I've been asked what libraries I tend to use. For the curious, I have a resources page enabled on my blog that can always be found in the This Site menu at the top of the page. I've also taken to listing libraries in the credits of my games.
Most of the libraries I use are my own just because I've focused on a certain genre and built what I've needed over the years. I've made them to be extensible and included hooks for updating interfaces without needing to know what those interfaces are. That adds a little bit of work, but it reduces conflicts.
For my multiplayer projects, I always include MOTD, People and SpamFilter. They take care of minor issues that I got tired of recreating. MOTD lets hosts post their own rules. People tracks spectators, waiters and players. SpamFilter gives hosts some controls for automated chat moderation.
For my turn-based projects, I tend to use Phase. (Turns should be okay as well, but Phase was built for its ease of use with simultaneous turns and/or segmented turn pipes.) I then add Timer and SharedIDVote so players can vote to hurry the game along when others are idling.
As for libraries that are not mine, I started including Deadron's XML so that others could edit the cards/units in some of my games. However, I also continued including it just to have easily editable text files for various game settings in the event that a host has no access to Dream Seeker. I'm not sure the bloat is worth it in that case.
The rest is determined by my capital... Mainly the complete lack of it.
For art, I tend to merge vector art I've created in Inkscape with textures from Spiral Graphics and fonts created by Ray Larabie. Both are free for commercial use. Spiral Graphics uses the textures to market their texture creation tool, Genetica. Ray Larabie keeps a separate set of pay fonts.
For sound, I often get samples from The Freesound Project and then mix them in Audacity. Pay attention to the licenses of the samples as some might have special conditions. Lummox JR also suggested SoundSnap.com, but their download limits prevent me from using them often. (I might not know if a sample is viable until I open it in Audacity.)
Jan 14 2010, 2:26 pm
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Airjoe
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Your invite links work well- the other day when I was searching for regressia on google, I was brought to the hub by your invite link. I think it's since been changed to a direct link, but still!
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If only the invite parameter was working as well. I've only had one referral bonus and it's from someone who was already on BYOND with another key. ;)
...Meanwhile, I fear it makes me look like a spammer. | |
The stuff from Spiral Graphics looks really nice. Their editor in particular looks wonderful, albeit a bit expensive for someone who has no professional need for it. I'll have to remember to give their textures another look the next time I'm doing any kind of game art.
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The free Genetica Viewer is nifty too. You can't mix texture components with it, but you can adjust some of the parameters for the blends already made. (Like color, size and pattern repetitions.)
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