Posts By: David Colson
Akumakon, Boxman and Cellular Automata – A Monthly Update 
The question is, what is going on at Peripheral Labs? We’re a quiet bunch I’m afraid, getting stuck into all sorts of work and trying our best to finish Boxman, our long in development game, but hopefully a nice monthly update will fill you in and convince you we aren’t doing nothing.
Pre-optimisation in programming doesn’t work Pre-optimisation in programming is when a programmer tries to design code to be fast and highly optimised before he/she has even written any code. For some less experienced programmer’s this sounds fine, but I know more experienced programmers than myself will know this is a bad idea. So let me tell you how I learnt this and why it’s bad.
An update from inside Peripheral Labs 
So at Peripheral Labs we’ve been quiet lately. Okay we’ve been very quiet. This does not however mean we aren’t doing anything. It’s just, we’ve been busy, and, well you all know that problem when you get out of the habit of updating a website. Yea that’s happened here, I will admit it. (more…)
You want to make WordPress themes? Use Bones 
Recently I have been getting a lot of work making WordPress themes and websites, and because I’m not into doing any unnecessary work I normally use an official WordPress theme as a starter theme to work of. But for my most recent project I did some research on other starter themes. What I found was Bones. The starter theme that will make your life considerably easier, and for newbie’s, easier to learn the art of theme development. (more…)
Video game style guides are extremely useful. 
When people think of design documents for games the great “game design document” always comes up. Lets not forget it’s not the only one, at peripheral labs we have three main design documents, the game design document, which outlines the gameplay. The technical design document, which outlines technology to be used, game engines, graphics techniques and so on. Then we have the art style guide, something commonly associated with web design and graphic design. I think its just as important in video games. (more…)
If anyone has followed us for the past few years, you know we’ve been working on a game for a long time. I think we’re at 2 years 6 months right now. It’s been a rocky road of learning, hardships, and above all great satisfaction.
We rebuilt the game in a new engine this year and we’re releasing a free demo of the in development alpha version. Which is what I’d like to share with you here!
It’s time for another update! I didn’t do an update last week because nothing happened. I had exams, and I wanted time off, simple. Let’s start with a gif of the new feature in Boxman: (more…)
I have been fascinated by stories in games ever since I fell more and more into the universe of gaming. When I started making games I was convinced stories were the most important thing in games. I read books on game design which stated that games couldn’t tell decent stories and probably never will. They told me the important thing about games was the mechanics, story was just a lick of paint. That was several years ago and ever since reading this I have been determined to make stories a part of games that people didn’t think of as a lick of paint. (more…)
Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact.
– Carl Sagan
Words well said from Mr. Sagan. School isn’t the worst place ever. It’s a place were you learn how to interact with people, work in a team, finish things by deadlines and so on, all valuable thins for life. But my experiences have never been of creativity and curiosity. Which is something I’d like to look at for a moment. (more…)
Reading is something that has so many benefits I cannot possibly list them here, so I will attempt to show you how reading increases your creativity and imagination, makes you more patient and generally a better person. For a lot of people reading is time out of their busy day, time that could be spent doing something else. The fact is reading will even decrease your stress and allow you to think more clearly. Let’s face it reading is epic. This is why. (more…)