ave.
What language / tool is ok for creating an old-timer 2D, Sprite based game?
(dont want to spend half my life on mastering it, though familiar with highl-level basics)
Would any demand possibly exist for such ancient-looking but cheap (few dollars?) and addictive game?
Where to promote / sell it?
thanks.
2D Spriter - creation and sell
My framework is dedicated to 2d retro gaming. You can have a look at it here www.mimicprod.net. It uses C# and OpenGL (via OpenTK).
I'm partial to XNA, now that I've used it for a few 2d projects I would never use anything else.
There are a lot of platforms out now for casual games that make it possible to market 2d games. Biggest ones I know of are Xbox Live and the flash portals (Armor Games, Kongregate, etc.).
Flash or Silverlight might be a good alternative for you. They're both much higher-level languages. I haven't used Silverlight but Flash games can be made pretty easily, you're basically just scripting. Also, when you're done, you have instant access to a ton of distribution portals and a huge market because people can play from inside their browser.
There are a lot of platforms out now for casual games that make it possible to market 2d games. Biggest ones I know of are Xbox Live and the flash portals (Armor Games, Kongregate, etc.).
Flash or Silverlight might be a good alternative for you. They're both much higher-level languages. I haven't used Silverlight but Flash games can be made pretty easily, you're basically just scripting. Also, when you're done, you have instant access to a ton of distribution portals and a huge market because people can play from inside their browser.
Quote:Original post by ldmn
What language / tool is ok for creating an old-timer 2D, Sprite based game?
Since performance probably isn't going to be an issue, whatever language or tool you find most intuitive should be perfectly usable.
Quote:Original post by ldmn
Would any demand possibly exist for such ancient-looking but cheap (few dollars?) and addictive game?
There are still plenty of people who enjoy playing these types of game and can appreciate something fun and addictive.
Quote:Original post by ldmn
Where to promote / sell it?
I agree with Church that XNA is a good option distribution-wise (and a capable framework). Also have a look around at the various free/open source libraries available (like iliak's), see if they provide bits of sample code or read the intro chapter of their manual to get an idea which one best suits your style.
If you're concerned more with getting the game made than the technical journey of programming it then there are tools available like those from clickteam.com which seem to be capable of producing some fun retro games (like Nikujin which I enjoyed a lot). I think these tools usually allow scripting and so don't limit your creativity as much as you might imagine a game-creation tool would.
I am going to recommend flash, like a few others have mentioned.
You would be absolutely blown away with what one can accomplish in flash 9+). Unlike the situation years ago, You actually now have access to a full object oriented language (AS3). This makes it possible to have a reasonably sized codebase, and you can ditch the timeline that is very unintuitive for games. You don't even have to own a copy of flash, you can use the freely available FlashDevelop and flex SDK (compile towards flash not flex for better speed). To add to this you can use flash to produce some really neat effects easily in-game. For instance, in a small RPG demo I created, I used masking to create a really neat "torch" effect similar to what you see in games like zelda. You can code sprites into their own movies to make them brain dead easy to animate , check collisions, etc. And "scripted events" become a cakewalk.
Hopefully this helps.
You would be absolutely blown away with what one can accomplish in flash 9+). Unlike the situation years ago, You actually now have access to a full object oriented language (AS3). This makes it possible to have a reasonably sized codebase, and you can ditch the timeline that is very unintuitive for games. You don't even have to own a copy of flash, you can use the freely available FlashDevelop and flex SDK (compile towards flash not flex for better speed). To add to this you can use flash to produce some really neat effects easily in-game. For instance, in a small RPG demo I created, I used masking to create a really neat "torch" effect similar to what you see in games like zelda. You can code sprites into their own movies to make them brain dead easy to animate , check collisions, etc. And "scripted events" become a cakewalk.
Hopefully this helps.
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