Erik Novales

Having recently started to get more serious about development at home, I decided to install a couple of different revision control programs and give them a whirl. First, I installed Perforce. Perforce is a commercial version control system, but it’s free to use for up to 2 users and 5 client workspaces. I was already [...]

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I saw a link to this article with a blurb about J.J. Redick: Magic SG J.J. Redick said he had been frustrated enough with his lack of playing time that he wondered if perhaps he should ask about playing with the Anaheim Arsenal of the NBA’s Developmental League. I have to say that I would [...]

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The Arsenal lost 99-91 to the Rio Grande Valley Vipers last night. The box score pretty much tells the story — the Vipers shot 90% from the free throw line (on 25 attempts), grabbed 16 offensive boards, and only turned over the ball 12 times. Compare that to the 71% free throw shooting, 20% 3-point [...]

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Having constructed the Potemkin villages that are game environments, game developers just don’t see games the same way that the general public sees them. Every game developer I know has, at some point (and usually, often) sat around with co-workers, playing the latest and greatest game and critically ripping it apart for problems that are [...]

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Tonight is the home opener of the Anaheim Arsenal, versus the Utah Flash. I read this morning that the Arsenal started the season with a 120-113 loss to the Colorado 14ers (a name that, let’s be honest, does not roll off the tongue as easily as, say, the Sixers). Obviously this was a pretty high-scoring [...]

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Rock Band is awesome. I got it this morning and have been playing the drums for most of the day, driven by the desire to crack the top 1000 in the drum career mode, if only fleetingly. (I finally managed to do so a few minutes ago, peaking at #997. It’s tough, because there are [...]

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It can be found here. The biggest new features include integration with all SKUs of Visual Studio 2005, and support for Live on both Windows and the 360. The Visual Studio integration is huge, in my opinion, if only because it enables source control and add-in support for developers. I guess now you’re also able [...]

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I rented Guitar Hero III the other day, figuring that I should play it, form an opinion of it, and get it out of the way before Rock Band shows up. After playing for a bit, I have to agree with a lot of the criticisms that I have seen leveled at the game: The [...]

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I recently got done reading The Artist and the Mathematician, a book about the fictitious mathematician Nicolas Bourbaki and his influence on 20th century math. Bourbaki was a pseudonym for a group of French mathematicians who were intent on not only revamping the state of math education in France (it having suffered greatly from the [...]

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After writing about “luck manipulation” in tool-assisted speed runs, I got to thinking about the subject of pseudo-random number generation. This is a topic that comes up, briefly yet inevitably, on every game engine project in existence, and I think it’s a good example of a situation where implementation choices are not always as cut [...]

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