I created a game in flash, for android(I know flash is dead, but was the only platform I knew how to code a game). It's based on matches, I did the AI and the game works very well offline.
But now I want to make it online and I never developed anything for web, like websites, webservers. I do not even know what SOAP, REST and this methodologies are.
So what do I need to learn to develop something like this? Here are the requirements :
I want to create a "room" with your facebook friends that are online in the moment.
In this "room" you can invite them to play a match.
The information that is passed client to client is only two points in the cartesian plane(e.g., {(1,2), (3,5)}) and the information that the game may have ended.
It's important to notice that the server must hold connections from
cellphones. The information passed is from cellphone to cellphone.
Develop the whole game in another language or platform is not an option. This is my first game that will be published, so its more like an learning exercise. I dont know PHP nor Python, but I can learn it.
Thanks.
there is a service called Flox (https://www.flox.cc/docs/getting-started) which has a AS3 integration, take a look at it, may help you
So after weeks of research I still cannot make up my mind as to which Game Engine to use, so here I am.
My question is which Game Engine will give me maximum productivity seeing that I:
Want to program in C++, Java, or a Scripting Language
Want to deploy the game first to the iPad, then other mobile devices if possible
Want to make a 2D game
Do not need physics
Don't have money [ Yes sad truth :'( ]
Want to make a game quickly and don't care much about the inner workings of the Engine
Want a Tile Based / Multiplayer / Turn Based Action Game
Don't have a Mac or XCode
Cross-Platform for Mobile Devices
I am not looking for a subjective answer I want to know which Game Engine allows me to do this or be closest to being able to do it.
Try Gideros Studio. It's free, has an IDE, runs on Windows, has tilemap support and cross-platform (iOS & Android). I've gone through your requirements and the only thing you might consider is that Gideros Studio uses Lua, a simple language which is powerful enough to be in thousands of mobile and desktop games today.
Disclaimer: I personally know the founder of Gideros Mobile.
You're overthinking this!
How do I know?
… after weeks of research ...
Want to make a game quickly ...
The only real requirements from your list are:
must be free
must run on Windows
(ideally) tilemap support
All the other points are mostly irrelevant. You want to develop an iPad game, then limit your search to the few available engines which allow development of iOS apps on Windows. Here's for hoping one of them is free, I would be surprised. Corona SDK might fit your bill besides not being free. So maybe use that (you can use it for free but not publish), then make a game quickly, and stop thinking about which engine is the best.
In other words, the time it took you to research all the engines was the time it took someone else to create and publish a game. You can always switch engines for your next project if you want to, but unless you have some experience picking an engine and knowing what's important even thinking about other engines is pretty much a waste of time.
I've been working in C++ in embedded environments for a number of years, developing navigation applications. There is a gaming company in my hometown that I like the look of, but I don't have game development experience. You could consider a navigation app as a type of game, depending on who you are running from.
My question is, what steps should I take to enter the industry? Is it a bad idea to enter the industry at this stage (I'm 30)?
Being 30 doesn't really matter, you can enter the games industry at any age assuming you have the drive and ability.
Start reading about gaming topics, and game development websites (gamedev, gamasutra etc.)
Start writing games. Clones of games you like, your own original ideas, tech demos, anything that you can point to and say "I wrote that, and along the way I learned these things, and solved these problems."
If there is a specific area of interest to you, AI, Rendering, Frontend, Tools & Pipelines, Audio, focus on building game/demo/sample projects that challenge you in that area. "Yeah, I've done that" sounds a lot better in an interview than "yeah I've heard of that".
Get to know people in the industry if you can, through online forums, friends of friends, etc... One good contact can do more for your chances than weeks of demo coding or months of sending resumes out. Game companies may have open houses or job fairs.
The "entry level" jobs in game development are likely to be Frontend or Tools. If you've done navigation apps, sounds like that might be a decent fit for you. If that has included more low level work and optimization on embedded platforms, you might also look at Systems roles.
I'd suggest you start trying to write some games in your spare time. Having some demos is always a good start when you go to an interview and it'll give you some insights into what your job is going to be.
Gamedev.net has an excellent set of tutorials to work through to get a grip of a lot of game-coding concepts.
Do they have any job offerings? If so, look at what they ask for in the CV and start educating yourself in those concepts / technologies.
Contacting them and asking if they have any jobs for an excellent software engineer can't hurt either :)
I see you already accepted an answer, but I'll throw in my two cents:
If the company does console (e.g. Xbox360, PS3) or handheld (e.g. DS, iPhone) games, you should definitely emphasize the embedded aspect of your resume. A few anecdotes about how you optimized the memory layout of a class, or sped up some code by taking advantage of an obscure feature of the chipset will show that you can think like a console programmer. Also, if you did any sort of AI for the navigation apps (e.g. A*, Djikstra), it's good to mention that.
