Gaming Culture
A short history of LAN parties
Before matchmaking, people carried PCs into one room and played on cables you could see. What that night was for.
Game Engines
A checklist before you share a prototype
Someone else is about to press start. A short list so they see the game, not your desktop path and a missing font.
Game Engines
Common mistakes in a first playable build
A first playable is a toy you can fail at, not a costume of every menu. The mistakes that make the build impossible to judge.
Game Engines
Why characters often use capsule colliders
A character is rarely a detailed mesh to the physics world. A capsule is a boring shape that walks through rooms without snagging.
Game Engines
A short history of game middleware
Engines used to be mostly homemade. Middleware is the story of teams buying a solved problem instead of rebuilding it.
Game Engines
Version control for a student game project
A student project dies when the only copy is a folder named final. The small habits that make a team share one game.
Game Engines
An asset pipeline from file to playable
Art and audio do not appear in a game by magic. A plain path from the file you made to the thing the build can load.
Game Engines
Baked lighting versus real-time lighting
Some light is painted into the scene ahead of time. Some is calculated while you play. The picture and the frame rate both care.
Game Engines
What a physics engine fakes in a game
Game physics is a performance piece, not a laboratory. What gets simulated, what gets faked, and why characters slide.
Game Engines
Scenes, prefabs, and messy project folders
A game project rots when everything is a one-off. Scenes and prefabs are how a small team keeps a world editable.
Indie Spotlights
UI readability in small indie games
Fonts, contrast, and clutter decide whether a small game feels sharp or sloppy. A practical way to look at the interface.
Indie Spotlights
Sound design on a small budget
A few clear sounds beat a library nobody mixed. How small games make audio carry information without a large team.