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Game Programing Questions
koconutmonkey
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hello all. My buddy and I have come up with a game concept we want to play around with. I have a few questions for those that have gone down this route. Before that, I have done some basic programming while getting my AA degree in networking, but nothing major beyond that.
What language/ program do most amateurs use to make homebrew games? Target would be PC.
Is it possible or feasible to license older game engines, ie Quake II.
We know this will take forever in a day, but it is a project we have been talking about for years and its time to dig in. Thanks
What language/ program do most amateurs use to make homebrew games? Target would be PC.
Is it possible or feasible to license older game engines, ie Quake II.
We know this will take forever in a day, but it is a project we have been talking about for years and its time to dig in. Thanks
Time to roll the dice.
koconutmonkey on
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I assume since you are interested in the quake 2 engine that you are looking to make a 3D game. Unless you feel like coding a 3D engine from scratch you are probably better served by making a "Mod" as opposed to a "new game" (the distinction between those two is arbitrary, but I'm using it here to mean not making your own engine).
Basically you are going to start with a game, say quake 2, and replace all of the "data" of the game (this includes models, levels, textures, sounds, scripts for what happens when, etc) with your own "data." I don't know jack about actually doing any of that, so I can't really help you there.
There are lots of different ways to make games, though. You've got pygame, flash, various free 3D engines (torque is another one). To answer your question we really need a bit more detail, including:
2D or 3D?
Some sort of information as to "genre"?
single or multiplayer?
I think the dev kit is like a grand, and something like $50 a month to license it afterwards.
or something like that.
if you're going to code if from scratch, python does some good stuff.
Know this, though: you should be spending at least half of your "development" time on coming up with software architecture on paper or on a whiteboard. Then maybe 30-40% on implementation, then 10-20% on testing and QA. Don't just sit down and write code, that's how you get frustrated.
Excellent thanks for the tip!
Pythin with PyGame is a fine choice too.
I 2nd the XNA idea. Grab Visual C# Express here, just grab what you need don't install all the gigs of extra shit. Then grab the XNA libraries here.
There are some games you can compile and run, that run the gamut from simple 2d to full-on 3d racing (!), which you can grab here. There's a great starter walkthrough for a toy 2d sprite game on MSDN.
I love ripping on Microsoft so it pains me to say this, but they actually have something cool with XNA. Being able to deploy 1 codebase on Windows, Zune, and Xbox360 is pretty amazing.
How basic?
Video games are really the pinnacle of complexity when it comes to programming. If you've never attempted to make a game before(especially a 3d game which requires at least a basic understanding of modeling and good level design not to mention the programming)
Personally I would suggest starting out with something simple (I.E. Pong) complete with a menu and a good looking design to sharpen your teeth on.
Also if you decide to go down the mod route there's always the Source SDK.
Thanks for the links and advice so far.
Another benefit to Torque is the Torque Shader Engine, I believe its around $500, that you can add on to pretty up your game and make it look really close to commercial game quality graphics. Although, I'd get the game functioning in vanilla Torque first to test out ideas and balance it all well.
Also, listen to what everyone is saying about starting out small. Make your pong/breakout/whatever other simple game you can think of first. And with your idea, take a look at it and figure out how you could make a demo version, because thats really what you should be aiming for as your game (For instance, maybe you have a game with 20 or 30 weapons, make the game with 2 or 3, just shrink the work down, and add more later. It'll make it less likely for you to say "this is too hard, i'm giving up".) I give this advice as a compulsive over-aimer and complete flunkout. I have been part of many indy game projects before, everytime we have lost interest because we bit off more than we can chew.
I think the Python idea is the best one I've heard, even for just prototyping the code out.
Python is a very easy fun language and there's lots of cool libraries out there for it.
If it's good enough for NASA and Google, it's good enough for you.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
I've seen many a fledgling game programmer get broken on the rocks of software engineering; best of luck, it's not easy
There are also many who view game development as artistic expression, and want to create a game to share their art with the world, spread joy and entertain people, become "Internet famous" and increase their chances at breaking into the industry proper, or other reasons not directly related to creating and selling a product for money. Is this you?
