tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16071638727693739702010-09-06T10:12:18.849-04:00<p>The official blog of Nicholas DiMucci, graduate computer science student by day, indie game developer by night.</p>ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.comBlogger85125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-75735598020480107012010-08-28T09:14:00.004-04:002010-08-28T13:10:48.889-04:00

The past week I've picked up about three different math books aimed for game programmers, which gloss over important math topics that a game programmer would most likely encounter programming games and graphics. The problem with the majority of these books is that they were too vague and/or just failed at explaining concepts clearly. It seems to be a common problem of trying to cover too much,

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-54531661732106331312010-08-24T16:52:00.008-04:002010-08-25T21:10:59.209-04:00

Continuing my reckless game programming sabbatical, I've came to the painful, and somewhat confounded conclusion that I desperately need to do more prerequisite work before I can fully commit to anything satisfactory in XNA. I admit, I wasn't expecting the level of mathematics that I've encountered thus far, creating even the most seemingly simple games, such as an Asteroid clone. Just to rotate

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-82885179232144226532010-08-22T21:17:00.003-04:002010-08-22T22:08:57.470-04:00

To be honest, it's all been leading up to this point. Most of the decisions that I've made in the past two years or so were so I can finally be in the position I am now, hunkering down and programming games. So here I am, learning XNA, ripping what little hair I have left out of my head, inducing heartburn, shackled to the computer, living the dream, facing the most difficult challenges I have

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-22677083298693496342010-07-17T16:39:00.007-04:002010-07-17T16:48:03.395-04:00

Excerpt from a Gamasutra interview with Ron Gilbert, conducted by Chris Remo.Are there other things you feel games like World of Warcraft have taught single-player games, or should?RG: I think that the big thing about World of Warcraft is the whole open world. I had played EverQuest and Ultima Online, but the thing that struck me about World of Warcraft was the fact that the world never loaded.

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-74991811578296718642010-07-14T21:39:00.003-04:002010-07-14T21:43:43.831-04:00

Hack n Slash, action RPG games have never been my thing, thus I wasn't expecting to enjoy Ron Gilbert's new game, DeathSpank, on any level. However, I'm always open to at least trying the demo. After a 1gig download, I loaded up the demo, and within minutes I was 1200 points poorer. I continued to play for about 4 hours straight without realizing. DeathSpank is a wonderful game with awesome,

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-91649616751757885022010-07-10T21:49:00.008-04:002010-08-25T21:18:10.120-04:00

Let's shotgun blast through this. No time to waste. Bite sized reviews of games I've played recently.Red Dead Redemption. This game needs more than a few sentences to review, but a game brought down slightly by a boring sandbox. The wild west doesn't make for as great of a game as you'd expect. Everyone seems to have cum for the game, but I don't find it nearly as enjoyable as GTAIV. However,

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-3267130138581342262010-06-15T09:08:00.001-04:002010-06-15T09:09:14.191-04:00

Video Games | Crysis 2 | E3 2010: Urban Siege Gameplay HDXBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo WiiThis is why I officially support 5-10 year console cycles, cause eventually you will get graphics like this out of them. Developers need the time to optimize the hardware.

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-64092991185805759582010-06-15T09:01:00.002-04:002010-06-15T09:02:18.221-04:00

Video Games | Bulletstorm | E3 2010: Campaign Gameplay HDXBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo WiiBulletstorm, the new king of campy, hardcore action. Game of the century right here folks.

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-73103590472252091662010-06-11T20:48:00.002-04:002010-06-11T20:49:14.090-04:00

Duke Nukem Forever announcement coming this week at E3. I'm calling it. Release date maybe?

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-78976576674284140922010-04-30T19:00:00.004-04:002010-04-30T19:09:03.431-04:00

As always, still very much a work in progress. I'm currently working on the lightening and polishing up the terrain work. As soon as that's all squared off, I'll probably venture into Kismet work along with destructible boulder static meshes. Finally once that is all taken cared off, I want to begin the next level, the interior of an alien space ship. Trust me, it'll link together nicely :)

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-43750715920445160202010-04-20T09:55:00.002-04:002010-04-20T09:58:13.800-04:00

A blog entry of mine, "A Whole New Level of Emotional Engagement" is currently a "Featured Post" over at Gamasutra.com. Yes, I am tooting my own horn. Yes I am.

