HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mcginle@obelix.gaul.csd.uwo.ca (JAMES MCGINLEY)
Subject: Getting A Job Game Programming
Reply-To: mcginle@obelix.gaul.csd.uwo.ca (JAMES MCGINLEY)
Organization: University of Western Ontario
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 05:17:12 GMT

I assume the following questions have been asked hundreds of times but I'm new
to this group. Anyways, bear with me while I ask :
1. Has someone compiled a list of addresses of companies that make games?
     If you could send it to me - or post it - I would appreciate it.
2. What are the chances of getting hired at these companies?
3. What is the standard background of most game programmers (i.e. Do you
     need a computer science degree? Do you need an art background?
     Are the big name programmers today the same people that started out
     programming commercial Atari games?)
4. Do you need to have a shareware game to get looked at?
5. Are there any computer game making companies in Canada?
6. Do I have a hope in hell of getting into the video game industry?

Any information at all on anything (I'll even take unsubstantiated opinions)
would be fantastique. I (along with everybody else here I presume) would
love a job programming computer games.

Thanks a million,
Jim 'I'm doomed to work at a bank' McGinley

P.S. Thanks for all the help everyone gave me about redefining characters!
From: stone-andy@cs.yale.edu (Andy Stone)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: GAME.MAKER
Date: 20 Nov 1992 13:29:48 -0500
Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2158
Distribution: rec
NNTP-Posting-Host: hare.zoo.cs.yale.edu


1. We did not want to define a "mini-language" -- becuase then you would need to
understand AI programming techniques.  What you can do, though, is define an
attack movement pattern relative to the player.  This pattern will "kick in"
whenever the monster is on the same screen as the player.  What I mean by
"relative to the player" is that the player will always be in the center of
the monster's movement area.  If the character moves, the monster will follow.
Thus, a you can assure that a monster either "hits" or always avoids a character.
Using this, and Game-Maker's monster-speed changing capabilities, you can create
hovering birds which "dive" to harass the character, etc.
	
2.	What other movement features/language would you like?  Please
reply to me personally, since the answers are not really generic, enough to
go into rec.games.programmer (of course, if you think that they are, go ahead.
A discussion of monster movement AI techniques would be interesting...)

		
						
-- 
                                                  |  Andy Stone |      
					     stonea@minerva.cis.yale.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: intruder@pioneer.unm.edu (David Aaron Kennedy)
Subject: Disable Pause (please read)
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 01:36:11 GMT
Organization: Space and Planetary Image Facility
Summary: how do i disable pause? 
Distribution: all
Keywords: int 16h disable assembler help

PLEASE HELP!

if anyone out there knows how to disable JUST the pause key on
the ibm pc keyboard tell me how.  I really need this code by 
Saturday due to some unexpected deadlines.

Any code out of other programs without skeleton etc. is exactly
what i need.

thank you for your time   

David Aaron Kennedy
intruder@pioneer.unm.edu
CS1KENNEDY@APSICC.APS.EDU
From: rfermier@athena.mit.edu (Robert G Fermier)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Genetic Algorithms
Date: 22 Nov 92 08:21:15 GMT
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

What about having each mutant child play against it's parent some large number
of times, while the user is reading text or thinking or whatever, or run it
as a background process.  Any child which can consistently beat its parent should
be considered a better algorithm.  I suppose this might lead to inbred
algorithms, which are finely tuned for beating their predecessors but suck at
beating humans.  Perhaps having different strains, some of which were based off
of extrapolations from human moves (in position X, he did Y, so our new algorithm
will do Y also now that we are in position X) would solve this problem.

Just an idea, I really don't know much about genetic algorithms.

-- Rob Fermier
   rfermier@athena.mit.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: vputz@nyx.cs.du.edu (Victor Putz)
Subject: Re: Number of unique tiles in a game?
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 15:00:03 GMT

morley@camins.camosun.bc.ca writes:

>I'm kinda playing around with a tile-based game and I gotta question for
>you people...  How many unique tiles are used in a given game?  For exam
le,
>in the Ultima series, does anyone know how many unique graphic tiles wer

>used in each game in the series?  How about other games?  If I use a sin
le
>byte to index a tile then I can have a maximum of 256 tiles.  Is this
>enough or should I use a 16 bit word (which is way more than enough)?
>Obviously I'm concerned about saving as much disk space and memory as
>possible for the other elements of the game.  

