Category Archives: ProTip

The Game Deadline Problem, part 3

Posted on October 2, 2011 by admin

THE OCTOBER GAME was taking longer to finish than expected. Since I was unwilling to abandon it after some arbitrary date (that is, set a true deadline), I had to improve my development process. Why was the game taking longer? … Continue reading →

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The dumbest possible way to check for dead dependencies

Posted on July 14, 2011 by admin

This is so dumb, I can’t believe it works. Comment out all #imports in a class Build Note number of errors and warnings Uncomment each #import in turn If number doesn’t change, leave commented-out Once all are checked, delete any … Continue reading →

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On The Dangers of High Self-Esteem

Posted on March 26, 2011 by admin

Shmott Guy Anti-patterns Being A Short List of Descriptions, Remedies and Example Thoughts, Enumerated in the Hope of Learning From the Mistakes of Others* Unwarranted optimism leading to higher risk-taking Sounds like: “I can produce my first commercial video game … Continue reading →

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Fatal Distractions

Posted on March 5, 2011 by admin

Making THE OCTOBER GAME: Defense against Distraction Welcome fellow #iDevBlogADay readers. I’m Will Culpepper, a fairly new, solo iPhone developer. My company is called eliolhan and I have four programs on the iOS App Store: How Old Am I, Tipidy, … Continue reading →

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Bug Hunting

Posted on January 14, 2011 by admin

Making THE OCTOBER GAME: Uninitialized Values are Not Your Friends While rebuilding THE OCTOBER GAME prototype to use cocos2d, I ran into a subtle and persistent bug: Any time the player quickly hit three bad guys in a row, the … Continue reading →

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High Hanging Fruit

Posted on December 28, 2010 by admin

Making THE OCTOBER GAME: The Kzinti school of problem-solving As a noob developer, I don’t always know when to tackle a difficult area immediately or wait and let my subconscious chew on it for a while. From what I learned … Continue reading →

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Search Your Feelings Luke

Posted on December 15, 2010 by admin

Making THE OCTOBER GAME: Facing the Uncomfortable Late in the first week of December, it felt like The October Game was in the last stages. Having the game come out before Christmas didn’t seem too unreasonable. App submission had to … Continue reading →

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Fear is the Mind Killer

Posted on November 17, 2010 by admin

Making THE OCTOBER GAME: A Handy List of Fears to Ignore …when creating your very first commercial game. Say them out loud. My game will: be too simple have crude artwork have lame music be too small get bad reviews … Continue reading →

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The Oldest One in the Book

Posted on October 21, 2010 by admin

Making THE OCTOBER GAME: Don’t code tired As the deadline for the game looms, I gave in to the temptation to pull an all-nighter. This was a mistake. Yesterday I wasted about four hours hunting down a bug. Here it … Continue reading →

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Folly and Repentance

Posted on October 5, 2010 by admin

Making THE OCTOBER GAME: Engine-itis Yea, though I was warned of the folly of creating a game engine instead of a game, still, in my hubris did I go down that path, littered though it is with the broken shards … Continue reading →

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