No matter which way you go, you need a game design. Game designs are VERY HARD to do well. Even if you become a total game design nerd like myself and read articles and books about game design, the things you learn will never make you a great and successful game designer. Sure you'll be able to talk intelligently about games and think deep thoughts about what a particular game does right or wrong, but all of that gets you no closer to being successful at the creative process of coming up with a new game design that people will enjoy playing so much that they give you money.
Fear not though: you can still experiment with a game design on a low budget. I constantly recommend people try to implement a scaled-down version of your game idea in board-game form.
1) make some flexible game pieces. Take some index cards, leave some whole and cut some into various smaller sizes, and take the whole mess to a copy shop and pay a few dollars to have them laminated. Also buy some fine-tip dry erase markers. Bingo, all purpose game pieces!
2) Find The Fun! Strip your design down to the core, essential decisions and gameplay mechanics that still capture the functional 'soul' of your innovative design without requiring huge amounts of bookkeeping. Just like an author writing a book, you will create too much and then start trimming and killing and cutting until you have a tight, functional core of gameplay.
3) Playtest! Don't just imagine how your game mechanics will likely work: set up a game board and really play it, playing the part of various types of players, smart, stupid, etc. What does success feel like, and what does failure feel like? Invite friends over and "DM" this game for them. Make sure they understand this is intended to be a video game, so they should please ignore the slow pacing.
4) Iterate! If your first attempt is already super-fun, you're amazingly lucky or your standards are too low. Refine your design and repeat until you've found consistent, repeatable fun for your players.
5) Create the simplest possible implementation that still preserves the fun you found. 3D is sexy and first person shooters are popular, but if your game plays just as well top-down with 2D sprites then you need to make a top-down 2D game. Tech and graphical enhancements for the sake of being "cutting edge" are the domain of seven figure budgets and large teams, and that is not you.
I know you asked programming questions but even in software development, requirements elicitation is at least as important as good implementation. Sure it's nice to pick a toolkit or platform and start writing software toys, to build your skills, but if you're really excited about making a game then I recommend you take some time to find a fun design, figure out what kind of tech is REALLY required to achieve that design and focus your efforts there.
Like many previous respondents I'm also pretty technical -- currently pursuing an MS in Comp Sci -- so maybe after a month or two when you're sure you know what your game design really requires, we'll be glad to bury you in helpful but contradictory advice about how to build your game.
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Yes with out a doubt we will start out with small chunks. We will probably end up just being the idea guys and find some other coders, we just want to see if we can do it really. Our first "big" project will probably be just a xbox live style game. That is if Xbox live still exists in 5 years, lol.
To mspenser: None of this is about money. Me and my buddy have been life long gamers and we just feel that it would be cool to make a game. We also have not seen this concept yet, and we love the genre. We are looking at this as a culmination of our geekdom. We have spent years discussing what we like in a game, so I think we are setting out to do just this. If we sell one copy of the game, cool, but its more about a game we would enjoy.
Fantastic idea about the board game. That will really illustrate the concepts we want to get down. Man this is going to be fun!
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showpost.php?p=2554801&postcount=26
Now I don't want to get discouraging here, but I've seen variants on this theme many, many times before. Some small group of gamers decides that they have an idea for gaming so revolutionary and so compelling that it will be able to attract coding talent just from the sheer awesomeness of the idea. This basically never happens. Ideas are easy, execution is what's hard. And coding is a big part of that execution (art is the other big part).
The bad news for you is that any coder that's even remotely competent is actually in relatively high demand in this market, since everything now runs on software. Yes yes I know that coding jobs are all being outsourced to India, but believe me I don't know too many top-notch programmers who are starving. In fact, I don't know too many top-notch programmers at all - they're quite a scarce resource. As I noted in my above-linked post, programming is programming, in a lot of ways. It's about the same amount of fun programming a business app as it is programming a game. So, if you can make $65,000 a year programming someone's business app or $0 programming someone's game idea, it's sort of a no-brainer.
If by "find some other coders" you really meant "find some coders and pay them $65,000 a year to implement our idea" then that's wonderful. But if you're looking for free slave labor, you're going to be disappointed. Also, "a share of the eventual profits" or "experience" are not compelling alternative to "cash." Money talks.
Hrm...