>Also, it seems to me that 16x16 pixel tiles are just right for this kind
>of game.  What other common sizes are used?

>Thanks!

>MARK
>morley@camins.camosun.bc.ca

..I used 24x24 for Flight of the Boodles (demo game); I like this a lot
more than 16^2 as it gives you a closer view of everything and allows the
artwork more room to be expressive (couldn't tell from boodles though!).

Really, 256 tiles should be plenty (I <<think>>) for an Ultima style game,
especially if the tiles are large (say, 32^2 or higher with "floating"
actors); other details (trees, etc) can be added in with on-map objects.

-->Vputz

Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace)
Subject: Re: Text Adventure Languages
Organization: Trinity College, Dublin
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 15:27:47 GMT

My OASYS system is on comp.binaries.ibm.pc at the moment, MS-DOS
executable and C++ source code provided (any intrepid souls porting it
to any other system?). It's completely object-oriented and there's a
sample adventure provided.

--
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem"
Russell Wallace, Trinity College, Dublin
rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie
From: stone-andy@cs.yale.edu (Andy Stone)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: vga mode 13
Date: 20 Nov 1992 15:20:52 -0500
Organization: /homes/majors/stonea/.organization
	<1eeorfINNorv@aludra.usc.edu> <1eh76kINNo8e@agate.berkeley.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: lion.zoo.cs.yale.edu
In-reply-to: benrg@ocf.berkeley.edu's message of 19 Nov 1992 23:15:32 GMT

   It should be OK.  The best way to tell is to clear the screen rapidly
using rep stosw, clearing it to a different color each time.  If no lines
between the old and new color appear, then you can output it to the screen.
(Of course, you will also have other code to execute, but I'm assuming that
you will be putting less then about a third-screen (equivalent area)
of changes per retrace.
 
-- 
                                                  |  Andy Stone |      
					     stonea@minerva.cis.yale.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: jas37876@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (John A. Slagel)
Subject: Re: redirecting video ram??? (in mode 13)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 19:40:21 GMT

s026@brems.ii.uib.no (Paal K Holmberg) writes:

> i just read that someone hinted it was possible to tell the vga-card to 
>fetch it's display data from an arbitrary memory location in normal ram.
>is this really possible, if it is it would be a great help. Does anyone know 
>anything about this ?

    Nope.  You CAN NOT do it.  Period.  The VGA memory is located on 
    the VGA card.  The A000 segment is not real memory, it is just a
    frame to access the VGA card.


-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 John A. Slagel              "My old man used to tell me, before he left this
 j-slagel1@uiuc.edu           shitty world, never chase buses or women- you
 (217) 337-7930               always get left behind." -The Marlboro Man
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: cat@wixer.cactus.org (Dr. Cat)
Subject: Re: Playing map....
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 05:22:04 GMT


   No need getting fancy.  If you were doing a computer version of Axis and
Allies, say, first you should count how many spaces there are on the map.
Assign a number to each of them.  Set up an array (or several) that holds
whatever information is necessary about what units are currently in each
space on the map.  To figure out movement, you make a linkage array.  Each
entry (one per map region) is an arbitrary length list of the region numbers
of other map spaces that are adjacent to the current one.
   If you're going to build a map generator, you should still have it
generate a linkage array when it's all finished.  Most reasonable internal
representation of the map to have.
From: goetz@acsu.buffalo.edu (Phil Goetz)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: GAME.MAKER
Date: 19 Nov 92 17:11:03 GMT
Article-I.D.: acsu.Bxz3qJ.EBM
Distribution: rec
Organization: State University of New York at Buffalo/Comp Sci

In article <1ef2ddINNe18@TIGER.ZOO.CS.YALE.EDU> stone-andy@cs.yale.edu (Andy Stone) writes:
>
>In article <SPURCELL.92Nov18001251@galadriel.mcd.intel.com>
>spurcell@galadriel.mcd.intel.com (Stacy Purcell ~) writes:
>
>>   Have any of you ever used GAME MAKER from Recreational Software
>>   Designs? It is supposedly software to aid in creating arcade games
>>   and adventure games, sort of a video game construction kit.

