eeoea8699f67c44e3ab@mail.gmail.com> Energy Automation Systems Every emotion, wether we classify it as good or bad, has energy. Think about it. Can't you feel it when you are angry or bouncing off the walls happy? Just as there are levels of energy for these emotions, there are levels of energy for another emotion - wanting. A great man called Lester Levinson discovered that this wanting energy is a negative force in our lives. He discovered this on a mission to save his own life, when he was diagnosed with cancer and sent home to die. Wanting money. Wanting to be loved. Wanting to be appreciated. All of these wants and more were slowly killing him. He discovered that this wanting energy equaled a feeling of lack. If you want something you don't have it. He also discovered that we hold onto energy. When we are happy we try to hold on to this feeling. When we are upset about something we try to push it away and get rid of it. He found, and Harvard researchers agreed, that when we let go of our emotions, both "good" and "bad" and just let them flow we find the ultimate state of imperturbability. When you reach this state about the object or person that you are stressing out over, you can actually have what you have been wanting instantly. Researchers at some of the top universities have studied Lester's technique and found that it really works to lessen stress, improve health and increase our natural ability to attract abundance. And stars like Joan Collins, Laura Dern and Sally Jesse Raphael have learned and use this technique every day. This technique is easy to do. It is extremely easy to learn and it is provable. As Lester always said," Take it for checking." Prove it to yourself. Use this powerful technique and channel your prosperity energy today. http://www.energyautomation.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.mindrot.org/pipermail/portawiki-discuss/attachments/20070703/2cf71d25/attachment.html