This part of your post also does not inspire confidence that you have perspective on the situation. Let's go back to the old car analogy. Making a full-scale game is about the same amount of effort as constructing a car from scratch. Even if you can buy some of the individual parts, you're still going to have to shape metal, cut and sew leather, fabricate shifter knobs, etc. I'm really not kidding about this.
So, you've come to H/A saying "I want to build a car from scratch with zero experience, what should I do?" And people here are saying "hold your horses, cowboy. If you have zero experience, why don't you try making an RC car first and see how that goes."
But the posts you're writing say: "gotcha, well, we'll start small and we'll build a motorcycle instead." And, as American Chopper shows, two guys with 15 years of experience each, a shop full of very expensive tools, and about 6 months of concerted effort can indeed make a motorcycle. However, you've only got one of these three ingredients - the time.
Now, OK, maybe you're just using this idea as an impetus to learn new things. That's wonderful and noble. If you accept that at the end of it, you're probably going to end up with some mangled pieces of metal and leather on the garage floor that don't look like anything, but you've learned more about metalworking and leathercraft and that was the goal all along, wonderful. However, as zilo noted, this is a hard path: it's frustrating to put in a lot of effort on something with little to no output and not get discouraged. This is why small (we're talking teeny tiny) goals are critical, to establish a forward path of incremental results.
So, if you're serious, here's what you want to do:
First things first, post your concept on this thread. We promise to be nice. Get over the thought that someone is going to steal your idea. Again, ideas are cheap, execution is hard. Here's a wonderful post explaining why it's idiotic to be secretive:
http://lostgarden.com/2005/08/why-you-should-share-your-game-designs.html
Second, describe some teeny-tiny bite-sized tasks you think you could do that would help you get a few baby steps closer to this goal. We can also help with this by suggesting a couple things that might actually be doable at your level, but only after you describe your concept.
Third, do one. Then you will have taken your first steps into a larger world.
Thanks for the links, and I will send if off to my friend. He is the one who started out with the idea, so I have left it up to him to discuss the details. It is an idea that sounds like fun to us and I cant recall playing one. I will work on getting the clearance to discuss it, as that article really swayed me. Thanks again for all the advice.
One other point here, we are doing this as a hobby, not as a potential to get a job in the business or make money. I am totally expecting to win the lottery with tickets I dont purchase before I design a hit video game.
I'll start off by saying I can't build a car. If we continue with that analogy then my experience with Game Programming amounts to my experience with changing the tire of said car. Not Much.
I concur with my friend, this is hardly about making money. Though the idea that we could make a little money if we do decide to put a whole hell of a lot of work into this is nice. We wouldn't want to make it expensive because if we get it to a point where we think people would enjoy it, it would be more about seeing what they think and getting others to play it with us.
I want to build this game because to my knowledge it does not exist and I want to play it. I want to play it right now and can't. I would say there are definitly games very similar, very very similar, but no game that I know of does what we want our game to do.
I like the Torque idea, our game is a combination of both 2D and 3D game play and Tribes 2 is the first game I thought of when trying to think of older 3D engines we might be able to use (dont take that as a game comparison, far from it).
To be honest, however, the concepts and ideas have grown to the point where the 2D experience could be a full game and the ideas we had for the 3D portion of the game make it feel very gimmicky to us, so we could build it without the 3D components all together and it would be a complete game (at least in a indie/delusions of grandeur sort of way). The gimmick is what sells this idea to us though, and we would more than likely develop them separately to garner experiences to use when designing the final vision.
Im not prepared to share the concept yet, let me gather everything my friend and I have talked about and present it to you as a whole idea. At first I was afraid someone would steal it (I will read the Lost Garden article after this) but Im not looking to get rich from this or anything and now that I am thinking about it go ahead and steal it once I've posted it, I still want to have a crack at making this game but if someone else gets to it first just let me PLAY IT!
When you say that the 2D experience could be a full game it really makes it sound like this is a HUGE game you're planning to make, and probably not likely to be finished unless you break it down into elements. Set goals for yourself, and don't pull the common diet problem of "Oops I ate a slice of pizza now im going to eat a cake because its ruined".
Make pong (or some other simple game) first.
Use Python/pygame.