jhocking

8,212 reputation

12235

bio	website	newarteest.com
	location	Chicago, IL
	age	34
visits	member for	2 years, 1 month
	seen	1 hour ago
stats	profile views	594

I'm an interactive media developer living in Chicago. Work I do includes programming web games in ActionScript 3/Flash, using JavaScript in webpages, writing Python for both client and server applications, building iPhone games using Lua/Corona SDK, and multiplatform development using Unity.

I work for Synapse Games. I also teach at schools such as the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Columbia College.

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	8,212 reputation	bio	website	newarteest.com	visits	member for	2 years, 1 month
12235 badges		location	Chicago, IL		seen	1 hour ago

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1d	comment	Should I use Java, HTML5, or Unity 3D for my Game? and in the previous section they say "This tool enables Java code to be part of an iOS application's build, as no editing of the generated files is necessary. The goal is to write an app's non-UI code (such as data access, or application logic) in Java". So in other words nothing platform dependent, like say graphics.
1d	comment	Should I use Java, HTML5, or Unity 3D for my Game? note the section "What J2ObjC isn't": J2ObjC does not provide any sort of platform-independent UI toolkit, nor are there any plans to do so in the future. iOS UI code needs to be written in Objective-C or Objective-C++ using Apple's iOS SDK (Android UIs using Android's API, web app UIs using GWT, etc.)
2d	comment	Can I write code from 2 computers at the same time? possible duplicate of What is the most effective way to work with a friend on the same game?
May 9	comment	What is billboarding, and can/should it be used in 3D games to create special effects for weapon blasting effects? Weapon blasting effects aren't always particle systems, but yeah typically if you tried to use billboards you'd just end up with a simple ad-hoc particle system. The main weapon effect that would be billboards and not particle systems would be laser beams, and that would be variant billboards that only rotate on the long axis, not completely facing the camera. Also note that muzzle flares are generally done with animated textures on standard quads, not billboards or particle systems.
May 8	comment	Playtesting Own Game - How To Be Objective? Playing with modified input methods could totally defeat the purpose for a lot of playtesting, although I suppose it depends on both the game and what you're testing (eg. testing the difficulty in an FPS level while playing with one hand would be pretty pointless.)
May 7	comment	Playtesting Own Game - How To Be Objective? fwiw, my second sentence did say "Do play your own game frequently" but with caveats. I don't ignore it, I say it'll never be objective.
May 7	comment	Playtesting Own Game - How To Be Objective? eh, most of these suggestions seem to be either too much work or defeating the purpose of playtesting. For example, randomizing all the textures: for the amount of effort that would take, you could do a lot of playtesting with others and get much better information. The one idea I like is exaggerating game mechanics, and even then for a different reason than you suggest; you should be playtesting variations on your game in order to see what's best.
May 7	awarded	Enlightened
May 7	awarded	Nice Answer
May 6	comment	What does a Game Designer do? what skills do they need? blackjack vs. poker is a great example!
May 6	comment	Snapping of irregular images in iphone puzzle app ah I didn't think of rotation, so yeah that would need more info than just position. but @neha the whole point of this answer is that shape doesn't matter at all. Unless you're wanting to snap together shapes that fit whether or not they are correct; is that what you mean? I wouldn't think snapping incorrect links would be desirable...
May 6	comment	Snapping of irregular images in iphone puzzle app Actually you don't need to use the bounding boxes, it's simpler to just use the position of the image, but yeah just store a list of where each piece is positioned relative to it's neighbor and snap to those target positions.
May 2	comment	How can I get pre-release reviews of my mobile game? oh yeah, I forgot
May 1	comment	How can I get pre-release reviews of my mobile game? please change the title, it sounds like this is self-promotion spam
Apr 26	comment	How can I deploy a JavaScript game into the iOS app store? well I did not know about that, cool
Apr 25	comment	How can I deploy a JavaScript game into the iOS app store? I also thought of PhoneGap immediately when I saw the question title, but upon reading the first sentence I saw that wouldn't help him. He doesn't have a Mac, so he can't use any sort of packaging framework; he's asking about literally just HTML5 and nothing else.
Apr 21	comment	How do I detect when one sprite is moving away from another? You need to give us a lot more detail about your problem. For starters, are the sprites in question under the control of the player or your movement code? In other words, can you simply check "if movementVector1 dot movementVector2 < 0" or is your situation more complicated than that?
Apr 16	comment	How much lines of code is 1kB? Actually, since the OP mentions CSS source a proper answer would address the difference.
Apr 16	comment	Why wouldn't one use Canvas for HTML 5 game development? While all 3 points make sense, points 2 + 3 are well covered by the various frameworks out there, like EaselJS. Which really just ties back to point 1, a lack of knowledge about what options are available.
Apr 14	comment	Java 2D game programming: Different approaches to make a game loop The question was about game loops so the awt/swing information is off-topic. However it looked like that information was relevant because of an irrelevant and confusing line in the question, so I removed that.