Udacity - HTML5 Game Development course

Recently I discovered a new HTML5 Game course, this time from Udacity. I was intrigued to see if they can teach something I didn't knew already, so I started to take the course. Since the course was just beginning I was able to do it quickly.

The course is based on GRITS game and a couple of Google I/O presentation about the game. GRITS is open source, so you can browse the source code and if you find something clever you can let us know (for example like Paul Irish did with jQuery).

Most of the things are the basic and well known, but you can find here and there a few good tips. I'm not saying that you'll throw away your code and rewrite it again but maybe you'll do a couple of tweaks here and there.

I didn't knew about TexturePacker - is a nice little tool that we might use in the future, as for Tiled - we already have our own map editor, so I don't know if we'll switch but, you know, it can be good for new projects.

Best Anti-Tank Gun of WWII: the German 88

© S H Photos

While the best tank of the war is controversial, I think we can find more agreement on the best anti tank gun of the WWII: the 88mm Flak.

Originally used as anti aircraft gun, the 88mm Flak became famous when used as a anti-tank weapon.

Here is an example about its efficiency. The Real Reason for the 88’s Success:

During Operation Battleaxe from 15th to 18th June 1941 the Commonwealth forces are known to have lost 92 AFVs including 82 tanks to the I./Flak-Regiment 33, a Luftwaffe mixed flak battalion with 12 88s.(7) The only other heavy flak battalion available to Rommel through 1941 was the identical I./Flak-Regiment 18. By the end of 1941 these two Luftwaffe flak battalions (authorised a total of 24 88s) had destroyed 264 tanks and 42 aircraft.(8) During this period the Allied forces had over three times as many 3.7inch AA guns available as the Axis forces had 88s, yet the German and Italian tank crews probably never even got to see one.(9)

How to become a game design master

Machinarium game concept

You think you can design games? You think you know why is a game fun or not? Maybe not now but you will as soon as you read Game Design Concepts - An experiment in game design and teaching

Game Design Concepts was started as an experiment by Ian Schreiber - one of the authors of Challenges for Game Designers book. It is an online course in game design. Unlike most of the stuff out there that is mostly theoretical, this course is very practical.

So what will you find there?

By the end of this course, you will be familiar with the (relatively small) body of work that is accepted in the game industry as the theoretical foundation of game design. You will also be comfortable enough in processes to start designing your own games, as well as critically analyzing other people’s games.

Each lesson ends with a homeplay (a.k.a homework) and links to related articles or books. Those links alone are gems, believe me you'll find what to read there.

We found some nifty strategy ideas for Panzer Division there, I'm sure you'll find too as soon as you start designing a game.

In case you are hungry for more, in 2010, the experiment continued as Game Balance Concepts - A continued experiment in game design and teaching.

The beginning

I remember that more than an year ago, I was talking with Rares about the games he has played on his iPad. He told me that he was looking for a strategy game similar to Panzer General, be he hadn't found any on AppStore. It seemed that one couldn't find any WW2 strategy game published for iPad at that time.

I suggested to him that we should try to make such a game. We are both software developers and creating games is certainly a interesting challenge for people like us. But besides being interesting, making games is also hard, especially bringing them to completion. Anyway, developing a turn-based strategy game was something we thought we could accomplish, so we started working.

The main idea was to create a Panzer General remake that could run on iPad. We decided that a 2D look, similar to the first Panzer General game, was more likely for us to get done. From this first PG game we would also use the strategic feeling of its campaigns, something that the second Panzer game kind of missed. But anyway, the PG2 was better from other perspectives, such as control and leader abilities, so this meant that our remake would be a mix of the best elements of the two Panzer General games.

More than a gadget

A couple of years ago, Apple launched a new device which looked like an oversized iPhone. This new tablet computer proved very successful, more than 50 millions iPads being sold in the first two years. Other manufacturers started producing tablet PCs, using Google's Android operating system. Also, the incoming Microsoft's Windows 8 OS has been designed to run of both PC computers as well as on tablet devices. The conclusion is obvious, this kind of device will be the future of consumer computing.

The iPad owns a lot of its success to the multitude of applications that were developed to run on it. A great deal of those application are games. But many of those games are the ones designed for smartphones, where the general use case is to play for short periods of time. The iPad, however, seems to be suitable for other kind of games, as well. This is mainly due to its big screen size compared to a smartphone.

A lot of people are passionate about strategy games, but there are few titles available that cover this genre on iPad. I am not aware of any that focuses on the same gameplay and WWII setting as the Panzer General series and I think many strategy gamers would like to play such a game on their tablets.

If one thinks about it, turn based strategy games are quite a good fit to be played on a tablet device. There's no need for real-time 3D flashy graphics and the touch interface can easily provide the required level of control. The game can be played for a while, suspended and then later the player can continue from where he left off.

Multiplayer is also a viable option, in some derivative form of the old play by e-mail (PBEM) system. Such an option would be an online server which could provide both a game lobby to find opponents and storage for the between-turn saved games.

So, it seems that the stage is set. It's time for The Panzer Division to show up.