Overview of four types of curves that can be used in game development.  Basic parabola for moving objects in an arc.  Sine function for moving objects in a wave motion.  Physics using velocity and acceleration for simulating actions such as jumping and falling.  Bezier curve for moving objects along a curved path.  Examples of functions … Continue reading Curves – Knox Game Design, July 2022 →

Overview of I-frames, invincibility, stun lock, and knock back. How these are implemented in games, statistics from examples of classic games, and demo project showing various methods for implementing invincibility time. Links and Notes Demo project – https://github.com/levidsmith/KnoxGameDesign/tree/master/iframes Podcast theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

This month’s Knox Game Design presentation topic is Enemy Behaviors. This is a look at various enemy behavior types: Back and forth (timer / collision based) Alert and chase, using distance / timer for stop chasing Move random direction and wait Orbital children, with varying radius length and orbit speed Behavior combination (orbital children and … Continue reading Enemy Behaviors – Knox Game Design, May 2022 →

Games created by Knox area developers for Spring ’22.  Theme was “delay the inevitable”. Links and Notes Cult of the Furnace by Jacob – https://gamejolt.com/games/furnace_cult/706365 Possum Blitz by Levi – https://levidsmith.com/games/possum-blitz/ Podcast theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Explanation of calculating collision between basic 3D objects (rectangular solids/cubes and spheres). Methods used can be applied to any programming language or game development environment. Review of demo Ruby code to detect collision between rectangular solids and spheres. Links and Notes Ruby 3D collision calculator – https://github.com/levidsmith/collision3d Caverns of Evil on Steam by BlackJar72 – … Continue reading Basic 3D Collision – Knox Game Design, March 2022 →

Explanation of 2D collisions for points, lines, rectangles, and circles.  Overview of each collision type along with examples and code.  Explanations are general in nature so that they can be implemented in any game engine or programming language.  Demonstration of Javascript web application that calculates collisions between the four types of objects, along with review … Continue reading 2D Collision – Knox Game Design, February 2022 →

Explanation of Dijkstra’s algorithm for finding the shortest path in a graph based on a selected starting node. Walkthrough of an example of the algorithm. Demo of implementation of Dijkstra’s algorithm in Unity and C#. Dijkstra Demo in Unity (Unity WebGL) Dijkstra Demo Source Code Links and Notes Dijkstra’s Shortest Path Algorithm – https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/dijkstras-shortest-path-algorithm-greedy-algo-7/ Dijkstra’s … Continue reading Dijkstra’s Algorithm – Knox Game Design, January 2022 →

Explanation of particle systems in Unity, along with modifiers such as emission shape, bursts, color over time, custom shapes, and size over lifetime. Demo project and code – https://github.com/levidsmith/ParticleSystemDemo Links and Notes Unity Particle System documentation – https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/ParticleSystems.html Unity – https://unity.com/ Podcast theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Overview of the Stencyl game development environment for making 2D games.   Explanation of scenes, actors, behaviors, events, and visual coding.  Examples of a number guessing game and simple space shooter. Links and Notes Stencyl – https://www.stencyl.com/ Stencyl download archive – http://community.stencyl.com/index.php?topic=5530.0 Podcast theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

This month, Knox developers Allen, Jared, and Levi show off their games developed for Fall ’21 and more. Links and Notes Dark Crossings by Allen – https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/dark-crossings Cubic Nightmare by Jared – https://jaredbgreat.itch.io/cubic-nightmare Chester Servesalot by Levi – https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/waiter-extraordinaire John Handgonne’s wacky escapade by Jacob – https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/john-handgonnes-wacky-escapade Podcast theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster