A look back at strategy guides for 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System and 16-bit Super Nintendo games.

• How to Win at Super Mario Bros
• The Official Nintendo Player’s Guide
• Dragon Warrior Strategy Guide
• Super Mario Bros 2 Inside Out
• The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past Player’s Guide
• 4-Player Extra Strategy Guide
• Ninja Gaiden II Strategy Guide
• Final Fantasy Strategy Guide
• Super Mario Bros 3 Strategy Guide
• Top Secret Passwords Player’s Guide
• Game Boy Player’s Guide
• Game Player’s Strategy Guide to Nintendo Games
• Nintendo Strategies / more Strategies for Nintendo Games
• NES Game Atlas
• Super NES Player’s Guide

Links and Notes

• Nintendo Power scans at Internet Archive – https://archive.org/details/NintendoPower1988-2004/Nintendo%20Power%20Issue%20017%20%28October%201990%29
• Podcast theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Knox Game Design

Strategy Guides - Knox Game Design, August 2021

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00:00 / 1:19:20

Demonstration of how to play a sound effect in various game development environments. This presentation covers Unity, GameMaker, Godot Engine, Unreal Engine (Blueprints), and Pico-8.

Source Code – https://github.com/levidsmith/SoundEffectsDemo

Links and Notes

• Unity – https://unity.com
• GameMaker – https://www.yoyogames.com/en/gamemaker
• Godot Engine – https://godotengine.org
• Unreal Engine – https://www.unrealengine.com
• Pico-8 – https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php
• Frick n Frack Games – https://www.fricknfrackgames.com/
• Podcast theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Knox Game Design

Adding Sound Effects to Your Game - Knox Game Design, July 2021

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39:00

This month’s Knox Game Design covers the BXFR tool for generating sound effects for games. A look at different sound effect types, modifying sound effect properties, using the mixer to combine effects together, and an analysis for the various types of wave forms.

Links and Notes

• BFXR – https://www.bfxr.net/
• SFXR – http://www.drpetter.se/project_sfxr.html
• Sound Theory by Dr Petter – http://drpetter.se/article_sound.html
• Sweetwater audio glossary – https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/category/glossary/
• Teach Me Audio, Sound Envelopes – https://www.teachmeaudio.com/recording/sound-reproduction/sound-envelopes
• Creating Retro Game Sound Effects with BFXR – https://www.boomboxpost.com/blog/2016/10/17/8-bit-twice-shy-creating-retro-game-sound-effects-with-bfxr
• WikiAudio, ADSR Envelope – https://www.wikiaudio.org/adsr-envelope/
• The Sounds Resource, NES – https://www.sounds-resource.com/nes/
• Podcast theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Knox Game Design

Sound Effects with BFXR - Knox Game Design, June 2021

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55:55

Comparison of file types for holding image data for textures and sprites in games.  File types include BMP, GIF, PNG, JPEG, SVG, TIFF, TGA, PCX, HEIC, and WebP.  Properties include transparency, compression, lossy vs lossless, and file size.  Demonstration of how to programmatically decode and encode PNG files.  Compatibility of image files with four game engines (Unity, Unreal Engine, Godot Engine, GameMaker).

Ruby code for PNG analyzer / generator – https://github.com/levidsmith/ImageAnalyzer

Upcoming Events

The Spring ’21 game jam is Friday April 23-26, 2021.  Meet with us at The Kitchen at Crafter’s Brew in Oak Ridge for a game jam kickoff at 7pm Eastern Time on Friday April 23, 2021.  For more information on the game jam see ldjam.com.  If you make a game, let us know on our Discord channel and we will add it to the website!

Updated Games by Knox Developers

Roguely by Frank – https://github.com/frankhale/Roguely

Gomen-Nasai by Levi – https://levidsmith.com/games/gomen-nasai/

Links and Notes

• BMP specification at File Format – https://docs.fileformat.com/image/bmp/
• BMP specification at Library of Congress – https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000189.shtml
• GIF specification at W3C – https://www.w3.org/Graphics/GIF/spec-gif89a.txt
• PNG specification at W3C – https://www.w3.org/TR/PNG/
• Zlib compression – https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1950.txt
• JPEG specification at JPEG.org – https://jpeg.org/jpeg/index.html
• SVG specification at W3C – https://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/
• TIFF specification at Adobe – https://www.adobe.io/open/standards/TIFF.html
• TGA specification at File Format – https://docs.fileformat.com/image/tga/
• Gimp – https://www.gimp.org/
• Aseprite – https://www.aseprite.org/
• Inkscape – https://inkscape.org/
• Image file format comparison at Gimp – https://www.gimp.org/tutorials/ImageFormats/
• Theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Hosted by Levi D. Smith

Knox Game Design

Image File Formats - Knox Game Design, April 2021

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1:35:48

Overview of comparison of data types, sorting algorithms, and run times. Demonstration of sorting in Unity with C#, GameMaker with GML, Godot with GDScript, Unreal Engine with C++, and Pico-8 with Lua. For each game development environment, examples are shown for sorting integers, character strings (words), and a custom object type.

