Articles by David Bolton
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How to Use a Linux Virtual Private Server
For my development of Web games, I've hit a point where I need a Virtual Private Server. (For more on this see My Search for Game Hosting Begins.) I initially chose a Windows VPS because I know W… -
How to Win a Capture-the-Flag Programming Challenge
Back in May, I described how entering coding challenges can be a way in to the industry. A recent AI competition that's just started is offering prizes, and one of the competition's supporters, G… -
How to Produce Dynamic Mulitplayer Games With PHP
It's relatively easy to set up a Web-based massively multiplayer game (MMO), though realistically you probably won't have more than a few hundred players. I've chosen World of Phaos (WoP), which… -
The Basics of Google's Dart Milestone 1
A year on from its initial release, Google Dart's Milestone 1 has a whole raft of improvements and new features, though the removal of the string concatenation for performance and consistency rea… -
Top 5 Ways to Monetize Free-to-Play Games
Games industry consultant Nicholas Lovell presented 15 rules for how to monetize free-to-play games at the recent F2P Summit. Rather than get into all of them, let's look at the five that I belie… -
How to Use Match-Three Mechanics for Great Games
Web games and smartphone apps have been using the match-three mechanic for a few years, but recent games have carried it beyond the obvious Bejeweled-style titles. The mechanism — where a player… -
How to Set Up Couchbase on a PHP Website
In my previous post Testing Couchbase as a NoSQL Server, I described my use of the NoSQL data store Couchbase. Today I'll show you how to start using Couchbase with a PHP website. Note that becau… -
Make Your Online Soccer Game More Realistic
Fantasy Football and online soccer management games have been around for years. There's Soccer Manager, Online Soccer Manager, Trophy Manager and many others. At the heart of most of these games… -
Review: Lewis Pulsipher's 'How to Design Epic Games'
Lewis Pulsipher's name should be very familiar to game players of the past 30 years. He's had several games published, including Britannia — ranked in the top 100 games — as well as Dragon Rage,…