A few people recommended writing games - that's not a bad long term plan if you know you want to get into the industry, but I don't think you should let that stop you from applying to this particular company in the meantime. However you should definitely pick up a copy of one of their recent games, play it for a few hours over the weekend, and be able to say what you liked about it.
As for websites, I second the Gamasutra recommendation, along with Kotaku.
Good luck!
"game industry" is a broad question. There are:
AI programming
Graphic programming.
Sound programming.
Tool programming.
Scripting.
Physics programming.
Network programming.
You probably already can deal with #7, #5 and #4.
As for the rest - mostly it is a dealing with some kind of API, plus you need a very good understanding of 3D math (unless you make 2D game, that is).
For 3d math I cannot help you. I picked info in various non-english sources, and most of them aren't available anymore. However, I think this resource might contain info of interest.
For general 3d graphic info you need to study DirectX SDK and NVidia SDKs (both DirectX and OpenGL), plus there are OpenGL books you HAVE to read:
1. Francis s Hill, "Computer Graphics using OpenGL".
2. OpenGL programming guide aka "Red Book"
3. OpenGL shading language (aka "Orange Book")
4. And you might want to take a look at OpenGL reference manucal ("Blue Book")
I'm talking about OpenGL because while it doesn't offer same level of control for hardware resources, it is easier to get started with than DirectX, and available on larger selection of platforms and have a same power as DirectX. Plus GLSL isn't that different from HLSL (except that GLSL doesn't have remnants of assembly shader programming like HLSL), close enough to C++, so it is relatively easy to get started.
One important thing - if you seriously want to deal with 3D, you have to be able to easily imagine 3d operations in your mind. I.e. how to rotate object, scale object, move object, what matrix means, what is reflection vectors, how to cut polygon with planes, how to find intersection of two meshes, etc, and you should have at least basic understanding of more complex thing like boolean operations on polygonal meshes. I have no idea how to develop this skill (it is very close to "mechanical drawing"), but you'll get a lot of difficulties without it.
Just putting "experienced C++ dev" on your CV will probably get you in the door. The (UK at least) games industry is dominated by graduates and inexperienced programmers - the older ones either burn out or get promoted into management.
A lot of games programming is just programming - the skills are entirely transferable. And your navigation software experience probably puts you in for an AI-related role.
If someone with your background applied to me, I'd certainly give them an interview.
Well I started at 16 with (paid) game development. Search for jobs on websites. Make your own low-budget games and then publish them in a way or another.
If you are good people will search for you, otherwise you have to struggle a bit.
I've been looking for a while for a good web page embed-able mp3 player. I've considered going with the Wimpy Player, but it appears to have problems with Flash 10, and their customer support is unresponsive.
My requirements are pretty simple, I want to be able to play/pause/rewind audio. I'd also like to be able to embed the player multiple times on the same page as well as be able to play a playlist of multiple mp3s.
Any products other than Wimpy that I should be investigating?
Any advice is much appreciated.
Check out jPlayer.
Did you try the player from longtail?
http://www.longtailvideo.com/players/jw-flv-player/
Work for me, and i belive is better as it dosent user HTML5, which is not fully supported across browsers.
I've noticed an increasing number of jobs that are asking for experience with data mining and business intelligence technologies. This sounds like an incredibly broad topic but where would one go if they wanted to develop at least a partial understanding of this stuff if it were to come up in an interview?
A very good book with practical examples is the
Programming Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications by Toby Segaran.
Go read Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools and Techniques (Second Edition).
Then use Weka on a pet project. Despite the name, this is a good book, and the Weka package has several levels of entry into the data-m... er machine-learning world.
Consider reading Ralph Kimball's books for an introduction to Business Intelligence.
Also, try to not stick to one technolgy-vendor, every company has its own biased vision of BI, you'll need a 360 overview.
Maybe you can also try to work with real BI - it is almost impossible to get in contact with data-filled and running SAS, MS, Oracle etc. I work in a team which integrates BI BellaDati for enterprises. For try-out and personal purposes it is free with some datastore limitations ( http://www.trgiman.eu/en/belladati/product/personal ).
BellaDati is also used as a learning tool on technical universities focused on practical application of data mining and analysis. The final manager-level dashboards examples of BellaDati can be seen at http://mercato.belladati.com/bi/mercato/show/worldexchanges
You can work here with SQL datasources, flat files, web services and play. From my own experience - to show real samples of market analysis practise (like case study etc.) is good for an interview.
I wish you luck,
Peter