Figuring out Isometric Coordinates
If you’re thinking of making a game for your A-level project and considering doing something isometric, this video games a nice look at the maths. It initially seems complex, but once you’ve got the translation from grid and screen coordinates done once then it’s sorted.
Referencing Sources
Some A-Level students will be working on a major piece of coursework, or NEA (Non-examined assessment). I often see students unsure of how to reference their sources. There are various ways, the method I’ve often been told to use is Harvard Referencing. Sheffield University have a good article (Harvard referencing, no date) which gives some …. Read More
How bullets work
A look at how shooting games program bullets. Whilst A-level students don’t often make 3D shooters, it’s an interesting thought process and showcases the level of detail you have to be thinking about when programming a game.
Epic Games buys a compression company
https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/2021/1/7/22219284/epic-games-acquires-rad-game-tools-announcement Epic Games, yes, the people that make fort**** and Epic Games Store, they’ve just bought a company called RAD. There’s no information on how much they paid, but I doubt it was cheap. So what is RAD? They make various tools, but the main ones do compression. Like zip and MP4. Why bother buying …. Read More
Layers and abstraction
This looks at Linux gaming, and how they get Windows games working and how the systems interact with the hardware through the different stages of abstraction. GCSE and A-level students should have a watch to see about drivers and APIs.
Getting data from websites
Interesting video from Tom Scott which covers various things. In a broader sense, ideology. In specifics, sharing data between web servers/services. In terms of specifications, A-Level interfaces (not the interface between human and machine, but the interface between one system and another). It’s a good watch, and an essential watch for A-level students.
Maths Challenge 1 in Python
Matt Parker does some awesome maths stuff, particularly his spreadsheet standup routine which is an excellent look at how images are stored and displayed. This is an interesting puzzle, and one that can be modelled in Python….your task, is to model it in Python! Give it a go and I’ll do a couple of videos …. Read More
Network Layers
https://medium.com/@james_aka_yale/the-4-layer-internet-model-network-engineers-need-to-know-e78432614a4f GCSE students (and A-Level students) will be familiar with the network stack…well…they’ll know it’s something they should know. It is however something which people are often fuzzy on. This article explains it nicely and talks about TCP and UDP and how it fits within the stack. Don’t worry about the OSI model, that’s something …. Read More
9 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Programming
Some good tips for starting out, when you’re moving from junior coding at GCSE into proper programming at A-level. Watch and learn sixth formers. You need to be programming cool stuff for at least a year to be ready for your programming exam.
How Crash Bandicoot Hacked The Original Playstation
This video looks at not only the game design principles, but also the tricks the developers used to get every bit of performance and push boundaries to make Crash Bandicoot a really ground breaking game for it’s time. Contains a nice section which compares the CPU and GPU. Also comparing RAM to secondary storage (CD)