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TIGSource ForumsCommunityTownhallForum IssuesArchived subforums (read only)TutorialsSO YOU WANT TO MAKE GAMES - the beginner's guide [in progress]
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Author Topic: SO YOU WANT TO MAKE GAMES - the beginner's guide [in progress]  (Read 38380 times)
increpare
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« Reply #20 on: December 28, 2010, 11:38:28 AM »

Prototyping is a quick way of making games. It involves scaling down ambitions and effort to quickly finish something.
Prototyping is a way of making prototypes.  To say something is a'prototype' implies that it is preliminary model to be further built upon, something incomplete.  I do not, for instance, regard KOTM games as prototypes.  I regard them as complete, beautiful games.  I would not think most participants do either (even if occasionally the games are further developed).  

This is maybe distinct from what goes on in the experimental gameplay project, where a lot of games were explicitly made as gameplay prototypes, with the intention of building on the more popular/interesting ones.
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Richard Kain
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« Reply #21 on: December 28, 2010, 01:34:02 PM »

It could be a positive development to see more small-scale games produced as quick collaborative efforts. It's natural that efforts like these would be less polished and more experimental, but I definitely think there is a place for such efforts.

Toolset sandboxes like Little Big Planet are a good example of this mentality being given more mainstream treatment. Technically, Little Big Planet and other game-building games are another good option for the beginning designer. Though quite simplified and abstracted, they can definitely highlight many of the basic logical principles behind game design. Perhaps the biggest advantage they offer is an existing library of graphical assets. One of the biggest hurdles for beginning developers is populating their worlds with graphical content. I for one would love to see a game development package along the lines of LBP coupled with the graphical editing suite of Spore.
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« Reply #22 on: December 29, 2010, 08:19:05 PM »

Very decent list. May I suggest teaching newbies about licenses and that kind of junk? I know some who have difficulty learning what it all means.
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« Reply #23 on: December 31, 2010, 04:03:23 AM »

I really don't think game creators are the way to go.

You can certainly come up with some decent stuff in GameMaker, et cetera.  A great example is Spelunky.  Another is RobotzDX, which should be examined by people wanting to make gamemaker games.

But my gut eeling is that once you've spent time learning the intricacies of GameMaker to a point where you can make interesting programs with it, you would have been better off spending a little more effort with something like Blitzmax which offers much room for expansion and has shipped numerous commercial products. 

With Gamemaker, the space is just too small and you'll need to move on.  When you need to move on, the skills you've spent time to learn won't be transferrable.
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mirosurabu
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« Reply #24 on: December 31, 2010, 04:51:44 AM »

Prototyping is a way of making prototypes.  To say something is a'prototype' implies that it is preliminary model to be further built upon, something incomplete.  I do not, for instance, regard KOTM games as prototypes.  I regard them as complete, beautiful games.  I would not think most participants do either (even if occasionally the games are further developed).  

This is maybe distinct from what goes on in the experimental gameplay project, where a lot of games were explicitly made as gameplay prototypes, with the intention of building on the more popular/interesting ones.

Oh, okay, that's a valid point, albeit it only addresses semantics.

I think that the definition of "game prototype" shifted away from "unintresting in-house gameplay test" to "complete small-scale game that highlights one or two ideas and is of interest to wider public". Whether author plans to expand on it or not, in this case, is of little relevance.

So, yup, apologies for using wrong term for a lack of better term.
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Wowk
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« Reply #25 on: January 04, 2011, 10:26:23 AM »

What's the best way to get into games developing?
I started from the C++ basics, reading some tutorials, and now I'm actually practicing C++ by solving ProjectEuler's problems. Is that the best way or should I dive into something more game-related, like messing arround with SDL?
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increpare
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« Reply #26 on: January 04, 2011, 10:37:13 AM »

What's the best way to get into games developing?
I started from the C++ basics, reading some tutorials, and now I'm actually practicing C++ by solving ProjectEuler's problems. Is that the best way or should I dive into something more game-related, like messing arround with SDL?
My suggestion would be to use a game engine/environment construct, or renpy, or something along those lines.  Or, given that you know some C++, you'd probably be comfortable with flixel - which is for flash games, and very nicely structured.  All of these are free.  [It's possible you might like unity as well].  Don't worry about using different languages - most games development ones are pretty interchangeable - most knowledge will carry over pretty smoothly.

You can do stuff with vanilla libraries like sdl, yeah, but I wouldn't recommend it, given your inexperience with making games.
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Wilson Saunders
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« Reply #27 on: January 04, 2011, 02:55:40 PM »

Thanks to GenericUser for starting this thread. Since every one is chipping in their favorite getting started technologies I am partial to the Allegro Library http://www.allegro.cc/, which is a C/C++ library with Java and Python addons (which I have never used). For simplified development tools I have experimented with processing http://processing.org/. It is very good at getting something on screen, but doesn't hold up well if you want to complex tasks like rotating sprites.

I think the prototyping discussion is a little off topic. People who can whip out a prototype in a few days typicaly know their tools and are not trying to take their first steps in game development.
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« Reply #28 on: January 04, 2011, 06:37:19 PM »

My suggestion would be to use a game engine/environment construct, or renpy, or something along those lines.  Or, given that you know some C++, you'd probably be comfortable with flixel - which is for flash games, and very nicely structured.  All of these are free.  [It's possible you might like unity as well].  Don't worry about using different languages - most games development ones are pretty interchangeable - most knowledge will carry over pretty smoothly.

