* Porthole

That's the second best thing I've heard all day.

Yes, I will port an existing game to a machine that consists of levers, springs, wires, cogs, steam power, and other pre-electronic technology.

That's the best thing I've heard all day.

Same with me. I registered a while back, but I still haven't figured out what I could use it for.

I guess that's only really fun if you know the city it's played in.

"Heh, now they trashed the deli at the corner."

I haven't tried this yet, but, come on, is this some kind of elaborate joke? I mean,

The only fantasy colonization simulation you need!

How lame is that.

I actually have been thinking about making a game that fit this thread's title, just completely different. Sidescrolling, and with actual graphics. I already have some work on the technicalities behind it done, though I don't know if it will ever see the light of day. So, in a way I'm very happy this isn't what I thought it might be.

I know that I can put the disc in the console and it will just work, and I can play the game, instead of struggling with a piece of hardware.

Well, I got the same thing with virtually every PC indie game I downloaded in the last couple of months. Download it, extract the zip file somewhere, run the exe, off you go. Virtually all of these don't push the hardware envelope as the latest AAA titles published on consoles do, so even with my ~5 years old PC I hardly ever run into problems.

Plus, there's the added freedom/power/control

...and I apologize and you say no, I apologize, and then we're both laughing and one thing leads to another and before you know it.. um.. wait, what was I saying?

That, Sir, cracked me up.

Bit late to the party.

 

Wooohoooo! PostFemLibBot?! I love it.

This thread is becoming the sole source of new manbabies here at TIGsource. We should rename the menu at the top to something like "TIGForums / Independent Gaming Discussion / Also Robots.

Or rather:

TIGForums: We have robots. There's games too.

TIRDForums: The Incredible Robot Drawing Forums.

Just one more, pretty please?

TURDForums: The Uncanny Robot Drawing Forums.

Majoring in art, programming, music, writing, etc.

Or math. Don't forget about math.

He must have assumed that was a given

Hopefully 

But for a more serious question, let's assume someone already had good skills in at least one relevant area such as programming, art etc, but had no idea how to design a good game. Could such a school then help them to learn that specific aspect, or is it something that can't be learned anyhow? That you either have or you don't?

It's not that I consider going to such a school, I'm just curious. Although I am in the position that I think I am a pretty competent programmer, but I can rarely think of an original game idea, and when I do, I find it very hard to formulate the idea into an actual concept for a game. It's pretty frustrating.

This thread is becoming the sole source of new manbabies here at TIGsource. We should rename the menu at the top to something like "TIGForums / Independent Gaming Discussion / Also Robots.

Or rather:

TIGForums: We have robots. There's games too.

Majoring in art, programming, music, writing, etc.

Or math. Don't forget about math.

I have a silly question. If the topic of the compo is already known now, doesn't that mean that people can already start working on their entries and get a headstart? Just wondering.

One of the downsides to Java is the slower performance that can occur with larger applications.

That is a very questionable argument. If Java is too slow for you, then there aren't many choices left beside C++ and assembly.

That's true. Java has had a lot of brainpower poured into its JIT compiler in the last few years and has really caught up a lot in that regard.

Then again, Python with Psyco isn't that much slower than Java either (typically by a factor of 2 or 3, if the language shootout can be believed... yeah, I know, microbenchmarks). Contrast that with the fact that Python is a vastly more expressive and less verbose language than Java, and Java's niche in game development starts to become very cramped. If you want to go the professional route and need all the performance you can get, you are going to choose C++ anyway; if performance doesn't matter that much and you just want to get something done as quickly as possible, you probably don't want to use Java for that either.

The only valid reason I can see to use Java for indie game development is if you already know the language very well; then of course you save some time learning to use new tools. On the other hand, I would never recommend learning it to someone who's just starting out with game development.

For adventures, there's AGS: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/ Many great games have been made with it, so if you really want to make an adventure, you should try it.

