Archives

[Archives] Free Windows 10 Touchscreen App for Artists – Tablet Pro

Archives, Art, Game Development, Review

When I use my Surface Pro for art, I can’t or don’t always want to flip my keyboard out.  Maybe I don’t have room, maybe I’m drawing on my lap, or maybe I just don’t want a keyboard in the way of my screen while I draw.  This leaves me unable to use keyboard shortcuts, and while some programs (like Photoshop CC) have gesture controls for common shortcuts, most programs don’t.
I’ve been searching for a macro program, where I can program buttons on my touch screen to perform keyboard shortcuts.  After a few months of searching, I found a program called Tablet Pro that does just that, and it’s completely customizable.  Here’s my review:

Tablet Pro docked to the right of Photoshop
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[Archives] How to use Gradient Maps in Construct 2 levels

Archives, Art, Game Development, programming

Recently I came across an absolutely gorgeous game called Totem Teller.  On their Tigsource thread, they described how they achieved certain visual effects in Unity, including using a gradient map to tint their levels.  This left me wondering if I could achieve the same effect in Construct 2, and after some experimentation, I discovered how.

Gradient Map in Construct 2 Game
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[Archives] Installing Linux on my Laptop

Archives, Game Development

So anyone who knows me well enough knows that despite the fact that I make games for a living, I only just barely know my way around a computer.  Well enough to be able to troubleshoot basic goings-wrong, and google most else that may arise, hoping for a simple solution. But I have no experience or comfort with anything requiring higher knowledge than “do a thing in Control Panel”

The decision to install Linux to dual-boot on my laptop comes from wanting to be able to test my games on the systems I can export to.  I don’t have the funds to go buy a Mac, but in an ideal situation I’d want to test on OSX too.
Since replacing my laptop with my new Surface Pro, I haven’t been using Lappy, so I figured even if I messed it up beyond repair, I wouldn’t be losing much.

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[Archives] Game Development Tool First Impressions – Pickle: Pixel Art Editor

Archives, Art, Game Development, Review

While I typically work on pixel art and animations using Graphics Gale (mentioned in my Favorite Gamedev Tools post) , I like trying out new tools.  Pickle caught my eye when I saw its terrain mode – a live-updating tilemap editor that displays all possible combinations of tiles at once.  I knew I had to try it out, so I downloaded the 7-day trial and gave it a whirl!

Pickle Pixel Art Editor
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[Archives] 3 Places I go when I’m out of Gamedev Inspiration

Archives, Game Development

Sometimes it feels like you’ve either run out of ideas, or you have an idea but you’ve got zero motivation to work on it.  This is especially prevalent if you work on a large volume of games – like if you’re participating in #1GAM, or during a game jam.
I think these slumps are normal to the creative process, as long as they don’t stick around for super long.  Everyone has an ebb and flow to their creativity and it’s okay to have a dry spell.  Here are some places I go if I want some inspiration and motivation.

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