the argument

Here it is – the argument i had with a good friend. Let’s see if it makes more sense in text.

What started it: we’re watching a game of Poker. My initial statement: “I think it’s cheating that people can use a hat and glasses to hide themselves while playing Poker. That’s why I like computer games – when done right, the rules are the same for the player and the computer.”

My friend came up with this point (paraphrased): “No matter what you do, a computer player will never be on the same level as a human player, and therefore will always cheat by your definition.”

Background: I’m a game developer. I have strong feelings about how games should be designed. As an example, my game library for PS2 consists of about 10 games. Yes, that is all, despite all the possible games out there. And some of those are from series. Now not about to say that’s *all* that’s good. Just that there are relatively few that get it right.

I agree with part of his statement: computers and humans are never going to match abilities. He was maintaining that the humans would be better most of the time, while I felt the puters would have better, more accurate reactions, but either way, we agree on the point. What I don’t agree with is that the computer will always cheat.

When writing a computer player, you really do have the option of choosing what level of integration the player has with the mechanics of the game. Because the game world is effectively open and available to the computer player, it is literally possible for the computer player to make anything it wants happen.

Therefore, to create fairness, you must create an artificial bottleneck. A place where a computer player can ‘see’ the same things as a human player, and ‘react’ by sending input back to the game. Personally I prefer to keep it as close to the controls as possible (whether it be gamepad, steering wheel, or wii-remote). This way the computer player is limited in exactly the same ways as a human player is.

My friend’s response was something like, “But if you have two characters with different abilities, like one can fly and the other cannot, is that not innately cheating?” Sounds plausible. Here is why I disagree: it is only cheating if the human were to choose the same character as the computer, but not be able to make every move the computer can make.

This all comes down to the level playing field concept: if all things are equal, then the human and the computer should have an equal bottleneck to do the same task. This is not to say that the computer cannot be better at making the bottleneck do what it wants. This is the entire point of games – that different human players have different abilities at persuading the bottleneck to do what they desire. It just means that as long as the bottleneck is consistent for human and computer players, then it is not cheating.

Our real world has it’s own bottlenecks built-in: we typically call them “physics.” And in most any real-world game, it is considered cheating to get around the bottlenecks. Therefore, to wear hats and glasses should be considered cheating, unless *everyone* is wearing hats and glasses.

And I don’t like wearing hats and glasses.

README.txt

Had a mock-argument with a good friend over something very dear to me and my work. Realized that I couldn’t get my point across.

My job requires that I can get my point across. I’ve been working so hard that my ability to communicate seems to have suffered. Up to now I’ve avoided jumping on the blog-wagon, as anyone who I wanted to know what was going on with me, already did.

This is a training excercise. Comments are welcomed, to see if my points are getting across.

theComplex (Game Engine)

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  • Product description: Game engine with a core concept of “most geometry will stay onscreen next frame too.”
  • Product history/genesis: Freeverse approached me about making a game engine that could run on both Mac and Windows platforms for a game series they were pitching. The games were ideal for the style of engine I already had in mind. The Hoyle games were completed after successfully creating an engine capable of driving DirectX or OpenGL. Soon after, iPhone became big and in less than a week theComplex was running on iPhone too.
  • Team: Self
  • Core Technologies:
    • C++ for Games, inside a cross platform wrapper
    • Objective C in Cocoa for Mac OS X wrapper
    • Objective C in UIKit for iPhone wrapper
    • C++ for Windows wrapper
    • Java for Android wrapper
  • Most proud of: This engine shipped in many games, and was updated and added to many times over the years. But throughout it has remained stable, well documented, and efficient.
  • Responsibilities: Everything from design to implementation

Custom Basketballs Screenshot

The design of this engine was based on years of experience with debugging other people’s engines in ports of Windows games to Mac. In each engine, when a new frame was started, everything from the previous frame was destroyed. All the sorted lists, all preprocessing, always redone every frame. In theComplex, the entire list of things to render is kept every frame. This way the game can choose to re-sort as often or as little as it wishes.

Falling Coins Screenshot

When Freeverse was purchased by ngmoco:), they chose to go a different direction with our technology choices to an internally designed javascript engine. Ngmoco:) invited me to help design and implement the 3d component of their new engine. It was never used in a shipping game because the core javascript engine simply could not keep up with the requirements of 3d engines. Two years later they have finally allowed alternate engines, and are now using Unity3D. As it turns out, Unity is so similar in design to my own engine that it was more like “coming home.” Even though Unity does not have the 2D support, some of their additions are brilliant.

About Me

I typically end up dealing with all the junk most projects don’t think about until a week before release and they realize that not all devices act the same, and we can’t fit the game into the 100mb limit.

I am a twenty year game developer veteran. From humble beginnings as a shepard I rounded out my skills in application development, eventually building a business porting games from Windows to Mac the hard way. Working in mobile game development for many years with my own engine, working with Unity3d felt like coming home.

Major facets of my life: God, Family, Work. (Isn’t everyone’s?)

Despite non-religious parents, somehow as a teenager I learned God existed. Later my wife helped me understand that He got me through the hard times. Now I do my best to be a disciple of Jesus.

When we met, we were just gonna stay friends forever. No kids, just have a lot of fun together.
Fifteen years later we have been happily married for over a decade and absolutely love our three kids.

Coding since 1993 on an Apple ][e, and most of my career has been in games. I’ve proven myself capable in all levels of development from the lowest to highest levels of design and implementation.

Few years ago a couple good friends went to motorcycle riding school, and wifey said I could go. My father was big into it, and now I ride as often as I can… when the kids go to bed! :^)

Interested in working with me? Check out my portfolio, or drop me a line!