Knowledge is Power - Learn Digital Design

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 game with a bunch of other like-minded gamers and game developers? There’s some good news: the Roblox […]

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? You may be asking yourself that very question, and to be frank, it is a little unclear as to what it means. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of the genre, which is a form of browser-based games that are free to play and are more casual in […]

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 more importantly, we were waiting for the sequel to the excellent multiplayer. Days and nights, my friends […]

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 […]

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 widely used and most important programming languages that we have ever come across in our daily internet […]

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 […]

If you are familiar with gaming at all, you have probably seen this term in the ‘options’ of some games’ graphics settings. Usually either turning it on or off or choosing different intensity levels. It sounds like a fancy term, but it really isn’t that mysterious. As far as I’m concerned, it is a setting […]

Hyper Casual Games 101 While it may not seem like it, Hyper Casual (HC), is a genre that’s starting to stand in its own right and while it may be a bit confusing to find the line between HCs and Casual games, that’s exactly what we’ll attempt to do. For the most part, HC games […]

When I first started gaming, I definitely took for granted what all went into creating them. I simply thought people got together in a secret room, made graphics, and put them together. Little did I know that even some of the simplest animation and games be Herculean tasks for developers. Much more goes into a […]

Do you find yourself staying up late at night trying to beat a game? You put countless hours into beating it: collecting items, maxing out stats, and finding all the secrets it has to offer. Soon after, you beat the game. However, maybe the ending isn’t satisfying, or you crave more gameplay and content. What […]

Back in 2008, a young man named Adam Poots was awaiting jury duty. Like most jury duty experiences, it was dragging through the day, with no guarantee of even being picked in the end. To pass the time, he perused a manual for a role-playing game. He was struck with an idea while reading: not […]

I will be the first person to admit that I am addicted to Words with Friends. It really isn’t healthy: I will stare at my game board on my phone for long periods of time trying to get the very best word out of my 7 letters to grind my opponent into dust. After inevitably […]

I remember days gone by at elementary school when we would all file into the computer lab. We would all get a computer and boot up educational games like Math Blaster and Oregon Trail. Although these were very primitive titles, with the educational aspect, (in my view), taking the backseat to the fun, they still […]

In a world of snap decisions, first impressions, and endless visual stimuli vying for our attention, there had to be a way for game devs to quickly grab your attention. One solution: the game icon. Game icons show up on all kinds of platforms: They’re on your computer desktop or menu bar, representing the games […]

How familiar are you with game theory? If you’ve never heard of it before, the term can be quite misleading. Game theory has no official ties to the games we think of, which is pretty counterintuitive. According to a definition provided by the trusty Merriam-Webster online dictionary, a “game” is an “activity engaged in for […]

Designing Characters Character Design–Conceptualizing Tutorial This tutorial walks you through how one artist developed his concept for a “crossbow archer.” He starts with his idea, he shows his sketches, and he walks you through everything from form to color palette, to putting it all together at the end. If you want to see how another […]