if you make "your" goal, you win, if not, you lose..
anything else is just icing on the cake..
if you make a simmiler game as someone else, you get to compare notes (yay!) and if you add a bunch of extra stuff then good job..

Im pretty sure nobody "has" to do anything as we previously specified, it just gives us more stuff to look backwards apon. (or if we didnt make ALL the levels, gives us something to do for a bit after)

Anyways, I also agree that we should suggest a Space Invaders theme, but not enforce it, and I also think that we shouldn't need to follow any sort of level layout.

So let's call it an Optional Suggestion.

The truth is, I had a non-Space Invaders themed game in mind, but now that it has come up, I've got some ideas for a twist on the core theme that I really like. I'll need to spend some time before we start on the 7th fleshing out some of the ideas, but I'm looking forward to it!

I also like how people are sort of laying out target levels. The ideas that I have may not quite fit in with what Emblis laid out. I'll think about it a little longer, and come up with my own set of similar levels if I don't think what I want to do will fit very well with the ones Emblis described.

I'm really looking forward to this, guys!

So, That being said, I will tell you my Goal..

Super Tic-Tac-Toe
While this may look like a really flimsy goal.. its the different levels system that will help my learning experience.

First of all. most people dont know what Super Tic-Tac-Toe is, if you are one of them then go to "Superttt.com" and read up.. my rules involve seeing who wins the most "boards" of all 9, and the game ends if one person gets 5, as opposed to the Superttt rules where the goal is to win on the "big board".

I will be attempting to write this in XNA which is something new(ish) to me. using Graphics and other cool features of XNA..

Level 1: Playable 2 player game

Level 2: Simple Menu, Rules Screen

Level 3: Animated Sprites, Players that have names, Names/Score appears during gameplay

Level 4: Save/Load Games

Level 5: Some type of GUI that involves the computer playing itself in the backround behind the menu.

So there are my goals, I really hope to get past Level 3. and I think I can do it, but the next two are really stretch goals that should/might be accomplished AFTER the one month period..

After finishing this challenge I really want to work on AI stuff.. maybe a tower defense game?

At this point, I was mostly for deciding what type of game to do. Space Invaders is just as valid as the submissions I posted over on the http://rbwhitaker.wikidot.com/forum/t-766916/next-game-challenge thread. That being said, if we can decide on an 'official' game, we each could decide where to go from there.

I personally prefer that everyone code with some lose goals in mind, as I described above. Lets be honest, in any real development situation you do not just "sit down and code stuff", you most likely have a scrum/camban board and a road map.

Lose goals allows for a fair bit of freedom but everyone will still produce easily comparable code given the small scope of the project, that way you can compare your own solution to others, see which is best, learn from it and move on. You can say "My code is easier to read but in terms of performance your code is superior. And yours even have support for generics, cool!"

If everyone were to code their own project the code will not be easily comparable and it may be hard to learn something from other people´s project. They may spot a few lines that looks good but not learn when and how it is appropriate to use it.

I was thinking it might be best to not prescribe a specific game to build, and let people choose whatever strikes their fancy, instead.

On one hand, the looser restrictions probably mean more people will jump in with a game they already had in mind. (No matter what game we collectively chose, somebody is going to feel like they're not interested in that type of game or they don't have the skills to make that particular game or something.)

Of course, on the other hand, if we all make a similar game, it makes it far easier to compare how different people approached solving specific problems, which would be really valuable as well. So I suppose I could be convinced pretty easily.

What do all of you think? Any preferences?

Space Invader:
The player control a unit/spaceship located at the bottom of the screen that can move left and right. At the top of the screen you got enemies that moves across the screen towards the bottom. The player´s objective is to shoot down these enemies before they reach the bottom of the screen.

Level 1:
Basic functionally and gameplay as described above.

level 2:
The enemies shoot back at the player. If the player is hit it is game over.

level 3:
Add walls that the player can hide behind to avoid enemy fire.

level 4:
Have more then one wave of enemies. (preferably harder then the initial wave!)

level 5:
Add powerups/special abilities for the player to decimate the invaders!

I mean, I think the point is really just to provide some friendly competition as an incentive to do more programming and game development, when that would otherwise get pushed to a lower priority. Starting and ending on a slightly different schedule or going 20 days instead shouldn't mess that goal up too much.

However.. thats the bad news..
the good news is, If I DO Get my laptop back..
I will have 11 days of PURE free time.. so I should be able to get alot of programming done.. Could maybe even finish the basics of my game.. but I don't know.. we will see..

We will see….

Oh, and anyone else who is interested in joining, you're more than welcome to!

RB, want to make a "Official" Start/End Date then?

Let's say we started on the 7th of February. That's a Friday. I'll be at work all day, but I can come home and spend all Friday evening, plus all of Saturday and Sunday getting a jump start on the game. Then after that, we basically have four weeks (along with their respective weekends) to continue work. We would end on the 9th of March, which allows any of us to spend the final weekend in a mad frenzy to finish things up. That's 31 days total. It could be construed as a month (many months have 31 days).

30 days seems like a rounder number, so I could also see not starting until the 8th and still finishing on the 9th, or still starting on the 7th and finishing on the 8th of March instead. That's if we like 30 days instead of 31.

