Quote:Original post by Spoonbender
I'm curious what it is that qualifies you, the person who's in "way over your head" to decide that advice given by people who actually know more than you, is invalid.

...

Or then again, maybe not, if you really intend to ignore any advice that could be helpful.

That article is geared towards complete noobs, for whom the advice there is very relevant. But someone more experienced can differentiate between well written and poorly written code, distinguish between good habits and bad habits, and actually learn something from the code rather than blindly copy it.

Whether I am experienced enough for that, I don't know, but for now I'd like to think that I am.

Quote:What is it you expect to gain from reading this source code then?

For now it seems that writing code by myself isn't working too well for me, so I would like a change of atmosphere. I thought that rewriting a game using my own coding style, perhaps restructuring the code (in particular, rewriting C code to take advantage of C++ features) and extending it, would inspire me to write my own code.

I don't know if this is the most productive use of my time, but it can't be much worse than what I'm doing now (which is mostly nothing).

Quote:Since you don't want a link to that article again, here's another one you may find relevant.

I'd like to think that your intentions are good, but still, that was uncalled for. I am quite aware of my incompetence, which I've hinted at in my original post.

Quote:Original post by DevFred
Does that mean that you have already written your own tetris clone? If not, try. You might be surprised at how hard it really is.

I have and you're right, it wasn't easy.

@jpetrie:

Given that you are the author of that article, I really appreciate the fact that you decided to post the links to these games even though they are probably over my head. I will definitely take a look at them.

@Daaark:

Why did you delete your second reply? I thought it was totaly awesome!

And finally, thanks to everyone who posted links, I really appreciate it. Please keep 'em coming!

Quote:Original post by DevFred
OK, so if you have succeeded at writing small games, maybe it's time to read books about design of large software systems? Like "Design Patterns" by Gamma et al?

I have read various articles (like the ones in the first link in my sig) and looked at some books on software design. I'm very interested in software engineering, design patterns, etc., but it seems that to really understand these things you have to have a lot of programming experience. At the very least, more than writing a tetris clone. I've written some other small things (snake, pong, some very simple 3D demos), but nothing really large that requires a lot of up-front design, and I'm not sure how to make the transition.

That's actually one of the reasons I want to create a more complicated game - so that I can later look at those books again and see if I can apply some of the advice there. But like I said, I'm having trouble coding by myself (staying motivated, etc.) so I wanted to try a different approach.

@jpetire:

You made some interesting comments on the source code of the games you mentioned. Does that mean that you have been reading source code? [grin]

There is a book I like which has the full source to the engine. ADVANCED VISUAL EFFECTS WITH DIRECT3D by Peter Walsh.

Link to the source is at the bottom of the page:

http://www.courseptr.com/ptr_detail.cfm?group=Game%20Design%20%26%20Development&subcat=Game%20Art&isbn=978%2D1%2D59200%2D961%2D9#downloads

I would highly recommend picking up the book as well but the source is pretty easy to grok through.

Greg