game development

Why You Should Use Component-Based Design in Unity

Traditionally, inheritance is leveraged within object-oriented programming to reuse code without rewriting it. In Unity, however, it’s better to use a composition-based approach. At a high level, components in Unity are just C# scripts that can be added onto a GameObject; they can be designed and implemented in many ways. Building up game features using […]

Using the MDA Framework as an Approach to Game Design

Recently I found myself faced with a new design challenge: to create a digital game interface that uses differentiating hardware and software components to facilitate a fun and social game play experience. I looked for a framework to help me deconstruct the various aspects of the game into collaborative conversations I can have with client-side […]

Acceptance Testing Your Games to Fix Bugs and Provide Regression

Acceptance testing is hard. It requires thinking through your entire problem and nailing down the expected outputs for a list of inputs. When working on games, acceptance testing becomes even more difficult. There are certain aspects that cannot be tested: “Is it fun?” “Is it too hard?” Other aspects are just difficult to setup and […]

Game Programming in Boo with the Unity Engine, Part 1: Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Before I came to Atomic, I spent several years working in the video game industry. I left it for a number of reasons, but I wanted to still pursue game development as a side project. When recently I started up a new game project, I went looking for a good engine. My requirements were: Cross-platform […]