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-24990820508080626622010-04-18T19:04:00.007-04:002010-04-18T19:22:25.398-04:00

I began working with the UDK last week. I had no real plan for what I wanted to make, other than some type of CTF map at first, which eventually would turn into it's own mini-game (at this time, I'm just working on mastering the UDK and level design). After a day or two I had the urge to make a singleplayer map for the original Gears of War on PC, so I bought a copy from Amazon and a few days

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-16026921693678178362010-04-15T08:54:00.001-04:002010-04-15T08:55:23.820-04:00

Good ole' times.Talk a walk down memory lane.

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-87057786436069627632010-04-12T09:53:00.004-04:002010-04-14T15:10:04.567-04:00

Rumbles in the making with the UDK.

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-63137724935532499742010-04-01T20:20:00.009-04:002010-04-03T09:59:57.343-04:00

Apophis is an adventure style platformer that I co-created with fellow classmate Mike Funaro. Apophis is the story of ex-marine Tyler Ruck, a man with nothing to lose in a post-apocalyptic world. In 2036, a giant asteroid named Apophis came crashing down into the Atlantic, causing massive destruction on a global scale. Along with the destruction caused by the asteroid impact, the asteroid brought

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-12083644593458858862010-03-07T11:31:00.004-05:002010-04-20T09:40:05.556-04:00

SPOILER ALERT! This article contains many spoilers to both Fallout 3 and Heavy Rain.Quantic Dream, with their newest release Heavy Rain, may have cracked the emotional barrier between developer and gamer. That impervious wall which developers have since the dawn of video games have failed to break through, grab the player and create an emotional experience on par with most film dramas and penguin

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-5637370327181573062010-02-09T12:03:00.000-05:002010-02-09T12:04:00.224-05:00

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-3527749781612232132010-01-24T12:56:00.003-05:002010-01-24T12:58:07.429-05:00

http://adrianwerner.wordpress.com/games-of-2010/Another hit and run post. Not enough hours in the day. Anyways, enjoy this article. It's great if only to discover of PC games that you didn't know about.

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-17920564462831550892010-01-15T16:50:00.000-05:002010-01-15T16:51:28.972-05:00

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-21988673865684732332009-08-29T10:12:00.005-04:002010-04-05T09:31:39.669-04:00

My third UT3 map, but my first CTF. I put a lot more time into this one than my previous two. Added some Z-axis gameplay and concentrated much more on gameplay and balance this time around. Lighting was a challenge and an area that I need to work on.Click below to download the map files.

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-53394857388295772062009-08-29T09:52:00.001-04:002009-08-29T09:52:41.721-04:00

Lucasarts, just let this one slide.

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-85889302026622923352009-06-29T10:56:00.000-04:002009-06-29T10:57:36.529-04:00

Blizzard's Library.Heaven. If I could be the librarian here, I'd live a very happy life.

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-23467902817161066272009-06-24T18:40:00.004-04:002009-06-24T19:11:55.137-04:00

It's been awhile since I've talked about the big HL2 mod I am currently working on, Neptune. For the most part, it's been coming along, slowly, but surely. When the team came together, and I joined the project back in about August of 2008, we were all extremely excited about the project, very ambitious and eager to get it done. However, we became over ambitious trying to create something that we

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-42790020054245851582009-06-11T11:16:00.004-04:002009-06-11T11:17:40.523-04:00

http://blogs.nyu.edu/blogs/be18/thenyugamecenter/You will find the podcasts of the lecture series featuring game designers such as Jonathan Blow, Warren Spector and a few others that the NYU Game School held earlier in the Spring. A great listen for any game developer.

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607163872769373970.post-40897521927631310612009-06-05T16:05:00.008-04:002010-04-05T09:35:44.295-04:00

My second UT3 map, DM-Intersection, is still very small in scale, but I made it less claustrophobic and more atmospheric. At this stage, I'm more concerned with learning how to use UnrealEd and all of its features and capabilities than I am with making a world class deathmatch map. For this map, I focused more on illusion, atmosphere, static mesh placement, lighting, and level balance. One of the

ndimuccihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01709504850062875328noreply@blogger.com0