>	Yes, I've used Game-Maker quite extensively.  In fact, I've
>probably used it more then anyone else, because I also wrote it!
>Although in most cases my testimony would be suspect, in this case, it
>really is not.  Why?  Because there is NOTHING ELSE to compare it to --
>there isn't any competing product to steal our sales.
>...
>	2:  Game Maker is a completely new product type.

It sounds like Broderbund's _Arcade Machine_
(Apple //, about 1983), but adapted for different types of games.

Phil
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: cat@wixer.cactus.org (Dr. Cat)
Subject: Re: Getting A Job Game Programming
Organization: Real/Time Communications
 <By1539.L2@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 92 11:44:22 GMT


   Well...  I'd have to say it's probably harder to break into the game
programming business these days in some ways, but a lot easier in others.
Back when I got started, for instance, a college degree was of no
significance at all, and I had no problem finding work without one.  These
days, it's definitely helpful to have a computer science degree.  There are a
lot more jobs than there were ten years ago, and some of the companies are
even getting to be reasonably stable!  Of course there are still small ones
around, where you have more of a chance to get lucky & make a lot of money -
or more likely lose your shirt.  Most games are done by teams these days,
with artists, writers & musicians working on the projects, so you don't have
to be a jack of all trades any more.  It's ok if all you can do is program.
   How to break in?  Surprisingly enough, the conventional methods have been
known to work: get your degree, then send a resume and cover letter to the
companies you're interested in.  I know Sierra and Origin have been growing
so steadily over the last few years that they have job openings more often
than not.  I'd say Microprose and Electronic Arts are probably good prospects
as well.  I also know Sega hired a lot of new people last year to do Genesis
games, not sure what's going on there these days.
   To find companies to write to or call, I'd suggest picking up a copy of
Computer Gaming World, and looking through the ads & reviews.

                   Dr. Cat
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: vputz@nyx.cs.du.edu (Victor Putz)
Subject: Re: Getting A Job Game Programming
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 21:54:36 GMT



Don't count on being a full-time games programmer.  1) it's tough to get
hired.  2) in my opinion, you just can't come in in the morning, be
creative on demand for eight hours, and then bolt.  Motivation hast to
come from the heart, not from the bank.

Your job (what you do for money) doesn't matter.  Either you are a game
maker or you aren't; your challenge is to decide which one you are and be
that... and be it better than anyone else you know.

-->Vputz
From: acoggins@fish.Princeton.EDU (Adam Cody Coggins)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Redefining Characters in Text Mode
Date: 16 Nov 92 02:38:34 GMT
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@nimaster

In article <1992Nov11.024329.11290@julian.uwo.ca> mcginle@obelix.gaul.csd.uwo.ca (JAMES MCGINLEY) writes:
> [...]
>Essentially, I don't need smooth flowing graphics in my game and would like to
>take advantage of the speed of printing out characters in text mode.
i.e. I could have three hundred happy faces flying around without much slowdown
>      or problems determining wether they were hit.
> [...]

This reminds me of a cute IBM TSR called "face", I think, that would set
little smileyfaces bouncing around the text screen while you were at
the MS-DOS prompt, or in your text editor, or whatever.  It used the
smileyface built into the IBM char. set.

Cody Coggins <acoggins@phoenix.princeton.edu>
From: dxc0904@ultb.isc.rit.edu (D.X. Chin)
Subject: Need info for games
Summary: Don't know where to start
Originator: dxc0904@ultb
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology
Distribution: all
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 15:25:35 GMT

Hello all,
	
	I've been looking at this group for a little while and asking
for a little help, but I need to know a few things and maybe you guys
can help me out...
	What is vga mode $13? 
	What is the best way to get 256 colors?
	How would I go about makeing a tile based game?
	and how do I deal with color palettes...

	Any help would be great, recommendations of books, etc...

Thanks in advance...
- Dower
- DXC0904@ultb.rit.edu
From: bobp@hal.com (Bob Pendleton)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Getting A Job Game Programming
Date: 20 Nov 92 17:04:04 GMT
Organization: HaL Computer Systems, Inc.

