Erik Novales

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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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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Looks like it was just posted this evening. I had coincidentally decided to check to see if it had finally been released, and came across this lengthy forum thread of frustrated phone users where the release of the update was eventually discovered. I haven’t installed it yet, but I’m curious about the changes and improvements [...]

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I read an e-mail thread recently on the sweng-gamedev mailing list which jogged my memory about one of my most hated development clichés — “proven technology.” Why do I hate this phrase so much? The phrase implies a certain obvious correctness — nobody ever got fired for buying IBM, right? It conveniently ignores any facts [...]

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I recently saw a link to this blog entry by Christer Ericson (of SCEA), which is a pretty amusing rip on an academic who has tut-tutted the game development community about poor AI. (Definitely check out the video linked in the blog entry to get the proper context for this entry.) I frequently see gamers [...]

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The Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer expansion pack is out in the US now, so go pick up a copy. (I didn’t work on it directly, but I did help out at various stages consulting on bug fixes and feature additions, particularly relating to the toolset.)

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I downloaded the Visual Studio 2008 beta and started messing around with it. I was particularly curious about the .NET Compact Framework, and poking around with writing programs for my fancy new AT&T 8525. First impressions of Visual Studio 2008 are positive. It’s basically a refined version of 2005, with support for newer versions of [...]

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