Creating a Game: NEED HELP!

POSTED BY: dygfloyd
UPDATED: Sunday, April 18, 2004 01:07
VIEWED: 5387
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SIGMANUNKI

Saturday, April 17, 2004 1:21 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dygfloyd:
At both MIT and U of I, we were not allowed to use computers in our first CS class.

We were forced to do DFD's for about 3 weeks and had to submit one with each program thereafter for the remainder of that first class.

Of course, with software, we can just open a source file and change was needs to be changed. And as you point out it's quite different with hardware.

Quote:
Originally posted by dygfloyd:
I prefer not to use "canned" libraries in most cases. Not because they are bad but because I write these things as exercises to learn more about the languages.

To be fair, I think when it comes to graphics our hands our tied, which is pretty much all those python libraries do.

Quote:
Originally posted by dygfloyd:
For now, let's let majority rule. If we get several people, let's all vote on the language and then we can move forward from there. I'm pretty open either way.

Sounds good. But, I think that before a vote is made, someone should figure out what the requirements of the game are so that we can pick the most appropriate languages to vote on.

----
"If you truly love the memory, you must set it free()!" -Me
"Also, I can kill you with my brain." -River

SHINY

Saturday, April 17, 2004 3:27 AM

You might want to contact St.Jayne, as he has experience with Flash programming (he wrote the 'Battle of Serenity' Flash Game on this site)

Please help Haken keep this site running by occasionally clicking on some of the sponsored ad links on the side of the page!

CAPTAINCERENTZ

Saturday, April 17, 2004 11:07 AM

Quote:

Java has those *really* long names (ie System.out.println("Hello World"); ) which only gets worse as your program gets more complicated. It is cross platform but have they worked out the different thread behavior for different platform problem yet? I was never comfortable coding in Java as I learned it after C. I found it kind of like programming with hand-cuffs on.

Java does have some long class names. I suppose that could become complex as a project grows, but I have to say that most any project can become complex as it grows in size, it all depends upon the level of documentation and obfuscation put into the code by the developers. If everyone ignores putting any kind of visually appealing, ie easy to follow structure in the snippets of code they offer, then what can one expect?

I find it odd that Java was never comfortable to you as I learned some C before learning Java and have seen some structural similarities between the two languages.

I can't tell you if they worked out the different thread behaviors for different platforms. Doesn't that have more to do with the Java Virtual Machine more then the actual Java code though? At least how I understand it...

SIGMANUNKI

Saturday, April 17, 2004 5:29 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by CaptainCerentz:
Java does have some long class names. I suppose that could become complex as a project grows, but I have to say that most any project can become complex as it grows in size, it all depends upon the level of documentation and obfuscation put into the code by the developers. If everyone ignores putting any kind of visually appealing, ie easy to follow structure in the snippets of code they offer, then what can one expect?

I am speaking more in the sense that you can have very long lines of code with nesting function calls (which I do all the time in C, Python, etc. I see other people doing the same thing a lot as well).

Quote:
Originally posted by CaptainCerentz:
I find it odd that Java was never comfortable to you as I learned some C before learning Java and have seen some structural similarities between the two languages.

There are similarities, but, when I code it, knowing the freedom that you have in C, when I code Java, it feels like I'm coding with handcuffs on.

Quote:
Originally posted by CaptainCerentz:
Doesn't that have more to do with the Java Virtual Machine more then the actual Java code though? At least how I understand it...

That is what I'm speaking of. The Java code is no different, but, the behavior differs from platform to platform. So, you don't know if your program will work the way you think it will everywhere.

But you are right. There must be a standard bracing style, documentation, variable naming conventions, etc. in any project. But, not that Hungarian notion that is in a lot of code out there. How useless is that?

----
"If you truly love the memory, you must set it free()!" -Me
"Also, I can kill you with my brain." -River

LINDLEY

Saturday, April 17, 2004 5:45 PM

The description of your game sounds vaguely similar to the game which I'm working on a Firefly mod for---- www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn , which is shareware. So we're working along similar lines-----its just that you have to first create a new engine, while I'm using an existing engine and just creating content.

Good luck with everything.

I know both C and Java, and I must say, both have their uses. For low-level programs, I *far* prefer C. However, when complicated data structures start getting involved, Java is *really* nice----it is far easier to swap out an ArrayList for a HashTable, for instance, than it would be in C.

MEREN

Saturday, April 17, 2004 5:48 PM

I don't know anything about programming (compared to you umberspiffy people) but I do have a reputation in my area as a good DM and would love to help out with any story/quest stuff.

JENTLE

Saturday, April 17, 2004 5:50 PM

I'd be willing to help with graphics and such, but only if it's a game I can actually play, which as I'm a fervent Mac user, would point to Java (I believe).

I'll keep an eye on you guys to see what happens.

Here's a little of my artwork -

http://jentle.epilogue.net

==================
Every well-bred petty crook knows that the small concealable weapons always go to the far left of the place setting.

SIGMANUNKI

Saturday, April 17, 2004 6:11 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Jentle:
I'd be willing to help with graphics and such, but only if it's a game I can actually play, which as I'm a fervent Mac user, would point to Java (I believe).

Well, if C or C++ is used there is the libSDL which runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, *BSD, BeOS, etc. It's IMHO, vastly superior to DirectX.

We'll be getting a iBook soon so I could work on the Mac stuff (OS X) provided I have a compiler.

If Python is used then pygame is supported on the same platforms as previously mentioned. I'm not sure if OBSD supports pyopengl but I know someone is working on getting that working. We'll see come May 1 if it in OBSD 3.5.

Java is of course available on all these platforms, but, I don't know about the new Java 3D. I think it's probably at the same status as pyopengl.

I think that's all the languages that should be seriously considered, but, DygFloyd might have some others to bring up. Pretty much if one of those is used I don't see much of an issue with you being able to play it

Quote:
Originally posted by Jentle:
Here's a little of my artwork -

http://jentle.epilogue.net

"Dolphin Mermaid" would be my fav.

----
"If you truly love the memory, you must set it free()!" -Me
"Also, I can kill you with my brain." -River

JARED

Saturday, April 17, 2004 6:34 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
But, not that Hungarian notion that is in a lot of code out there. How useless is that?

ok, now thats the point where i start getting interested (not having redundant prefixes twice as long as the name itself is kind of tempting *lol*).

if i may just ask which platforms youd like to support? depending on that i might point my finger at opengl and either glfw, allegro or sdl. sdl has some annoying habits, but is rather complete if you can live with only mac/win/linux.

if you think anything here
http://festini.device-zero.de/Programming/Downloads/index.xml
or (for less able browsers)
http://festini.device-zero.de/downloads/index.shtml

or the knowledge used to create anything there is of use, then just let me know. some of them require a halfway recent graphics card and the framework might require a few libs that might be missing.

i (like obviously many others) thought about a firefly game and what it should be like (interesting enough, after thinking about it i guess a space flight part shouldnt be too extensive.. serenity isnt armed and just flying in a straight line for hours isnt that tempting.. short sequences for different events maybe).

JENTLE

Sunday, April 18, 2004 1:06 AM

SigmaNunki:
Yeah, I may be somewhat 'tech', but I'm mostly 'artist' so a lot of that came across as "blahblahblah, blah blah blahblah."

Good to know there might be a Mac version in our future - and yes, I'm all about OSX.

==================
Every well-bred petty crook knows that the small concealable weapons always go to the far left of the place setting.

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