Making my first game
Author
I have made pong, and now i want to make a simple game. Its going to be a tactical stratergy shooter, similar to xcom, or combat missions. Would it be possible to make this game look nice in 2D, or would i have to go 3D for the idea to work fully? Thanks, Bowlie
I'm not familiar with this series: X-Com, after a quick Wikipedia I see that they have several titles with a recent 3D release. What is it they have made in the past that you are trying to emulate. This will give the community a chance to feedback what might be appropriate for your level.
Regards,
Stitchs.
Regards,
Stitchs.
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.
Making my first game[/QUOTE]
I have made pong, and now i want to make a simple game.[/QUOTE]
a tactical stratergy shooter, similar to xcom[/QUOTE]
It's a bit of an unreasonable stretch to attempt to make a game like XCOM, 2D or not, after making pong.
If you made pong, didn't you realize the difficulty of it just for such simple instances(two paddles, one ball, reversing velocity)?
There's no comparison from a simple pong game, even an advanced one, to a fully-fledged commercial-quality game series like XCOM.
I'd suggest you start smaller and work your way into larger, more complex scaled games.
Maybe you should migrate to a platformer-style game first: --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_game
I will tell you though ... if you think a commercial-quality game is feasible, just try completing a simple platformer with a few levels(many good programmers have programming-plateaus here), and if you can do that you're well beyond a beginner.
Author
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#.
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#.
It's a bit of an unreasonable stretch to attempt to make a game like XCOM, 2D or not, after making pong.
If you made pong, didn't you realize the difficulty of it just for such simple instances(two paddles, one ball, reversing velocity)?
There's no comparison from a simple pong game, even an advanced one, to a fully-fledged commercial-quality game series like XCOM.
I'd suggest you start smaller and work your way into larger, more complex scaled games.
Absolutely. Upvote for you.
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.
Steady growth is superior to growth spurts here and there.
Better to cimb a mountain step by step rather than trying to run, skip, hop, pogo stick, etc, your way to the top of a very high peak.
If you want to repeat make games, then you will have to study the path along the way for the return trips.
Clinton
Better to cimb a mountain step by step rather than trying to run, skip, hop, pogo stick, etc, your way to the top of a very high peak.
If you want to repeat make games, then you will have to study the path along the way for the return trips.
Clinton
I completely agree with 3dDreamer. I started out with pong, and it was an extreme learning experience. I learned about state machines, libraries, distribution, animation, logic, object oriented vs. procedural programming and when to apply both, API development (Skip a few paragraphs down to see what I mean), etc.
API Development:
I have an API out called simplebutton. How did I make it? I created a main menu, saw common functionality. I started building up a codebase around that, adding features all the time. It's an open-source project and I'm very proud of it, even if only a few people besides me use it.
State Machines:
Figuring out how to know when the User was playing, in the main menu, in the game over screen, in the credits, etc. puzzled me, and I implemented an extremely simple (It's pong!) self programmed state-machine.
Libraries:
Using libraries like SFML / Box2d. I learned a lot more about how libraries work and where I can get them. Considering that finding a library with common functionality is far better then coding something yourself, this was important to helping me decrease development time and find resources.
Distribution:
Well, I had to figure out how to get other people to play Pong (E-Mailing it to someone who doesn't program, etc.) involved distribution. Release mode, static-linking, and putting together projects were all things I had to learn about.
Animation:
I learned about using velocity vs. speed, how to move sprites, sprites vs. images, etc. How do you think I displayed the main menu! Or the Game Over Screen! Or the Paddles and the Ball! Figuring out how to get the other paddle to always follow the ball really made me think about how I could make a more realistic and flexible system, and definitely taught me more about animation.
Logic:
Using the logical operators to check for collision, implement my state machine, check values, etc. was extremely important. Those were the building blocks for the beginning of my API, all the Collision, and a lot of the State Machine. I walked away with a better understanding of their uses and limitations.
Object Oriented vs. Procedural Programming:
When I first tried to make pong everything was procedural. I was scared of stepping out of my comfort zone and creating my own classes. Then, it failed miserably. I went back to the drawing board, using many classes, and many functions also. The result was bug-free code that ran on the first try. This taught me A LOT about what objects can store, object's limitations, and how I can implement functions. It also forced me to use many design patterns and become a better programmer at large.
So, the short answer is everything is a learning experience. You may try doing this ^^^ Many times, and every time you'll try something new, and learn new things. If you want to do this, by all means do it. It will undoubtedly make you a better programmer, and even if you only get some functionality down / don't make a working game, you'll have learned something new through trial, error, and experience.
API Development:
I have an API out called simplebutton. How did I make it? I created a main menu, saw common functionality. I started building up a codebase around that, adding features all the time. It's an open-source project and I'm very proud of it, even if only a few people besides me use it.
State Machines:
Figuring out how to know when the User was playing, in the main menu, in the game over screen, in the credits, etc. puzzled me, and I implemented an extremely simple (It's pong!) self programmed state-machine.
Libraries:
Using libraries like SFML / Box2d. I learned a lot more about how libraries work and where I can get them. Considering that finding a library with common functionality is far better then coding something yourself, this was important to helping me decrease development time and find resources.
Distribution:
Well, I had to figure out how to get other people to play Pong (E-Mailing it to someone who doesn't program, etc.) involved distribution. Release mode, static-linking, and putting together projects were all things I had to learn about.
Animation:
I learned about using velocity vs. speed, how to move sprites, sprites vs. images, etc. How do you think I displayed the main menu! Or the Game Over Screen! Or the Paddles and the Ball! Figuring out how to get the other paddle to always follow the ball really made me think about how I could make a more realistic and flexible system, and definitely taught me more about animation.
Logic:
Using the logical operators to check for collision, implement my state machine, check values, etc. was extremely important. Those were the building blocks for the beginning of my API, all the Collision, and a lot of the State Machine. I walked away with a better understanding of their uses and limitations.
Object Oriented vs. Procedural Programming:
When I first tried to make pong everything was procedural. I was scared of stepping out of my comfort zone and creating my own classes. Then, it failed miserably. I went back to the drawing board, using many classes, and many functions also. The result was bug-free code that ran on the first try. This taught me A LOT about what objects can store, object's limitations, and how I can implement functions. It also forced me to use many design patterns and become a better programmer at large.
So, the short answer is everything is a learning experience. You may try doing this ^^^ Many times, and every time you'll try something new, and learn new things. If you want to do this, by all means do it. It will undoubtedly make you a better programmer, and even if you only get some functionality down / don't make a working game, you'll have learned something new through trial, error, and experience.
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