As for learning to program, Python certainly is a much better first choice than C++. There's also D, which is basically a cleaned up and simplified version of C++ which I currently use, but if you're just learning to program then the lack of good documentation will probably trip you up.

I like how you incorporated music into the game concept (with the level names, the boss...)

The concept is refreshing, but the game felt a bit too frustrating to me. Admittedly I beat the first level on first try (barely: just 2 seconds left), but it seemed that whatever I did I would still keep crashing every few seconds. Especially with the boss, I had no idea how to avoid those things he was firing. Then again, I'm not much of a shmup player, so that probably doesn't count for much.

I use SDL with OpenGL too, works just fine.

Also, if you're really serious about vector graphics, you might be interested in ShivaVG, an open-source implementation of OpenVG, a vector graphics standard similar in design to OpenGL:

http://ivanleben.blogspot.com/2007/07/shivavg-open-source-ansi-c-openvg.html

This was pointed out to me in a recent thread on vector graphics. Maybe it's of use to you.

If I had more free time and a proper library for sound generation, I'd have to go and write a fractal music generator tied to a genetic algorithm. I imagine that could generate some true horrors, considering I have zero experience with music theory.

Sound generation shouldn't be that much of a problem, the page I linked a few posts back has lots of nice chip emulators.
As for the rest, you can have my framework to play around in if you want it. I have even recently implemented a GA for the entire melody, now also including pitches. Do you already have a clear idea on how you'd do that, using fractals?

NB: I'm away over the weekend.

[giant ass-poster]

If there were some purely hypothetical person who had never played any Megaman game, ever, would you think less of that entirely fictional individual?

We'd forgive him- provided that he immediately sought out at least one of the original Megaman games so that he can experience it for himself. Just be warned that hard old games are old andhard.

Always the diligent student of video game history, I did so and started out, appropriately, with Megaman 1. You were right. This is hard. I probably would have played the hell out of that when I was a kid, if I had had a NES at the time. Now, though, I mostly feel my time is too precious to spend hours to get through one level of an ultra-hard platformer, as enticing as it is.
I did get through the Fireman stage after a few tries, though, and then died at his hands in seconds. Oh well. History lesson learned, I guess; this will do.

Lessons learned from xkcd: switch hyphens around in phrases like these.

Please, Capcom, make that into a giant ass-poster.

Aha, Muku, you slay me with your wit.

Oh, but any credit would be entirely misdirected should it go to me.

(That smiley is probably the most awesome thing about the entire forum.)

[giant ass-poster]

Lessons learned from xkcd: switch hyphens around in phrases like these.

Please, Capcom, make that into a giant ass-poster.

This is exactly what I was looking for, that was my understanding of how it would work but it just sounded like there was an easier way I just couldn't wrap my mind around.

Also, if you want to keep it simple, start with a non-scrolling platformer, i.e. one screen per level. That way your conversion from your grid indices to screen coordinates and vice versa is basically just a multiplication by your tilesize or a division by it, respectively. In other words,

screenX = gridX * tilesize
screenY = gridY * tilesize

You might have to adjust for sign depending on whether your y axis points up or down. Generally I'd recommend always having y point up, it's just less confusing in the long run. Depends on the framework though, with OpenGL it's trivial to do, with purely framebuffer-based libraries it's a bit more work, but still quite easy.

Ha, now he looks like he's wearing some Victorian-era dress

you srsly don't see the thumbs-up?

:D :D Haha, not until you mentioned it. I knew we had some sort of cognitive dissonance over this whole thing. It's one of those vase/face things if you know what I mean. Just think of the white bits as the parts where the background shines through (which is pretty ridiculous considering he's wearing that wide flowing robe, but anyway), maybe you'll see what I saw. Well at least now I finally know what you guys were talking about...

Anyway, I just fixed him up a bit so he looks more appropriately, uh, grim. Also tried to do a side view but I think it came out all wrong, like a different character entirely. Also, the scythe seems off. Dang this is serious business. It's fun though. Any advice?