Knowledge is Power - Learn Digital Design

We are reader-supported. Purchases made through links on our site may earn us a commission. Learn More. How to Make A VR Game With the impressive rise of things like Oculus Rift and other headsets from VR companies, virtual reality gaming may well be a large cornerstone of gaming in the near future. You may […]

As games become more realistic, we are blurring the line between fantasy and reality. With each passing year, we see more and more impressive displays of graphical prowess. This is helped along in part by bump mapping. This is the graphical technique of making objects appear to have their own distinctive features, (when they really […]

Introduction to 2D Animation Some of the best games in video game history have been 2D: Early Final Fantasy titles; The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past; Castlevania, and more. It’s only natural that you would want to take part in this legendary and beloved gaming tradition. And now you can! With the […]

We are reader-supported. Purchases made through links on our site may earn us a commission. Learn More. Character Sprites What Is A Character Sprite? A character sprite is a simple 2D video game graphic included as part of a broader environment. For example, The characters in Final Fantasy VI, The Legend of Zelda, Pokemon Red, […]

Do You Need Substance Painter? If you are an artist of any stripe, Substance Painter can be an amazingly useful tool. Substance Painter focuses mostly on painting textures onto models. Substance Painter ups the ante on painting assets than you would normally get in other programs like those in the Adobe Suite of programs. If […]

What Makes A Game A Game? We play games all the time, but are we all intimately familiar with the core concepts of game elements and mechanics that make up our favorite titles? The very concept of a game is a form of play, structured to entertain, educate, or kill time. Lately, games have often […]

We are reader-supported. Purchases made through links on our site may earn us a commission. Learn More. Picture it: you are in the middle of creating the game of your dreams. Everything seems to be going well, but you can’t for the life of you figure out how to have players save their game progress. […]

What is Games ‘User Experience’ (UX) …and How Does It Help? When you boot up your computer, click on your browser of choice and begin scrolling through social media, what sticks in your mind? Is it incremental new features? The colors? Is the app or website you are using easy on the eyes? All of […]

While playing classic games like Minecraft can be visually stimulating, the lengths to which someone can spice up the graphics are impressive. For Lord of the Rings fans out there, people used mods and texture packs to create a life-sized replica of the Mines of Moria, a staggeringly large underground environment seen in the franchise. […]

When choosing a game engine, the future game developer must pick something that works for them. Are you more into big-budget blockbusters with brain-busting action and a bevy of brilliant visuals? Maybe choose something with impressive horsepower like the Unreal Engine. However, if you are just starting out, there are quite a few options to […]

We are reader-supported. Purchases made through links on our site may earn us a commission. Learn More. Game development used to seem like a far-fetched idea that only big studios could undertake. What if you wanted to create your own game, according to your rules? Furthermore, what if you wanted to share your awesome new […]

What Is a Game Loop? The game loop refers to the overall flow of the game program. It is referred to as a ‘loop,’ as the program keeps looping infinitely until manually stopped. As you can probably imagine, there is a ton of variety in game loops and which games loop in specific frames per […]

Overview What Are Shaders in Games? When you see the term ‘shader’ about a video game, it’s a program used to render different pixels. Shaders in games are used when detailing shadows, lighting, texture gradients, and more. However, they can do a lot more than just their namesake. You can often see shaders being packaged […]

What is Deferred Rendering? Deferred rendering is when rendering isn’t part of the first part of the animation pipeline, saving it instead for the very end. Think of post-production effects in movies added after filming. Deferred rendering offers valuable opportunities for animators, as it can cut down the amount of needlessly complicated work by a […]

You can probably picture it: a cold, dark night. A violent thunderstorm has taken out the power, and you and your friends are forced to make your own fun without the aid of electronics. This is where the reliable backbone of entertainment comes in: board games. Whether it’s chess or Settlers of Catan, board games […]

SFX and VFX: What’s the Difference? Purpose of Special Effects They are there to illustrate to the audience the creator’s intention of creating a different world in which fantastic things can happen. This is done through various things like simulated weather, complex animatronic beasts, or grisly, gory effects in a horror movie. Visual Effects in […]

You’ve probably heard the term ‘Green Screen’ quite a lot, and you’re probably somewhat familiar with what it is; a flat, green fabric placed in the background that you can impose an image on. Interestingly, ‘green screen’ is actually a bit of a misnomer, as the whole process itself is called ‘Chroma Key Compositing’ or […]

I will never forget the day that I saw my young cousin glued to his iPad, playing Angry Birds. We were on vacation and my family was begging him to put the iPad down and join in the family fun. But he would not be swayed; he felt the call of the birds. That was […]

The 1990s were a great time for RPG computer games. Something that many had in common was that they shared one thing in common: an isometric camera view. This allows for a more comprehensive camera view. Isometric games are those that view gameplay and the game world through a camera angle that isn’t top-down, but […]

What is an io game? .io is the Top-level domain for British Indian Ocean territory and also stands for input/output. This domain has gained popularity among startups and online entertainment in the form of IO games. The simplified definition is an in-browser game that ends in .io, like “examplegame.io”. These are usually free and more […]

We are reader-supported. Purchases made through links on our site may earn us a commission. Learn More. I will never forget when Halo 2 was announced; everyone in the gaming community let out a collective scream of excitement and anticipation. We were eagerly awaiting not only the sequel to Master Chief’s first solo adventure but […]

I hate to suggest that our readers would be doing anything at school or work but what they are supposed to be doing, but let’s just form a hypothetical scenario: You are in class, you are bored out of your skull, and you still have hours to go. You come across something a little different. […]

I was playing an online match of Age of Empires II with a friend one night. We would choose our favorite civilizations: my friend with the Mongols, me with the English. We chose these particular teams due to their special units. The Mongols used insanely powerful horse archers, and the English units were formidable English […]

We are reader-supported. Purchases made through links on our site may earn us a commission. Learn More. Ever since 1995, JavaScript has been an essential part of the internet. Along with HTML, JavaScript has been instrumental in bringing web pages we browse to life, allowing aspects to be interactive. It’s easily one of the most […]

Create Terrain and Height Maps In 2007, I know I was not alone in being surprised and impressed by the way the first Mass Effect turned out. Good story, good customization. All that aside, some of my favorite parts were exploring far off planets. To do this, the player would open the star map and […]