Official Developers Search Results

Crafting Blocks into Bricks: A Minecraft LEGO Diorama

Let's face it. Minecraft probably wouldn't exist today if not for LEGOs. They are fundamentally the same; building objects out of blocks. Only Minecraft has expanded on the idea, creating a world where nearly anything can be made. It's probably even more accurate to say that Minecraft is the digital embodiment of LEGO Mindstorms, thanks to all the working, moveable parts and ingenious in-game engineering that make Minecraft a functional, living world.

How To: How Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Attacks Sneak into Unprotected Websites (Plus: How to Block Them)

XSS stands for cross-site scripting, which is a form of web-based exploitation that uses client-side vulnerabilities in a web page to execute malicious JavaScript codes. JavaScript is referred to as "cross-site" because it usually involves an external website containing the malicious code. That code is most commonly used to steal cookies with a website that the attacker created and hosted on another server. The cookies can then be used to escalate privileges and gain root access to someone's ...

NORTHWAY Games: Cool Indies by a Restless Company on the Road

Game design is sedentary work. Generally its practitioners do their work with their butts planted securely in front of a computer in an office (be it home or away) as their muscles and verbal skills atrophy. Even game journalists are prone to this condition. Not so with Colin and Sarah Northway (pictured below), the husband and wife team behind NORTHWAY Games. Not only do they make really cool indie games, but they do it with just a laptop while traveling the world meeting indie developers of...

News: Google+ Pro Tips Weekly Round Up: Google+ Grows Up

Things have been a bit quiet on the Google+ Insider's Guide this week. With the launch of the new Facebook, Google+ is finding itself a bit on the defensive. However, recent data shows that by making Google+ available to the general public, their traffic has jumped 13-fold, according to Mashable. With the new growth also comes the introduction of cool new features, which further enhance sharing.

How To: Apply Now to Join the Minecraft WonderHowTo Server

We've got a creative server and we're looking for players now! All slots are available! The server is set up to be the official playground for our tutorials, how-to videos, community contributions, contests, and even the occasional PvP. Whether you're interested in a place to build your personal projects or looking for tutorials and ideas, we're here to help you grow creatively.

News: The Brilliant Work of Zeboyd Games Highlights Some Hideous Flaws in XBLIG

Games like Minecraft and Braid have proven that there is money to be made in the indie game marketplace, which means more and more designers are following suit, one being Zeboyd Games. The two-man indie design team released two excellent JRPG spoofs on the Xbox Live Indie Games (XBLIG) Marketplace in 2010: Breath of Death VII ($1) and Cthulhu Saves the World ($3). Both have been well-reviewed and spent time near the top of the XBLIG sales charts, but its success couldn't be rivaled by what wa...

News: Project Zomboid Has More Problems than the Guy in this Screenshot

Making a video game requires an incredible amount of work. It requires people skilled in many disciplines to work together for thousands of hours merging visual art, computer programming, game design, sound design, and music composition into a fun game. The Indie Stone is a Scottish indie development studio started, like so many others, by industry vets who were tired of corporate restrictions and wanted to make the crazy games they had always imagined.

How To: Transfer Your Facebook Friends to Google+ (And Vice Versa)

On the same day that Google launched their new social network, Google +, a team of Google engineers calling themselves the Data Liberation Front announced their first service on Tuesday—Google Takeout, a product that allows users to easily move their data in and out of Google products, including Buzz, Contacts and Circles, Picasa Web Albums, Profile and Stream (the equivalent of Facebook’s newsfeed).

How To: How Area 51 Fooled the Soviets with Fake Spy Planes

Area 51 is the most secretive military base in the United States, a base that U.S. government officials to this day still barely acknowledge because of its top secret development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems. But a slew of Cold War-era documents have finally been declassified, and National Geographic has discovered a rather low-tech method the military used to hide its high-tech prototypes.

News: Angry Birds Now on Chrome (Plus the Epic Battle Between Man and Robot)

Rovio's highly successful Angry Birds game has generated a slew of wannabe Angry Clones and dominated nearly every device and platform known to man—iPhone, Android, PSP, Xbox 360, Windows—and now, for the first time it's available for play directly on the web (for free). It was specifically designed for Google's Chrome OS and their new Chromebook line of laptop computers, but can play on any device in almost any web browser (like Firefox).

