Game ProgrammingDevelopment Tools

Nick Prühs

Objectives

• To understand the importance of improved workflows

• To get an idea of which kinds of useful tools are out there

• To learn how to integrate tools into your daily workflow

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Automated Builds

• Allow you to create nightly releases of your current game version

• Automate any pre- and post-build steps required for creating new builds

• Track build successes and failures and their reasons

• Provide access to previous builds (history)

• Can parameterize build input and output

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Automated Builds

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Jenkins CI – Slash Games

Automated Builds

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Jenkins CI – Project Page

Typical Build Steps

• Accessing source control• Syncing working copy

• Creating tags

• Writing version numbers

• Performing the actual build

• Packaging the build result

• Publishing the game on a build page

• Running unit tests

• Sending email notifications

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Automated Builds

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Jenkins CI – Project Configuration

Automated Builds

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Jenkins CI – Build Result

API Documentation

• Can be automatically generated from properly formatted source code comments

• Output format may vary (usually HTML)

• Tools are available for all major object-oriented languages (Javadoc, Sandcastle, Doxygen)

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Javadoc

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Javadoc Comments

Javadoc

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Javadoc – Invoked From Command Line

javadoc -d api -sourcepath src -subpackages com.example.project

Javadoc

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Javadoc API Documentation

Sandcastle

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XML Documentation Comments

Sandcastle

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Sandcastle Help File Builder GUI

Sandcastle

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MSDN-Style API Documentation

Doxygen

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Doxygen Comment Blocks

Doxygen

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Doxygen GUI Frontend

Doxygen

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Doxygen API Documentation

Analytics in Games

• Track the origin, device and operation system of your players

• Track user engagement• Retention

• A/B testing

• Track monetization success

• Track performance• Framerate

• Crashes

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Analytics in Games

• Involve many key questions• What to track

• How to track (who, what, where, when)

• How to analyze data

• Enough material for a whole different course

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Analytics in Games

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Game Analytics Website

Analytics in Games

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Game Analytics API Call

private void OnVictory(Event e){var victoryData = (VictoryEventData)e.EventData;var eventKey = string.Format("Level:Victory:{0}:{1}", this.currentLevel, victoryData.Type);

GA.API.Design.NewEvent(eventKey);}

Analytics in Games

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Game Analytics Metrics

Analytics in Games

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Game Analytics Funnel

Consistent Code Style

• StyleCop analyzes C# source code to enforce a set of style and consistency rules

• Helps developers avoid common pitfalls and mistakes

• Settings file can be checked in to version control

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Consistent Code Style

StyleCop Settings Dialog in Visual Studio 2012 26 / 43

Consistent Code Style

Part of a StyleCop Settings File

<StyleCopSettings Version="105"><GlobalSettings>

<StringProperty Name="MergeSettingsFiles">NoMerge</StringProperty><CollectionProperty Name="RecognizedWords">

<Value>Bresenham</Value><Value>Dijkstra</Value><Value>Endre</Value>

<Value>Fredman</Value><Value>multigraph</Value>

<Value>Stee</Value><Value>Tarjan</Value><Value>Tarjan's</Value>

<Value>unweighted</Value></CollectionProperty></GlobalSettings><Analyzers>

<Analyzer AnalyzerId="StyleCop.CSharp.DocumentationRules"><Rules><Rule Name="DocumentationTextMustContainWhitespace">

<RuleSettings><BooleanProperty Name="Enabled">False</BooleanProperty>

</RuleSettings></Rule><Rule Name="ConstructorSummaryDocumentationMustBeginWithStandardText">

<RuleSettings><BooleanProperty Name="Enabled">False</BooleanProperty>

</RuleSettings></Rule>

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Consistent Code Style

StyleCop Warnings in Visual Studio 2012 28 / 43

Static Code Analysis

• ReSharper provides static code analysis

• Many, many shortcuts and quick fixes

• Improved refactoring

• Improved search features

• Code templates

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Static Code Analysis

R# Static Code Analysis in Visual Studio 2012

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Static Code Analysis

R# Suggestions in Visual Studio 2012

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Static Code Analysis

R# Suggestions in Visual Studio 2012

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Static Code Analysis

R# Suggestions in Visual Studio 2012

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Eclipse

Eclipse Java Code Style Clean Up Settings

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Eclipse

Eclipse Java Code Style Clean Up Settings

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Hint

Setting up tools will always take the same time.

