menyo

Thanks for the replies. My idea was to start this game, and run it parallel to doing other tutorials, so, when i get stuck at a point, find a tutorial on the subject, complete it and then adapt it to my game.

The actual game itself is set in a space ship overrun by baddies. You command a group of people, and you have to survive. I think i will make it in 2D and use an isometric view. At this stage, i want to make a room, and have some goodies and baddies shooting each other. I have lots of features i want to add, but they are for a far distant future. Im using XNA and c#.

You will find yourself abandoning the project because you eventually realize it is a inefficient mess. What i did after my pong game is making a arkanoid clone and added some extra gameplay to it. After that i had a couple of fail projects like you then started a tower defense and prototyping all kinds of elements games have.

You always have the freedom to take any project on and learn from your experiences, we all have our fair share of fail projects . If you really want to go for it i suggest to try to get a basic tilemap going on, maybe randomizing it, then make it isometric (like the original xcom games where). Then create a unit to walk the map, get a pathfinding system going on. And by this time you have ran into a ton of problems and are a couple of months down the road, without anything that looks like a game, but with experience.

Use eclipse to write your java.

I use 3D studio max to make 3D models, i bought 2009 3 years ago for just a fraction of what they ask. Blender however is free.

The gimp is free photo editor like photoshop. I use photoshop though, it is really worth the money!

I bought fruityloops like 10 years ago, it is a good program to make music and sound effects.

As for every program, it are just tools. It takes years to learn how to work with them properly. If you dont have drawing skills, photoshop wont help you a bit. If you can not make melodies on a piano then fruity loops wont help since it is just a ultra advanced piano+drum computer.

It's a bit too big of a step but you can always have a go at it. 2D can be as beautiful as you want, you just dont have the luxury to have a moving camera and have some shots at different angles. But you can certainly achieve better graphics then the original series.

You can do anything you want with enough dedication and effort. Having that said it wont be easy, you need a lot of skills. Yes a degree counts but i am convinced if you teach yourself enough and publish a good solid game you are already one step ahead of someone without a degree. Both a degree and a finished project show off determination to finish your goals but a solid finished product will get a lot more attention and perhaps some money rolling in.

The problem is, you will need a lot of skills to get a solid product on the market. Graphics, programming, music, sound, design, marketing, etc should all be good enough to get that attention. If you lack one of these skills you have to invest money prior to getting anything out of it, and perhaps you wont get anything out of it. It takes a long time till you are ready to start a good project on your own and finishing such a project generally takes even more time. There is just a lot involved in a project of your own so if you want to be professional getting a degree is the fastest way, you can work on your personal skills and projects in your spare time while still learning and gaining experience at your job.

Are you aware that you picked the most difficult and harsh programming language out there?

Yes C++ gives you control over everything especially the memory usage to create state of the art games because you can make things run very efficient. But what is your goal here? Creating games i assume? My guess is you would be better off with another language, at least for the time being. You will notice that most languages use fairly same syntax so jumping over to another should not give you much trouble.

There are several option here, i personally like C# + XNA, while still fully in control of what you create XNA lets you jump right into drawing sprites on the screen and coding behavior. Even with XNA a finished game takes a long time to make but all the back end is done for you. You can see XNA as SFML for C++, but visual studio c# is a much user friendly environment.

Java and Python are also good options to explore.

You could also go for a game engine like UDK or Unity. Both are 3D engines that can be used right away to import assets. UDK is amazing if you want to make somekind of 1st or 3th person view game. It requires no coding to still make something very unique but does allow you to input code in the form of unreal script (much like C++). I never tried unity i believe it gives you a bit more freedom on the type of game you want and works with C#, C++ and Javascript.

If you really want to save yourself from coding, which i doubt since you started in C++, you could take a look at RPG maker or game creator.

-edit-
Whats with the down voting? I am giving more pointers then you haters ever give. C++ is the most difficult language out there and the guy is a beginner so i give him choices. Up to him what he chooses.

Good thinking,

What you could do is create a paddle class with all its attributes and needs.

then create a player class inhereting from the paddle class where you add movement and correct its position or even color/texture:

class player : paddle

Then for the ai you do the same and add some AI to its movement.

class AI : paddle

Make the head bounce forward each step. Pigeons do this fairly extreme.

Other then that: very solid!

Thats a lot to ask, since writing a blog can help millions of people where a one on one chat only helps you. And what is different about a chat other then you can only hear one opinion or solution and getting a quick answer. I'm not sure this will help you more.

Have you asked yourself the question why you are not learning from the internet?

I'd say, start to pick one language and go with it all the way. Start with a easy tutorial, and NOT only read but make, NOT copy but type. And make sure you understand whats going on and only then move on to the next.

My advice, learn slowly in small steps:
PONG is a relatively simple game to make, but once you know how to make it you will be able to make Arkanoid with a bit more effort. Learn some vector basics for enemy movement and you can make then Arakanoid into a shooter. Advance this way, in small steps and don't ask to much from yourself. Eventually it will come to you.

I am not put off by the amount of work that is involved in such a process.

