Above the Sea and Fog But Still Perpetually Obscured.

I’ve been messing around with some ideas in my head and I’ve come to a cross roads as to which idea I want to develop first.  The idea that is farthest along is a 2d platform shooter, in the vain of Jazz Jackrabbit, Duke Nukem and so on.  Nothing to ground-breaking game-play wise but this would be all about presentation, story and music.  It probably would be the best one to do with my small but ever growing programming knowledge.

Another idea I’ve got going is an real time strategy, well a very cut down RTS anyway. Another way of exploring a story I think.  This could be a bit harder to write I think, especially if I want an isometric view angle.  Maybe I should just do it as 2D for now.

I still have my text RPG sitting there, don’t really have the motivation to finish it though.  The code is pretty much butchered (because I wrote it while knowing not a great deal).  I wanna do a straightforward text adventure game but that’s not a great deal.

Ok, while writing this, I’ve decided to do things in this order:
Text adventure game.
2D RTS.
3D RTS (basically 2.5D RTS)
Platform shooter.

If I can at least get something happening for all of these, I’ll be happy.  Maybe I’ll -actually- update my progress this time around!

Well, while I wait in the blistering 36 degree heat for a bus, I thought I would write a very short update.

Today in my couple of hours I had free, I managed to write in room movement, full random enemy generation, player stat resets after each battle and a way to keep count of how many battles an creatures a player has fought.

Doesn’t seem like much but I’m pretty proud of. I didn’t post the game on Tuesday because basically I hadn’t worked on it since my original post but if my workload isn’t too big this weekend, I may be able to post a version that can keep you entertained for more than a minute!

Well, I have been writing stuff and my 1st official project is well under way.

The features I’ve done so far are:
Class selection.
Name entry.
Attack algorithms (although these will be improved soon)
Enemy type and amount randomisation
Enemy attacks: Randomisation, error buffers
Death

Doesn’t sound like much, but I’ve spent a lot of time just trying to remember how to do certain things.

Features that will be added soon:
Room generation.
An actual story.

Yep. That’s all for now!

You may have gathered from the title of this post, something is stirring in the guise of GameDevGo!. I actually am writing a game. I started yesterday and should hopefully (very hopeful) that I could get it done before Tuesday!

Clearly, it won’t be much, just a simple text RPG, but there are going to be some interesting algorithms for combat. Of course, as I (think) mentioned earlier, it will be in Java. Thus, no-one will have to miss out on this most likely terrible experience.

Well, I’m excited, if not a little nervous and scared.

After this first week of uni I’ve decided that instead of throwing GameDevGo! to the probably-permanent back-burner, I want to keep going. Granted I have many, many hours of uni a week (not to mention study time), the actual hours I could put in are very limited but I think I’ll just add to it over time. Maybe publish some idea and concepts here or possibly start a new blog specifically for it.

Of course this time I’m gonna start out right at the bottom i.e. text adventures and random generated pixel-hunts. I do have a few concepts for much bigger games but that is clearly out of my range for now. Maybe I should start a journal just for them, for my eyes only.

Well, hopefully expect a slightly more clear version of what I’ll be doing on Monday.

Now, I’m a little conflicted.  I’ve been doing some reading on the XNA forums and what I’ve seen is that its best to know C# away from XNA long before you even touch XNA.  Sure, that makes a bit of sense but considering my short amount of programming experience I wonder if I should take it.  I might as well, there are a couple of things in C# that I don’t quite understand 100%.

Now that I’ve reconsidered what I learn in terms of C#, I’m wondering should I go back to C++ and really get my shit sorted out there first.  I mean, I’ve programmed quite a bit on it but nothing that ever involved graphics.  Also, my computer science course will be focussing on C++ and Java (which I have done tonnes of).  Well, it won’t even touch C++ until second year.  I guess I have to way up my priorities.

1. Keep doing C# until Uni starts and go all out with Java.
2. Switch to C++ until Uni.
3. Do bits of both C# and C++ until Uni.
4. Do all 3.