From article <1992Nov20.131956.10514@nuscc.nus.sg>, by isc10144@nusunix1.nus.sg (CHAN NICODEMUS):
> JAMES MCGINLEY (mcginle@obelix.gaul.csd.uwo.ca) wrote:

> : Any information at all on anything (I'll even take unsubstantiated opinions)
> : would be fantastique. I (along with everybody else here I presume) would
> : love a job programming computer games.
> : 
> : Thanks a million,
> : Jim 'I'm doomed to work at a bank' McGinley
> : 
> : P.S. Thanks for all the help everyone gave me about redefining characters!
> 
> I think that I quite agree with him.  But what is the competition and
> marketableness of people like us?  I'm sure there are a lot of people
> out there looking for these type of jobs.  

Having once turned down a job doing computer games I guess I'm
qualified to answer this one.

How did I find the job? I didn't it found me.

I bought an Amiga 1000 when they were brand new. (This should tell you
how long ago this was.) And went to an Amiga users group meeting. I
met several people there who were getting paid to write games. I
thought this was pretty neat, since I'd written games as a kid and had
always wanted to do it "for real."

Well, I liked what I was doing to much to apply for a job myself. But,
I told a friend about it and he applied for a job. He got the job and
told his boss about me. Pretty soon I got a call, had a telephone
interview and was offered a job. I turned it down.

So, why in the world did I turn it down?

1) The pay sucked. Best I could hope for was 30% less than I was
making. And I was under paid as it was.

2) No benefits

3) It was all short term, fixed price contracts.

This means they give you a spec, a deadline, and a price. If you
implement the spec by the deadline, you get paid. 

These contracts were for periods of weeks to at most 3 months.

4) No royalties. (A very few lucky souls get royalties.)

5) No creative control. You code to spec. If you don't code to spec,
you don't get paid.

6) Programmer supplied equipment. For most contracts you have to have
the equipment needed to carry out the contract, or you don't get the
contract.

This was all in Salt Lake City, Utah. There were 2 contract houses
there that worked this way. I was told, bluntly, that they were in SLC
because that's where they could find people who were desperate to take
this kind of work.

This does not describe the whole computer gaming industry. There are a
small number of shops the actually employ people to write games. BUt
they do not employ many people.

				Bob P.

P.S.

Writing games is 1) fun, and 2) very educational. Do it because you
enjoy it and you will learn so much from it.

-- 
Bob Pendleton             | As an engineer I hate to hear:
bobp@hal.com              |   1) You've earned an "I told you so."
Speaking only for myself. |   2) Our customers don't do that.
                   <<< Odin, after the well of Mimir. >>>
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: maddie@crash.cts.com (Tom Schenck)
Subject: Re: Getting A Job Game Programming
Organization: CTS Network Services (crash, ctsnet), El Cajon, CA
Date: 20 Nov 92 12:55:06 PST


Getting a job programming video games is rather easy, actually. The hard part
is finding a company with an opening.

Case in point:
  I have the C.H.S.P.E. ( High-School diploma-by-test ) and no college to my
name. I got my job programming video games because I'm a good programmer, and
I got lucky (found a company that was hiring).

  There are indeed a lot of programmers that work on a contract basis, but
that's not bad. In fact, you can make MORE money doing that, than working at
the office in many cases.

  As far as getting names of companies, try the white or yellow pages.

-Tom Schenck
From: tromp@cwi.nl (John Tromp)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Advice needed for fastest sort algorthm
Date: 20 Nov 92 13:21:24 GMT

gjs@mustang.dsto.gov.au (Graeme Simpkin) writes:

>In fact almost everyone writes.....