You can do stuff with vanilla libraries like sdl, yeah, but I wouldn't recommend it, given your inexperience with making games.

Ok...thanks. I'll probably give a try at flixel, for starters. But what if later I want to dig deeper into making my own engine and things like that? Would developing games in flixel greatly count towards that achievement? I'm actually switching to computer engineering at my university, so I'll probably get onto advanced programming, but of course it won't be much game related. I want to know what could I do to exercise in graphical and physics coding.
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increpare
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« Reply #29 on: January 04, 2011, 06:41:16 PM »

Ok...thanks. I'll probably give a try at flixel, for starters. But what if later I want to dig deeper into making my own engine and things like that? Would developing games in flixel greatly count towards that achievement?
Sure, it'll give you a good feel for how many games engines are structured should you want to go off and make your own.  

Quote
I want to know what could I do to exercise in graphical and physics coding.
Flixel takes care of graphics and physics stuff for you for the most part.  But making interesting use of them is still something that might be meaningful, and understanding their limitations, and how they're structured internally, is valuable.  

Ultimately, you asked for stuff about getting into games developing rather than engine programming - my interests are in the former, so you might want to ask someone who's more into engine coding if you really want to focus on that (don't expect any games to come out of such endeavours though).
« Last Edit: January 04, 2011, 06:49:23 PM by increpare » Logged
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« Reply #30 on: January 04, 2011, 07:21:04 PM »

Ultimately, you asked for stuff about getting into games developing rather than engine programming - my interests are in the former, so you might want to ask someone who's more into engine coding if you really want to focus on that (don't expect any games to come out of such endeavours though).

That's not it at all. I just wanted something to work with designing games at first that would contribute to my future plans. Thanks a bunch for the feedback  Smiley.  I think working with flash games can easily provide me with a dense community of players that can provide me all the criticism I'll need to mature some game design skills.
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increpare
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« Reply #31 on: January 04, 2011, 07:25:38 PM »

I think working with flash games can easily provide me with a dense community of players that can provide me all the criticism I'll need to mature some game design skills.
Oi, they're not all idiots  Tongue 

Anyway, let us know how you find it - last time I checked with someone starting to learn flixel, they had trouble finding a tutorial that worked for the current version of the engine.  I hope that problem has been fixed now... . 
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« Reply #32 on: January 04, 2011, 09:13:05 PM »

Just click here  Wink

I couldn't really find useful tuts for the basics at the official site, but I haven't looked on their forums just yet. Will report back if I find some good beginner guides.
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« Reply #33 on: January 06, 2011, 09:47:00 AM »

Ok...Flixel's a bitch for beginners. The problem you stated is not nearly fixed. Had compilation problems with every guide I tried. I guess that's the price you have to pay for the fast development.
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increpare
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« Reply #34 on: January 06, 2011, 05:10:59 PM »

Ok...Flixel's a bitch for beginners. The problem you stated is not nearly fixed. Had compilation problems with every guide I tried.
Oh bugger.  off to the flixel forums I go to talk about it.  Sorry about that.
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« Reply #35 on: January 06, 2011, 05:36:46 PM »

I think some of the secret tutorials are possibly on FlashGameDojo? Not sure.

Alternatively you might find FlashPunk better documented.
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« Reply #36 on: January 06, 2011, 06:13:20 PM »

That's some spirit, increpare.  Smiley

I've already looked into FlashPunk and, yeah, it's much better documented. I think I'm gonna go with it.
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« Reply #37 on: October 18, 2011, 06:42:52 PM »

I'd absolutely love if this guide made some mention of the game's final product – will it run on on iPhone, do you need a browser to play it, can it be saved as a standalone .exe, run on a Mac, etc, etc etc.

As this thread is still marked "in progress" I hope this doesn't count as necro...

(Yes, I'm reading this thread because I want to make games and trying to figure out where to start.)
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Tesla Shockwave
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« Reply #38 on: October 23, 2011, 04:16:49 PM »

I'm a bit surprised to not see Java or XNA with C# listed here.
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« Reply #39 on: October 24, 2011, 11:20:45 AM »

I'd absolutely love if this guide made some mention of the game's final product – will it run on on iPhone, do you need a browser to play it, can it be saved as a standalone .exe, run on a Mac, etc, etc etc.

As this thread is still marked "in progress" I hope this doesn't count as necro...

(Yes, I'm reading this thread because I want to make games and trying to figure out where to start.)

I want to be a game developer... now what? is a guide I put together as the question is common enough and a lot of the resources out there are quite out dated.  It's a looooooooooonnnnnnggg read ( it's a involved subject! ) and is hopefully quite free of bias.  I promise if you read it, you will know more than when you started!  At the very least, it should show you what questions you need to ask next.

That said, I completely disregarding game making applications ( like GameMaker ) and scripted ?platforms? like Flash and Silverlight, not because they aren't viable choices, but because I have little exposures and the article was already damned long!  Just letting you know that the guide was by no means comprehensive.

Hopefully it answers your questions.

Oh and technically, I think it was a necro. Smiley
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