Now 1 and 3 would obviously allow me to release (or near release) are very tiny game before Uni begins again.  2 would help me for later and get my maths thinking back into gear. 4 is just ridiculous.

I really think 1 would be best because it would give me a large focus on OO programming and would allow me to release something soon-ish.  But I would also have to go back a bit and re-learn outside of the XNA world and once Uni begins, I can do all my Java stuff without having to think to much because I’ve done so much already.

Hopefully though, I can put something out.  That would be nice.

To sum up this post: I should go back and learn the basis of C#.

A little screencap of 2D tutorial in Learning XNA 3.0

Well, I’ve been using Microsoft XNA Game Studio and Visual Studio C# 2008 Express for the past couple of days and well, its fun.
I’ve been using the book Learning XNA 3.0 by Aaron Reed to teach me and its doing a good job.

The screencap is the end result of the 2D tutorial of the book in which basically you are the spinning rings of doom and you avoid pointy things.
Riveting isn’t it?…

So, what have I learned from my short experience of C# and XNA:

• It’s extremely logical and simple.
• It takes a bit longer than C++ to do things.
• XACT is awesome but auditioning in 2.0 doesn’t work, does in 3.0.
• If I ever wanted to put something on 360, it wouldn’t take much effort.
• C# is ‘prettier’ than C++ and Java.

Yep, that’s all I’ve learned but then again, this is only my 3rd day of doing it.  Plus, I’m still only doing 2D programming so I’m sure I will get a nice shock once I get to the 3D.

I should have outlined my GameDevGo! goals before but I shall now:

• Finish the book.
• Get a simple game done before uni starts
• Get a more complex game done by mid year.

These would be what I consider ‘immediate goals’.  Hopefully with the stuff I’ll be doing in Computer Science, my ‘more complex’ game should be rather interesting.

Now, how to get my fiancée to do the game art…

Well, now that my Mathstrack is finally finished, I have a couple of months until uni starts again and thus a couple of months until I start Computer Science.  So I’ve been thinking, I might get a start on designing and programming my first game.  Granted, I shouldn’t make too much of a deal out of it considering there is a very high chance of it not being all that great.  But I might as well, because really, this is the main reason why I’ve been wanting to do computer science for so long.

Having never programmed games beyond a tiny text adventure in C++, I am a little bit daunted by the choices but  I have narrowed down my options as to how I shall program my first game.  After some deliberation I have come up with 2 choices.
Flash or XNA Game Studio.

Why these two? Well, both have bucket loads of free tutorials, both use languages that a very common in game development and both are easy to get your head around.  But now to pick and begin my fun and, no doubt, rather stressful journey.

Lets do this in pro/con lists!

XNA Game Studio

Pros

• Extremely large collection of official learning documentation.
• Language is C#.  Which is good because I’ve done quite a bit of C++.
• Free
• Extremely large community.
• Tons of tools.

Cons

• Not always free. Some premium content will be required….eventually
• Windows only.
• Very Xbox360 centric but several articles help with PC only stuff i.e. deployment.
• Art may be harder to achieve.

Flash

Pros

• Cross-platform, both development and runtime.
• Language is ActionScript3 which seems to be rather simple.
• Mainly 2D which is much better for me artwise.
• Probably the quickest to learn and produce a playable result.

Cons

• Flash will always be flash.
• After 30 days, gotta pay or pirate.
• I really don’t know all that much about the specifics.

That wasn’t very helpful was it? Especially as I had made up my mind long before I finished writing these lists.
For the types of games I want to start making (RPG/RTS/Adventure), both bits of software have excellent results with all of these genres but I do believe that XNA has the upper hand.
XNA has a very centered community (The XNA Creators Club) and Flash has the millions of people that have written articles, e-books and other such things.
Both C# and ActionScript3 have their place in game development but for my purposes now and over the next few years while doing the degree, C# would be better.

And thus, my decision is XNA Game Studio!  I shall start downloading it right now.

I really hope I get committed to this and update this GameDevGo! feature often.