Example code – https://github.com/levidsmith/SortingDemos

Links and Notes

• Sound of Sorting – https://panthema.net/2013/sound-of-sorting/
• Big Theta – https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10376740/what-exactly-does-big-%d3%a8-notation-represent#12338937
• C# IComparable – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.icomparable-1?view=net-5.0
• GML array_Sort – https://manual.yoyogames.com/GameMaker_Language/GML_Reference/Variable_Functions/array_sort.htm
• Godot Array – https://docs.godotengine.org/en/latest/classes/class_array.html
• Unreal Engine TArray Sort – https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/ProgrammingAndScripting/ProgrammingWithCPP/UnrealArchitecture/TArrays/index.html
• Pico-8 table sorting – https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=50453
• Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen, Leiserson, and Rivest – https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/introduction-algorithms-third-edition
• Unity – https://unity.com/
• GameMaker – https://www.yoyogames.com/en/gamemaker
• Godot Engine – https://godotengine.org/
• Unreal Engine – https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/
• Pico-8 – https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php
• Theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Hosted by Levi D. Smith

Knox Game Design

Sorting - Knox Game Design, March 2021

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2:06:46

How to generate mazes using Prim’s and Kruskal’s algorithm. Example implementations in Unity with C#.  Methods for solving mazes.  Demonstration of maze generators available on the web.

Demo project in Unity and C# – https://github.com/levidsmith/MazeDemo

New and Updated Games by Knox Developers

Untitled game by Matthew

BlazorRogueLike by Mythik

Enfield by LocksmithArmy and Kendra

Gomen-nasai by Levi

Links and Notes

• Mazes for Programmers by Jamis Buck – www.mazesforprogrammers.com
• Maze Generator – www.mazegenerator.net
• Prim’s Algorithm Maze Generation – www.integral-domain.org/lwilliams/Applets/algorithms/primsmaze.php
• Maze Algorithms – www.jamisbuck.org/mazes/
• Example maze generation with Prim’s in Unity – www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucWX34Vrel8
• Prim’s algorithm – www.tutorialspoint.com/data_structures_algorithms/prims_spanning_tree_algorithm.htm
• Dijkstra’s algorithm – www.geeksforgeeks.org/dijkstras-shortest-path-algorithm-greedy-algo-7/
• Theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Hosted by Levi D. Smith

Knox Game Design

Mazes - Knox Game Design, February 2021

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Demonstration of how to create a simple humanoid armature in Blender to be used in a game development environment.  Explanation of how to assign a mesh to an armature and weight painting.  How to create simple walking and standing animation by adding key frames.  The model and animation are exported into FBX format and imported into Unity, Godot, and Unreal Engine.  C# script for switching between animations in Unity.

Demo projects and models – https://github.com/levidsmith/BlenderAnimation

New and Updated Games by Knox Developers

Unlock Fred’s Markers with Journals by Zachary

Disc Connect by Levi

Links and Notes

• Blender – www.blender.org
• Unity – unity.com
• Godot – godotengine.org
• Unreal Engine – www.unrealengine.com
• Mixamo – mixamo.com
• Theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Hosted by Levi D. Smith

Knox Game Design

Animation in Blender - Knox Game Design, January 2021

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Overview of the Allegro game programming library.  Compiling a legacy Allegro game with DJGPP through DOSBox.  Installing and building a game with Allegro 5 in Visual Studio.  How to use event and polling based methods for handling keyboard and gamepad input. Explanation of how to create a “Hello World”, Number Guessing game, and simple space shooter.  Comparison of C++ to C, Java, and C#.  Explanation of how to load music, sound effects, font, and bitmap files.  Review of the Allegro drawing primitives.

Source code for examples – https://github.com/levidsmith/AllegroExamples

New and Updated Games by Knox Developers

• The Cursed Office by Matthew – https://matthewbringledev.itch.io/the-cursed-office
• H3D Christmas by James – https://locksmitharmy.itch.io/h3d-christmas
• Polyglot Pelican by Levi – https://levidsmith.com/games/polyglot-pelican/

Links and Notes

• Official Allegro site – https://liballeg.org
• Allegro community – https://www.allegro.cc
• Allegro 5 API reference – https://www.allegro.cc/manual/5
• Delorie Software (DJGPP) – http://www.delorie.com
• DOSBox – https://www.dosbox.com
• Visual Studio – https://visualstudio.microsoft.com
• C++ reference – https://www.cplusplus.com/reference
• W3Schools C++ Tutorial/Reference – https://www.w3schools.com/cpp/
• Strike of the Centurion (Allegro) by Frank – https://frank-griffin.itch.io/strike-demo
• DJ Delorie blog at Red Hat – https://developers.redhat.com/blog/author/djdelorie/
• Theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Hosted by Levi D. Smith

Knox Game Design

Allegro - Knox Game Design, December 2020

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2:03:14

Overview of building a Raspberry Pi arcade system.  First build was a Raspberry Pi (1) Model B and the second build was a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B.  Explanation of what components and tools are needed.  Installation the RetroPie operating system and configuration of Retrogame software to convert joystick movement and button presses into simulation key presses.

Links and Notes

• Labyrinth by James, early access on Steam – https://store.steampowered.com/app/1456900/Labyrinth/?beta=0
• Adafruit, Retro Gaming with Raspberry Pi – https://learn.adafruit.com/retro-gaming-with-raspberry-pi
• Building Raspberry Pi arcade – https://levidsmith.com/my-raspberry-pi-arcade/
• Raspberry Pi arcade update – https://levidsmith.com/raspberry-pi-arcade-update/
• RetroPie – https://retropie.org.uk/
• Retrogame keyboard simulation – https://learn.adafruit.com/retro-gaming-with-raspberry-pi/adding-controls-software
• Joystick – https://www.adafruit.com/product/480
• Buttons – https://www.adafruit.com/product/474
• Theme music – Ride by Pocketmaster

Hosted by Levi D. Smith

Knox Game Design

Raspberry Pi Arcade - Knox Game Design, November 2020

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00:00 / 47:56