Unity is a great tool for writing games, and especially so if you are just prototyping some new idea. However, Unity is not only great for games, but works for many other applications as well. Making plans for a new home, I’ve discovered that Unity, together with ProBuilder, is quite useful for sketching floorplans in 3D. The results are quite presentable and offer a first impression on how your future home might look like with your current plans. Continue reading Using ProBuilder for 3D Architectural Sketches
Will Lumberyard be a Unity Killer?
Yesterday a colleague sent me a link which absolutely thrilled me: Amazon has published a new game engine, Lumberyard. Why am I excited? Not only is it based on Crytek’s CryEngine, but it integrates Amazon’s AWS cloud service and is completely free at the same time. But is it enough to be a real threat to Unity‘s market dominance? I had a quick look at the Lumberyard page and here is my opinion.
Continue reading Will Lumberyard be a Unity Killer?
ConquestRelay Server available on GitHub
As promised in my August post I cleaned up the code for my relay server and uploaded a first version to GitHub under the name ConquestRelay. It is meant for hobby game developers prototyping their own online games, but still lacks a lot of functionality found in professional network layers.
Civilization: how to not play Crete
Sunday two weeks ago it was once again time for a game of Civilization, the original board game by WdS. Yet again I had to do with Crete as starting position. But unlike in the previous game this time it was a total mess. The following article is an analysis of what you should not do playing Crete if you wish to stand a chance of winning at all.
Conquest! is a popular Name for Strategy Games
Last week I stumbled over a post by Gamasutra member James Bennet about his game “Conquest!”. “Damn”, I thought, “that’s exactly the working title of my own hobby project, even up to the exclamation mark”. But anyway, Conquest is such a catchy name that it’s probably not the first time it has been used, so I did a quick search and this is what I found. Continue reading Conquest! is a popular Name for Strategy Games
A Relay Server based on WebSockets for Online Games made with Unity Personal
As described in my previous post Unity makes it pretty hard for hobby developers to develop their own online games. It is impossible to run a game server created with Unity on an Amazon AWS instance due to the missing batchmode option. As a workaround I implemented a relay server for my current project which is based on WebSockets and allows me to run my own server at home, combined with the benefits of a server in the cloud with a fixed IP address.
Continue reading A Relay Server based on WebSockets for Online Games made with Unity Personal
Unity in batchmode: for Pros only
For a few months now I’ve been fiddling about my own small multiplayer game using Unity. Basic versions of client and server are now in a state where you can play the first games, at least in my home network. But of course the goal is to play the game over the Internet, so I chose to host the server in the cloud of Amazon’s Web Services (AWS). Setting up your own server there is a separate chapter, which I will hopefully be able to tell later. It turned out that Unity and AWS don’t work together for amateurs like me. Continue reading Unity in batchmode: for Pros only
Free Game Development with Unity and Visual Studio
In recent years, a dramatic change in the gaming industry can be observed: in addition to the well-established, large development studios and publishers there are more and more small, independent studios, who develop their games in-house and do marketing themselves. This development is driven by free game engines such as Unity and, since March 2nd 2015, the Unreal Engine 4, in combination with marketing platforms such as app stores and Steam. With its marketing model, a free version for indie developers and a Pro version for larger Studios, Unity however was the forerunner of this trend. A complete toolchain for development is easy to install and shall be described briefly below. Continue reading Free Game Development with Unity and Visual Studio
CivCalculator available for Download
Buying the right civilization cards in Civilization (the board game) is something of a science in itself. Especially considering all the bonuses correctly requires some higher mathematics. My support tool CivCalculator for Windows PCs supports the players while buying civilization cards. Continue reading CivCalculator available for Download
Welcome to Games:Tech:Blog
Welcome to my very first blog, a blog about games, technology for games, and technology in general – hence the name Games:Tech:Blog. My name is Ingo, in real life I have one of the coolest jobs in IT industry: I’m a games developer. However, these pages won’t be about this job, but about the things I’m working on in my spare time:
- Reviews of board and computer games
Strategy games are the type of games I enjoy most, and I very much like to play older titles, repeatedly. Therefore, I hope that there will not only be one-time reviews but also walk-throughs of matches and strategy guides. - Self-made computer games
There’s a very long queue of good ideas for games and tools for supporting board games in my mind, and now and then I even get to sit down and implement something. I’m happy to share the results with you and of course I hope they will be played or used. Your feedback would be very welcome. - Experience with programming, frameworks, and tools
As a long-time developer you often stumble over problems that lead to interesting solutions or debates. The internet may have solutions for many things, but most of the time they are difficult to find. If writing an article about those issues saves a long search for one or the other, my time was well invested.
Having little experience regarding the “blogosphere” I tend to be a little careful and therefore restrictive with comments – registering before committing comments is therefore necessary at the moment. Nevertheless I am grateful for any criticism or suggestions on my articles and I am happy to publish them. But I’d be as happy about private feedback via email.
The primary language of this blog is German, just because I get it written down much faster. Nevertheless I will try to translate the more interesting articles into English, but I ask for your understanding if this is not always possible.
Thanks for looking in. Hope to see you again soon!