>I am really interested in the answer to the original post here, but
>there appears to be a rolling discussion (and great I encourage it),
>but can I ask some kind soul to post an article at the end with the
>header:

Pretty fast (O(nlogn)) sort algorithm -> HERE IT IS
use at your won peril!

sort(t,j)               /* sort t[1] ... t[j] in ascending order */
int *t,j;
{
        int i,k,l,m;

        for (i = j/2; j > 1; t[l] = k) {
                if (i) k = t[i--]; else { k = t[j]; t[j--] = t[1]; }
                for (l = i + 1; (m = l + l) <= j; t[l] = t[m], l = m) {
                        if (m < j && t[m] < t[m+1]) m++;
                        if (t[m] <= k) break;
                }
        }
}


-John Tromp (tromp@cwi.nl)         f() is total -- R.L. Goodstein
define s(n){;auto e,r;for(0;n;n/=b)r+=n%b*(b+1)^s(e++);return(r)}
define f(n){;for(b=2;n;b++)n=s(n)-1;return(b)} for(n=0;1;n++)f(n)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: 4224_5142@uwovax.uwo.ca
Subject: P
Organization: University of Western Ont, London
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 22:57:15 GMT

I have just posted my latest creation to WUARCHIVE.WUSTL.EDU. It is a map
creator for tile maps in 320*200*256 color mode 13h (VGA non-tweaked). It
uses 16*16 pixel tiles, up to 200*200 tiles in a map. Each tile may be
assigned a unique value (0-255) representing various physical attributes
(solid, transparent, death, etc...). Sprites may be placed over the map, and
this version supporting up to 500 per map.

	This system is designed for the WGT programming toolkit (Turbo C++),
but anyone who registers will be given information on the file formats so that
they may be used in any language. The WGT Sprite Creator is used to design all
bitmaps. 

	This version of MAP MAKER is a crippleware release (everything except
the SAVE feature works), but for a registration fee of only $20.00, why not
register? Please try it out (sample files included) and watch for sample
programs created with our new release 3.0 toolkit. We have now included full
FLI playing support (animate sprites over FLI while playing, RESIZE FLI to
fit within a certain screen area while playing, etc). Routines for scrolling
maps, and creating powerful games are standard features as well.

Leave me E-mail if you have any questions or comments.

*****************************************************************************
*                       _______   _______    egerter@obelix.gaul.csd.uwo.ca *
*        \\        //  //            |                                      *
*         \\  /\  //  ||   ___       |       Author of WGT graphics         *
*          \\//\\//   ||     \\      |       toolkit for 320*200*256 VGA    *
*           \/  \/ .   \\____// .    |  .    Version 3.0 Now Available      *
*                                                                           *
* Sprites  Color Cycling  Bitmap SFX  4-directional Scrolling  Data Storage *
*****************************************************************************

:
From: egg@dstos3.dsto.gov.au
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Epic...
Date: 16 Nov 92 13:34:15 CST
Organization: Defence Science and Technology Organisation

Speaking of Epic,

Who is on the epic team ? 
Any of the familiar names/uid's we see participating in this group ?

Just want to see what sort of talent the've got going for them.

Themie
From: baylor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Baylor)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Getting A Job Game Programming
Date: 22 Nov 92 00:35:57 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

>2. What are the chances of getting hired at these companies?

	Not very good in some instances. I can't speak for most
companies, but i can speak for one or two.

>3. What is the standard background of most game programmers (i.e. Do you
>     need a computer science degree? Do you need an art background?
>     Are the big name programmers today the same people that started out
>     programming commercial Atari games?)

	Let me see, depends on what you want to do. Writers often have
to be published. Certain companies here hire interns, but only for art.
As for programmers, don't have to know much. You can either be a 
tech designer (required - friendlieness, see below) and get advanced,
where they don't really care if you know a language, they claim
they can teach you C++ in two weeks. Or you can actually apply, which 
requires very little techy knowledge.
	To do so, you have to fit in (at least around here), which
means being the type of person that already works there. That means
willing to work long hours, very enthusiastic, strange looking,
friendly, and clickish with no life. At least down here in the broiler
state. I heard a very unsubstantiated rumor that with sierra it's more
corporate,cubicle programmers.
	Previous people i've known who got hired were all english majors.
They could give a damn about programming ability or degrees (i think they
kinda prefer non-degreed, in which case english comes close).
	Oh yeah, like to work for way-below market wages. Way below.
(like designer, bottom of the stack, $6/hr if you worked only 40
hours, in reality something below minimum wage).


>4. Do you need to have a shareware game to get looked at?
	
	It's helped at least one person with SSI.

>6. Do I have a hope in hell of getting into the video game industry?

	Maybe if you're lucky and know people (kinda big requirement
here), but once you got there you might not be able to live off it,
at least not that AND pay for or ever see a family.



Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer