Physical Queries for the Math Challenged: Ray Casting

Hopefully, you’ve read my previous article on setting up the basic grid data structure and performing collision detection. If not quickly go read the section on the grid since we’ll be leveraging that data structure to perform ray casting. Ray casting is a powerful and reasonably simple technique which can be used to answer several questions about the environment. Last time we covered collision detection, but collision detection is only... Read More

Game Artwork: City Tileset

After Forte I dreamt up another game — a RTS based in a city. Anyway, I’m still toying with the idea, but as things start to get busier I worry that I will never end up using the tileset I created for the game. That’s why I thought I’d share the tileset now in case someone else can use it. Each tile is 48×48 pixels. Each tile is some building or relevant piece of scenery. Also, each building contains a score — this... Read More

Finding the Right 2D Game Engine

At the start of the summer I set out to program a few games. I was totally new to game programming so I wanted to find a framework to take care of some of the complicated (to me!) stuff related to timing, input, and drawing to a canvas. My search finally ended when I found the Slick framework, but along the way I managed to learn a fair deal about competing frameworks and that there is a paucity of information comparing them all. So, to help fill... Read More

Physical Queries for the Math Challenged: Collision Detection and Response

Following developing Forte I thought I would share some of the challenges I encountered and more importantly how I overcame them. I am what you might call a design nut more than a number wonk, so some aspects of game programming are more challenging for me. Specifically, I ran into trouble when I needed to implement collision detection and ray casting for my tile based game. If you find yourself needing a collision detection scheme to fit your game... Read More