News: Share Music Wirelessly by Tapping Two Android Devices Together

Android users are probably already familiar with the doubleTwist Player (free) from doubleTwist, available on the Android Market. They recently added AirPlay support for users with AirSync ($4.99) that allows streaming to Apple TV and DLNA devices, which is sure to provoke some cease and desist requests from Apple. But their second, newly unveiled feature is more enticing—doubleTap, which adds proximity-based file sharing for Android devices.

News: Has SimCity Been Destroyed for Good?

Yesterday, Electronic Arts had a nice sale on Steam for 40-60 percent off some of their Sims titles, which included The Sims 3 (along with its DLCs) and SimCity 4. I've never been a big Sims fan, especially with the slew of virtual people games in the last decade, so I didn't realize until now that Maxis had stopped making their SimCity games; They haven't released any city building Sim games since SimCity 4 eight years ago. There was SimCity Societies in 2007, but it was made by a different ...

Outland: A Polarizing Experience

Sticking with our theme of XBLA games with uninspiring names, we have Outland. This game shares its name with an unrelated sci-fi cult film from 1981, unrelated comic strip from the '90s, and unrelated region in World of Warcraft. Didn't exactly try hard to build name recognition. Other than that, Finnish developer Housemarque has created the best 2D platformer I've seen in years.

How To: Hot Wheels! Workshop Teaches Kids How to Steal Cars

It may look like a modern take on Oliver Twist but, we assure you, this is for real. Before you get too alarmed, however, you should note that the headline reads "how to steal cars" and not simply "to steal cars." We are, after all, dealing with the fine people at Machine Project, a Los Angeles-based non-profit community space organized around the investigation of "art, technology, natural history, science, music, literature, and food."

News: FarmVille Snowman Construction Links

Snowman Construction parts for FarmVille! In FarmVille you can now build a snowman! To get the pieces you need you'll have to ask for a few from your friends. You can ask once/ day and the friends are supposed to reset each day. Mine didn't thus far, so I'm providing the links so you can ask for them here!

UPDATE: The Secret Behind Why McDonald's Hamburgers Won't Rot

For some reason, McDonald's hamburgers are mysteriously unsusceptible to Mother Nature's inevitable toll of decomposition. Yep, you pretty much have to dip a McDonald's cheeseburger in acid if you want it to decompose. So we're left with the question: Why? Why does a McDonald's hamburger retain its original shape, color and texture after 12 years?

News: Gigantic Carpet of 750,000 Begonias (Assembled in Just 4 Hours!)

Every summer the city of Brussels assembles an enormous carpet of begonias, under the advisement of one hundred experienced gardeners. The project is planned far in advance, with illustrations and scale models based on a chosen theme (previously chosen have been the arms and shield of a town or commemoration of important events). This year's theme features Saint Michael striking down the dragon, the official protective image of the city, founded over 1,000 years ago.

News: Introduction to Terrans in Starcraft 2

Interested in playing as the Terran race or curious about the new updates? Here are two excellent guides that methodically take you through the new changes and abilities of the Terran buildings and demonstrate how the Terran units work. It's a bit old, but most of the information on that particular build of the game is still true.

News: Are North Korean World Cup Fans Really Chinese Actors?

World Cup World asks: "How'd North Korean fans get to the game?" Fair and valid question. It's seeming IMPOSSIBLE for any North Korean citizen to get a visa to leave the communist regime (not that they could afford it, anyway) to attend this past week's game. After much initial speculation on whether these fans were the real deal, the mystery has been resolved by multiple news sources.

News: Yes, more 3D.

This is a follow up to my last post on watching games in 3D. My main concern (because apparently I'm something of a technical snob, since no one else I went with considered it an issue), was that I perceived a lack of definition for a theater presentation.

News: Advertising in Alan Wake

These are great times. It is about time advertisers invaded our video games in the same way they do our driving (billboards), walking (fliyers, posters), and our private home (emails, bulk mail, text messages).

News: A Small Look at Aquaria

A look at Aquaria Last week I made a post about the Humble Indie Bundle (http://www.wolfire.com/humble). It's a small online charaty drive where you could buy five indie games for any price you wanted.