So you know how much work it is? Like the first comment said, you will need to clone yourself multiple times. For every good quality mmo there was a very large team of individual artists working many many years on the project. And such a project is never finished, you need to bugfix, update, support people etc. If you want to pull off something decent alone it will take you more then a life time. And thats why people discourage you.

Also you state getting bored at games (sounds to me you want to make your own better game), yet later you state you might only do the engine. The engine is the most work, and the least satisfying if you pursue the goal of making a game since you mostly see code and no game being developed.

The shear size of you ambition is just too much, and most of us had that too in the past and try to warn you about such a thing. Why don't you just start smaller, you can always undertake a project like this. If you start running you wont start with a marathon right? If you are truly a good graphics and sound artist then you can build a nice port folio MUCH easier then most of us around. Make a nice graphical Arkanoid, a very good multiplayer Bomberman clone and some innovative side-scroller. Then write a huge game design document and you won't have trouble finding 20 talented people to work together on a project like that.

If you still want to work on a project like that, go for it. Not saying you will fail like all of us, there are exceptions on the rule like Einstein or Mozart. I hope one day i can mention your name between those and say you made the best MMO single handed without any game programming experience.

Good luck!

Well if you want to have your game with a more dynamic camera feeling to it you should use this technique, but walls and objects should be made 3D if you want to pull that off.

If you want a 2D isometric game you need to draw your tiles in diamonds and just do the math to tile them and for mouse to tile picking.

http://www.gandraxa....tric_tiling.xml

If you want to make games i would say get visual studio for C# and XNA. XNA is a very nice library and you can jump right into game logic rather then creating an engine. Off course there are plenty of other libraries like SDL or complete engines like UDK but i would really advice you to look into XNA. I went with XNA and i'm very happy with it. Since you have some experience with C# and C++ you should have no problem jumping into some XNA tutorials there are plenty of them around.

For a professional 3D artist texturing is pretty much a required skill. But there should be some projects that look for pure modellers, if you are able to unwrap your models correctly then it opens even more spots. But to find a freelance paid job without texturing skills will be hard.

Best advice i can give you is practise as hard as you did on your modelling skills and you will be as good with texturing as with modelling.

Yes, because C++ is a lower level language you have to code more to accomplish the same thing in a higher level language. This has advantages when you know how things work and make things more efficient and functional to the program your creating. The obvious disadvantage is that it takes a longer time to create something, especially for smaller programs C++ can make you write 4 times the code then if you wrote it in something like C# or java and accomplish the same.

Rent a safe somewhere and put the idea of making an rpg game in it and start learning Java with the book you bought, gamedev and the rest of the internet. An RPG, unless it's stripped as much a RPG can be stripped to still be an RPG, is very hard to make. And way above the level of a beginner. I'll ask some questions to make you understand that a little better.

1. How will you be creating your map?
2. How will you script the dialogues?
3. How will you store your character data?
4. How will you move the player?
5. How will you implement menu's
6. How will you be doing the inventory?
7. How will you... (endless list).

Each of these have there own huge list of "problems" and before you can tackle these you need to know the basics very well. So learn some basics and get comfortable with the syntax and basic functions. Now it's time to make something like pong, reason? Well i can actually make the same list above and finish it.

1. How will you move the paddle and ball.
2. How would you make the ball bounce on the pedal and screen edge.

Hey! This seems very doable. Next up, arkanoid, we know how to bounce a ball and move a pedal you might even know a way to make this even more fancy. So what needs to be done?

1. How to make a map of bricks.
2. How to remove a brick when the ball hits it.

So now you have a basic arkanoid, I found arkanoid a pretty cool game. And to make this a full game some things need to be done.

1. Make a menu with a start and high scores button.
2. Reuse this menu to make a between levels screen.
3. Add score.
4. Add different kinds of bricks.
5. Add bonuses.

You probably know by now how to implement most of these things. And you surely have a basic idea on how to program a RPG. Here is the first list again.

1. How will you be creating your map? You know how to create a map of bricks for arkanoid, so you should have an idea how to tackle this for an RPG.
2. How will you script the dialogues? You already made a between game menu that uses game data to show new data.
3. How will you store your character data? You made a highscore list that keeps track of highscore of each play through.
4. How will you move the player? This one will be easy now.
5. How will you implement menu's? A lot more complicated for RPG's but you have a basic idea on how menu's work.
6. How will you be doing the inventory? Combining menu's, buttons and working with dynamic game data should tackle this area.

This does not imply that your ready to make a RPG after a arkanoid clone. But you surely have some great insight on how to make something like a RPG. Advantage is, you now have a complete game. This gives confidence, sent it to your friends and they will boost your confidence even more. You also have quick access to all the code you wrote since you wrote it yourself and understand how it works.

Well, since you always know from what player your going to steal something you have it's ID. You just need to find a way to link that ID to the file that holds his inventory like a dictionary. Or call your files something like inventory_<ID_NR>.xml.

Then you just remove the Stolen object from that user and add it to the user that stole it and tag it stolen within the item object so the police have a way to catch this petty criminal .

You can also serialize lists so when you have an item class and give each playerclass a List<item> inventory; you can save this to XML. Then when something needs to be removed and added to another players inventory list. you just switch it to another players list.