Dev Links: Going To Town

Today’s Dev Links discuss doing things a little differently, with touchscreen controls and cloud gaming.

discuss doing things a little differently, with touchscreen controls and cloud gaming.  Also, version control, which is something you’ll probably have to deal with no matter what platform you’re developing your game for.

Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 4 News and Screenshots – Battles, Monster Allies, and World Map(Zeboyd Games)
“Lots of fun news for you all today.  First up, we have the first set of battle screenshots for the game. You may recognize a few familiar faces.”

Let’s Talk About Touching: Making Great Touchscreen Controls(Gamasutra)
“I’ve been working on making mobile games as the founder of an independent studio called Action Button Entertainment. In order to make the best mobile games, I’ve been dissecting and researching every interesting game-control mechanic I can find, from Pong to Angry Birds . Here is what I’ve found.”

Democracy 3: Voter Type Income Design…(Cliffski.com)
“Sooo.. I found myself almost sleepwalking into adding a new feature to Democracy 3. I honestly can’t remember actually making the decision to include it, it just seemed to ‘happen’. In democracy 2, the model for income of voters is fairly basic. You can implement policies which affect different levels of income (luxury goods tax hits the rich, for example), and that would affect the membership of the poor, middle income and wealthy voter groups. So far so good.”

What Is Bionic Heart 2 ?(Computer Games)
“I realized that I always talked about Bionic Heart 2 like if everyone played the first game. By the way, if you haven’t, you should since I lowered its price to $9.99and even if was one of my earlier games, the story is still one of the best I think. Anyway, for those who haven’t played it, I’ll introduce the game. Warning there are some small spoilers about some endings/characters of the first game, so be warned before you continue reading!”

The Video Game Kickstarter Report – Week of Feb 22(Zeboyd Games)
“First up for this week, we have a new Adventure/RPG hybrid called Mage’s Initiation. Developed by the team responsible for the King’s Quest 1-3 & Quest for Glory 2 remakes, Mage’s Initiation looks to be heavily inspired by the Quest for Glory series. That means multiple character classes, traditional Sierra Online style puzzles, alternate routes of success, and RPG stats. They’re off to a strong start with $39k of their $65k goal raised with 28 days left to go.”

A Clarification About Our PS4 Exclusivity(The Witness)
“There has been worry and speculation on the internet about the PS4 exclusivity that we announced during the press conference, so here are some details to help answer those questions.”

Game Development: Version Control(Unknown Worlds)
“Games are complex systems. They mix 2d and 3d artwork, sounds, game logic and rendering engines. These systems are most often created by teams. The biggest games are often worked on by hundreds of people. All these people are making changes, adding pieces, and fixing problems. It is essential to keep track of all these actions in order to maintain the integrity of the whole. Such tracking is facilitated by systems referred to in game development as ‘version control.’”

Cloud Gaming Helps Indie Developers, Playcast Board Member Says(Polygon)
“Cloud gaming helps independent developers break into the living room through digital distribution , according to Gadi Tirosh, a member of the board of directors of Playcast. Tirosh believes that distributing console quality games through the cloud circumvents retail channels that have prevented smaller developers from penetrating the market. Services like Playcast are ‘removing the barriers to distribution to console games, which historically have been quite high,’ he said.”