Maze Game, Looking for ideas.

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3 comments, last by DaveTroyer 11 years, 7 months ago
Hey guys I'm new here and new to coding for the most part.


Little bit about me.
I am interested in game design and i need to get good with java and such to be able to make my own games, figured i should join a community to get started I'm 17 years old. live on my own and I'm going to be starting college in January not sure what for yet, keeping my options open. but I'm positive I'm going into computers. im fairly good with them and want to get better.


Little bit about my game.
The game I'm currently working on is something I'm trying to keep very simple to start, Its a 3D maze game and I'm using unity 3D free version, I'm sure you guys have heard of it here, My basic idea is a maze(obviously) and you start and get to the end and it resets you.

Now i want to make some other things in it like maybe have it time you, add some aggressive enemies, ill add as i learn.

Any suggestions?
I'm looking for creative ways to make a game such as this actually interesting, Right now (sort of) know how to get my character to attack an enemy like i said I'm new but I'm learning biggrin.png

PLEASE NOTE:
This is my very first attempt at making a game, ever; and i know how that looks "oh hes not gonna continue with this", "oh hes gonna fail". I understand these feelings and you may be rite, but there's no point in openly stating them. i will try my best and any help and suggestions is very much appreciated. ALSO i know how dumb and boring this game seems, but I'm trying to keep my first attempt at making a game simple and straight forward. thanks in advance.

Let me know what you think


Please no bashing. I'm new here and just looking for a friendly community
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Please don't move your topics yourself, it just looks untidy - next time put a note for a moderator at the top of your post and/or pm a moderator to move it for you smile.png

The game I'm currently working on is something I'm trying to keep very simple to start, Its a 3D maze game and I'm using unity 3D free version, I'm sure you guys have heard of it here, My basic idea is a maze(obviously) and you start and get to the end and it resets you.
Now i want to make some other things in it like maybe have it time you, add some aggressive enemies, ill add as i learn.
[/quote]
Well try and get a basic 2D maze working first - you'll see it's not as easy as it sounds to generate convincing mazes. Then you can add 3D, and perhaps even go 4D (check out some youtube videos, it's mind-bending). Always prototype simple things before moving on to the real thing. Adding features is relatively easy once you've got a solid base to work on, but the solid base isn't so easy to build (this is where most of the refactoring happens, as you go from design to design trying to find one that you feel comfortable with, repeatedly throwing away code until you get it right).


This is my very first attempt at making a game, ever; and i know how that looks "oh hes not gonna continue with this", "oh hes gonna fail". I understand these feelings and you may be rite, but there's no point in openly stating them. i will try my best and any help and suggestions is very much appreciated. ALSO i know how dumb and boring this game seems, but I'm trying to keep my first attempt at making a game simple and straight forward. thanks in advance.

If this is your very first game, you may be aiming too high (but at least you're not trying to do an mmorpg). I suggest you dumb down your game design to a basic 2D maze - perhaps a Pacman variant - and then try and add features in later. Go the extra step for 3D only when you've learned how to cleanly separate logic from rendering. It is not as easy as it sounds, unless you use a crapton of libraries and just piece stuff together, in which case you, as a self-respecting developer, probably won't feel any satisfaction anyway.

Trust me - things can get very depressing when your reach exceeds your grasp, and it's something you - everyone - must go through. If you didn't aim so high that's it's not too easy, but feasible, you may be able to climb on a chair and reach your goal, but if it's way too high for you, you will fall off the chair and hurt yourself, no matter how many times you try. Be realistic.

This is my very first attempt at making a game, ever; and i know how that looks "oh hes not gonna continue with this", "oh hes gonna fail". I understand these feelings and you may be rite, but there's no point in openly stating them.[/quote]
Well, then, you probably won't even read down to this part of my post, but if you already anticipate that we are going to say this, then you are already aware that your project is out of your reach... we all started with Pong and Tetris clones, skipping all of that and jumping into 3D programming straight away may not be the wisest choice. This is my honest - and apparently unwanted - opinion, make of it what you will.

