game engine

How To Start Game Development in 2018

Dominik Hackl

You have always dreamed of building your own game? You have gathered countless ideas for the next great games in your head or on paper? You finally want to start working and take them to life? Then you are probably ready to become a game developer. But what now? Where to start and what to do? And what about that thing called Unity?

The world of game development is immense and complex. For beginners it is dangerous to get lost in the wild jungle of game engines and programming languages. While there is a lot of information and many tutorials out there, not all of them provide good advice and few are up to date.

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About the Author

Dominik Hackl

I’m a programmer, who happens to be partially skilled at arts and music as well and thus decided to become a game developer. In the past, I was mostly developing 2D games for Windows and Android while doing every part of the development process myself. This started with writing the game engine code and ended with composing an original score for the games. In the last years I started to focus more on 3D games as well as Virtual and Augmented Reality.

Create a game with LevelFX

Dominik Hackl

As I finally released the alpha version of LevelFX – my brand-new 2D platformer creation kit – I’ve thought it was a good idea to write down step-by-step instruction on how to actually use it to create your first level.

So here you go. If you haven’t downloaded LevelFX already, it’s time to do so. After that you are fully prepared to start building. In no more than a few minutes you are going to play your first self-made level, I promise.

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About the Author

Dominik Hackl

I’m a programmer, who happens to be partially skilled at arts and music as well and thus decided to become a game developer. In the past, I was mostly developing 2D games for Windows and Android while doing every part of the development process myself. This started with writing the game engine code and ended with composing an original score for the games. In the last years I started to focus more on 3D games as well as Virtual and Augmented Reality.

A technical description of 2D platformers

Dominik Hackl

The 2D platformer enjoyed its major hype back in the 90s with blockbuster series like Super Mario, Mega Man, Sonic, Donkey Kong Country and many, many more. Nowadays the genre is witnessing kind of a renaissance, mostly through the new range of indie developers.

In this article I try to cover the major technical aspects on implementing a 2D platformer game.
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About the Author

Dominik Hackl

I’m a programmer, who happens to be partially skilled at arts and music as well and thus decided to become a game developer. In the past, I was mostly developing 2D games for Windows and Android while doing every part of the development process myself. This started with writing the game engine code and ended with composing an original score for the games. In the last years I started to focus more on 3D games as well as Virtual and Augmented Reality.

3 reasons why I’m using MonoGame

Dominik Hackl

The XNA framework was Microsoft’s attempt to reach a wide range of game developers, including professionals as well as indie developers while targeting their different platforms Windows, Xbox 360 and Windows Phone. Although the framework was used and loved by many developers, Microsoft quit its further development in 2014 with version XNA 4.0.

Still this doesn’t mean that it’s dead. Thanks to MonoGame, an open source implementation of the XNA API, there is a great alternative, that not only guarantees a nearly 100% code reuse but also allows cross-platform development for a lot of targets, including Android, iOS and Linux. Continue reading →

About the Author

Dominik Hackl

I’m a programmer, who happens to be partially skilled at arts and music as well and thus decided to become a game developer. In the past, I was mostly developing 2D games for Windows and Android while doing every part of the development process myself. This started with writing the game engine code and ended with composing an original score for the games. In the last years I started to focus more on 3D games as well as Virtual and Augmented Reality.