Thus, the earlier you set up your tools, the greater your benefit!

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Crash Dump Analaysis

• Sadly, even released games and tools will sometimes crash

• Windows can automatically generate a minidumpwhenever a program throws an unhandled exception• Loaded modules

• Thread information

• Current call stack

• These can be loaded and debugged in Visual Studio

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Crash Dump Analaysis

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C:\Program Files\Procdump>procdump.exe -ma -i D:\Temp\Dumps

ProcDump v7.0 - Writes process dump files

Copyright (C) 2009-2014 Mark Russinovich

Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

With contributions from Andrew Richards

Set to:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug

(REG_SZ) Auto = 1

(REG_SZ) Debugger = "C:\Program Files\Procdump\procdump.exe" -accepteula -ma

-j "D:\Temp\Dumps" %ld %ld %p

Set to:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug

(REG_SZ) Auto = 1

(REG_SZ) Debugger = "C:\Program Files\Procdump\procdump.exe" -accepteula -ma

-j "D:\Temp\Dumps" %ld %ld %p

ProcDump is now set as the Just-in-time (AeDebug) debugger.

Crash Dump Analaysis

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C:\Program Files\Procdump>procdump.exe -u

ProcDump v7.0 - Writes process dump files

Copyright (C) 2009-2014 Mark Russinovich

Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

With contributions from Andrew Richards

Reset to:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug

(REG_SZ) Auto = <deleted>

(REG_SZ) Debugger = "C:\WINDOWS\system32\vsjitdebugger.exe" -p %ld -e %ld

Reset to:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug

(REG_SZ) Auto = <deleted>

(REG_SZ) Debugger = "C:\WINDOWS\system32\vsjitdebugger.exe" -p %ld -e %ld

ProcDump is no longer the Just-in-time (AeDebug) debugger.

Crash Dump Analaysis

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Deferencing a nullptr that will cause a crash

Crash Dump Analaysis

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Minidump File Summary in Visual Studio

Crash Dump Analaysis

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Debugging a Minidump in Visual Studio

References

• Croy, Bayer, Kawaguchi. Jenkins CI. http://jenkins-ci.org/, April 2015.

• Oracle. Javadoc. http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/documentation/index-jsp-135444.html., April 2015.

• Woodruff. Sandcastle Help File Builder. http://shfb.codeplex.com/, April 2015.

• Dimitri. Doxygen. http://www.stack.nl/~dimitri/doxygen/, April 2015.

• Drachen, Canossa, El-Nasr. Intro to User Analytics. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/193241/intro_to_user_analytics.php, May 30, 2013.

• GameAnalytics. GameAnalytics. http://www.gameanalytics.com/, April 2015.

• Microsoft. StyleCop. https://stylecop.codeplex.com/, April 2015.

• JetBrains. Resharper. http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/, April 2015.

• The Eclipse Foundation. Eclipse. https://www.eclipse.org/, April 2015.

• MSDN. Crash Dump Analysis. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee416349(v=vs.85).aspx, November 16, 2013.

• MSDN. Collecting User-Mode Dumps. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb787181(VS.85).aspx, April 2015.

• Russinovich. ProcDump. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/dd996900.aspx, September 11, 2014.

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Thank you for your attention!

Contact

Mail

dev@npruehs.de

Blog

http://www.npruehs.de

Twitter

@npruehs

Github

https://github.com/npruehs

5 Minute Review Session

• Which steps can be automated using a build server?

• How can API documentation be generated automatically?

• Which data can be tracked by analytics?

• How can you enforce a consistent code style within your team?

• Which tools can help you to detect code quality issues?

• How can you debug applications that crashed outside of Visual Studio?