Please no bashing. I'm new here and just looking for a friendly community[/quote]
We are all friendly and polite here - but we will often always speak what is on our mind with little regard to what you actually want to hear, because in the long run, honest opinions are more useful than vacuous encouragements. There are people here who can relate to your current position (and may have gone through it before you) and will want to help you not make the same mistakes they did; you can learn a lot from people if you let them give you their thoughts openly.

smile.png

“If I understand the standard right it is legal and safe to do this but the resulting value could be anything.”


Please don't move your topics yourself, it just looks untidy - next time put a note for a moderator at the top of your post and/or pm a moderator to move it for you

I apologies for that, wasn't sure where to post and wasn't sure how to remove it should have looked more into rules and guides first, witch i have now. wont happen again. smile.png


Well try and get a basic 2D maze working first - you'll see it's not as easy as it sounds to generate convincing mazes. Then you can add 3D, and perhaps even go 4D (check out some youtube videos, it's mind-bending). Always prototype simple things before moving on to the real thing. Adding features is relatively easy once you've got a solid base to work on, but the solid base isn't so easy to build (this is where most of the refactoring happens, as you go from design to design trying to find one that you feel comfortable with, repeatedly throwing away code until you get it right).

I understand where your coming from with this, I hadn't even thought about random generation to be honest, i was just going to make the levels myself(now i feel that is not going to work) smile.png
A solid base is going to be very hard i understand but i have nothing but time biggrin.png

If this is your very first game, you may be aiming too high (but at least you're not trying to do an mmorpg). I suggest you dumb down your game design to a basic 2D maze - perhaps a Pacman variant - and then try and add features in later. Go the extra step for 3D only when you've learned how to cleanly separate logic from rendering. It is not as easy as it sounds, unless you use a crapton of libraries and just piece stuff together, in which case you, as a self-respecting developer, probably won't feel any satisfaction anyway.

Yeah I've noticed allot of the fresh developers aiming too high and getting struck out sometimes never to return, i don't want that to happen; i am very determined and i think i can accomplish a game such as this, i have previous experience in 3D modeling(i know, completely different ball park) and some in java coding but not much (that's why we can learn:D) If i do fail on this one i will come up with another idea and take another stab.

This is my honest - and apparently unwanted - opinion, make of it what you will.

Not really unwanted, i'm glad to see your opinion and i think that part of the post was misunderstood. you gave allot of backing to your opinion, i absolutely despise when someone reads a post and strictly states "Cant be done don't try" without entailing why or what gave them that idea and that's what i meant to refer to.

Thanks allot for the detailed advice! :)
Have you seen the movie the "Cube" ? where a group of people are trapped in a rotating segmented cube ( think giant rubix cube ) where each section has a death trap? We'll throw out the death trap. Think of each section itself being a 3D puzzle and gravity plays a role in traversing the puzzle but not only that you need to traverse the section in a particular order and will need to rotate the cube to align certain segments. It's essentially a 3D puzzle game which has not only be solved in space but time.

Good Luck!

...Think of each section itself being a 3D puzzle and gravity plays a role in traversing the puzzle but not only that you need to traverse the section in a particular order and will need to rotate the cube to align certain segments. It's essentially a 3D puzzle game which has not only be solved in space but time....


Are you talking about shifting gravity on different cubes? Like Super Mario Galaxy? That's pretty dang ambitious for this guys first game. biggrin.png

Though that does make me think of another good point; don't just think of a plane on planes, surrounded by planes. Think vertically, too! You get a whole 'nother axis to work with!

From my perspective, a good start to inject some "interesting" in your project would be setting the scene. It'd be easy with some decent textures with normal maps to flesh out the world will help make a more engaging area to explore. Think of the stone walls in that Jim Henson movie Labyrinth. The age of the stone work and moss and vines climbing it. Moving into the garden, where the walls gave way to shrubs and doors. If it were just simple planes, it wouldn't be very fun to watch someone go through that maze.

I advocate those in the development community to try their hand at every aspect in the process and this could be a fun experience for you to create and learn something about creating game ready assets. And that artists can learn to program, and programmers can learn to draw. (I don't trust sound guys though....mellow.png)

And I think making a maze is a good way to test the waters and Unity 3D makes it pretty easy to do.

Good luck!

Check out my game blog - Dave's Game Blog

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