There’s one thing (well, there are several, but one which I’ll talk about right now) that’s always bothered me a good deal about most MMO combat systems, which is that character position and movement are only very rarely an influential factor. There are a few games that do some interesting things: Aion takes into account [...]
Posts Tagged ‘tile-based games’
The many faces of battle
Sunday, October 11th, 2009Order of the Draw
Saturday, October 3rd, 2009I’ve decided to follow up yesterday’s rather unorganized post with one that has a bit more planning put into its presentation. Today, we’ll be taking a look at a very specific part of a spriting engine: draw orders. The draw order of your sprites is a crucial element in any spriting system, and optimizing draw [...]
Sprightly Sprites: Bringing game worlds to life
Friday, October 2nd, 2009Today we’ll be shifting gears a bit, and exploring some of the more technical aspects of creating and animating a two-dimensional world. At the heart of two-dimensional animation is the concept of a sprite, a graphic image which can move and change within a larger image. Assuming that your “larger image” might be something along [...]
Look around you
Saturday, August 15th, 2009Do you see it? That’s right, it’s the world. I realize I’m being a bit cryptic; today’s post is about exactly how the graphics of a game can set the tone for the entire ordeal, creating an atmosphere that is capable of influencing every aspect of the players’ experiences, from changing moods to simply generating [...]