Game Development Articles

Blackberry Programming: Alter Bitmap Color on the Fly {02-21-2010}

While working on my current Blackberry game, I ran into a situation where I needed to change the color of of a bitmap. Specifically, I wanted to signify an object was “hit” by temporarily tinting it red – i.e. I wanted to keep the original bitmap color pattern, but wanted to increase the red portion [...]

A Quick Kudos to Blender {08-06-2009}

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m currently developing another Blackberry game, one I hope that turns out fun enough that people will want to play. As with most games, it requires graphics – which has actually always been somewhat of a road block for me. I don’t have many acquaintances that are able [...]

Using Excel to Create Your Game’s Binary Data Files {07-31-2009}

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here yet, but I’m currently in the middle of developing a new Blackberry game that I hope to have on App World when I’m complete (as I get closer to completion I’ll put some screen shots up). I’ve always wanted to put an application or game up on one [...]

From Pong to Platformers – An Introduction to Game Physics – Part 4 {06-21-2009}

Acceleration for Better Goomba Stomping So now we understand positioning an object on a screen, moving the object around using the principles of velocity, and how to handle collisions with walls and other simple objects. While we can do quite a lot with these simple fundamentals, there is one more that is key to modeling [...]

From Pong to Platformers – An Introduction to Game Physics – Part 3 {06-21-2009}

Thinking Inside the Box However, now that we have movement, we run into an issue. When we think of a classic video game, we think of boundaries, such as the edge of the screen, or floors/walls/ceilings, or other objects. In many games, such as platformers, these boundaries will stop the object from moving. In games [...]

From Pong to Platformers – An Introduction to Game Physics – Part 2 {06-21-2009}

Velocity Velocity is a fancy word for speed with a particular direction. Going 88 MPH would be speed. Going north at 88MPH would be velocity. But forgetting the direction component for a moment, speed is measured in distanced traveled over time. For example, when we say 88 Miles per Hour, we’re saying the object is [...]

From Pong to Platformers – An Introduction to Game Physics – Part 1 {06-21-2009}

Before we get started, I feel the need to point out that this entry will in no way even begin to approach the territory of being comprehensive in the study of video game physics. This is targeted toward those who have little background in physics and is very much a starter tutorial. In general, the [...]

Creating a Blackberry Game – Part 6 {05-03-2008}

Looking for part 5? Let’s Hear It! Our game is almost done – the only part left is the sound (and vibration) processing. This is a fairly simple class as well – again, most of the low level processing is done already by the Blackberry. However – you may want to play with the methods [...]

Creating a Blackberry Game – Part 5 {05-03-2008}

Looking for part 4? Let’s See Our Game Now that our logic is done, we have a few holes in the program where calls are made to graphics and sound processing. By isolating (for the most part, as much as our program allows) graphics and sound processing from the rest of the program, it offers [...]

Creating a Blackberry Game – Part 4 {05-03-2008}

Looking for part 3? Cue the Objects Just like Object is the root for all classes in Java, OBJ is the root class for all of our classes in our game that represent sprites on the screen. This is where object oriented programming really shines through for game creation. By setting up a parent class, [...]

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