Of course, I'm making the assumption that the weekends will be the prime time to get stuff done. It is for me, without a doubt, but I don't know if that applies to everyone else.

Thoughts?

I think I'm going to turn my focus away from the C# programming (on 24 of 33) because I would rather use the things I've learned already than to learn stuff I can't/won't use for a while,
and Focus on your suggested Tutorials (2D, Input, Audio Ect) and hopefully I can get a game/idea that I will be able to create during the one month period.

I'm guessing the "official" start date is the 1st of Feb?

The way I'm envisioning this competition, it's not really about beating everyone else, but rather, it's more like, after 30 days, if you have a functional game, you win. If you don't, you lose. Everybody would pick the scope of the game they choose to make based on what they think they can realistically create in the time limit, with their current knowledge, and with the free time that they have available for the month.

If we had lots of people, I could imagine dividing things into categories and picking user-voted winners for things like "Best Game Made by One Person", or "Best Game Made by a Complete Noob", or "Most Creative Idea", or "Coolest Special Effect", etc., but if I had to guess, I'd say we probably won't have enough people joining to make this meaningful right now.

So to answer your question (er… uh… your self-reflective statement…) I think you said that you've been through the C# tutorials, more or less, and recently so. That's perfect. I'd say you should have at least gone through the C# tutorials up to and including the ones about making your own classes. It's going to be hard to program without at least that much C# experience.

Then I'd say start going through the other XNA tutorials (this assumes that you'll be attempting to make your game in XNA). Get XNA set up in Visual Studio 2013 Express for Windows Desktop (or in Pro or whatever, if you've got a different version, but VS 2013 Express for WD is the latest and greatest).

Then go through the introductory tutorials and on to the 2D tutorials. You don't necessarily need the 3D tutorials. It's quite possible to make your game for the challenge in just 2D. Indeed, the 3D world can be a much trickier place, because it requires some basic knowledge of matrix math, matrix transformations, and more about how graphics get drawn on the screen. My tutorials (hopefully) do a good job explaining this to you, but there's little doubt in my mind that a 3D game will be significantly more complicated than a 2D version.

You will also want to go through the audio tutorials and the input tutorials, assuming your game will have audio and input from the user. Keyboard and mouse input is easy enough. If you've got a wired/USB Xbox 360 game pad, you could go that route as well. (They work just fine on a PC. Windows is smart enough to find the drivers for it.) But there's no doubt you'll have keyboard and mouse input.

Sound is usually pretty straightforward. My tutorials get into using XACT, which is I suppose the "preferred" option, but it's far easier to use some of the simple mechanisms they added in XNA 3 (I think?) to play music and sound effects directly.

The thing about both input and sound is that you can probably ignore those tutorials at the beginning, and when you want to add those in, go read the tutorials as needed.

Two areas that I wish my tutorials covered better, but as of yet fall a little short is on putting all of the pieces together (that's what my game-from-scratch tutorials would be for) and in detailing some of the math that could be useful (or required, depending on the game you choose to make). I'm in the process of writing a book for game math, but that's nowhere close to being done. So when you run into trouble in these areas, the solution would be to see if Google has an answer readily available, and if not, post in the forum and see what others here have to say. I don't answer every question (I wish I could, but my time is limited, and if a question comes in at the wrong time, I can't answer it) but PiscesMike and Embliss have done a good job jumping in too. And if you don't get a response, keep playing around with it and after a day or two, report back on what you're tried and tell us if we're still stuck. Sometimes, just having a second attempt a few days later gets you better luck.

The best way to tell what tutorials you still need to read, or what information you still need to learn is by trying to make a game and seeing where you get stuck.

Sorry for the long response, Swatacular. I have a tendency to post long rambling answers sometimes…

I just started learning C# very recently, but it was directly following a very intense experience putting myself through the fire with C++. If you have previous experience with that and/or other OOP languages, making the transition to C# shouldn't be that bad. If not, then the best place to start would be the very beginning.

XNA is very similar. I started waaaay back in the days with Direct X 7.1 after being away from computers altogether for a number of years. It was difficult to get caught back up, but things get progressively easier with each learning experience. If you have the money and time, I would suggest RB's book he has listed here on the web as a starter for C#, and a couple of XNA books from Amazon. After the Asteroids project, I believe we'll be taking February as a review and learn from mistakes month before starting the third project, which should give you time to get some research in.

Wish I could be more specific in what tutorials you should be focused on.

I'm looking toward to making my first XNA game when I finish the 70 or so tutorials I need to read..

Maybe if I knew what tutorials I need to have read before the competition started I could read the ones in that area so that I could do this competitive challenge..

As a time saving measure for everyone though I was going to add the twist that the framework code, or more specifically, one of the projects we've already tackled could be used as a base and individuals could make modifications in the music, graphics, and play to create their own version of whichever game they choose. I figured by the next project iteration that the base framework would have all the little bugs straightened out, although I must say, I'm having a difficult time with these rotational issues.

That being said, with each project, the frame work is getting better, smaller, and more efficient. This has turned into a great learning experience for me and I thank everyone for their ideas and suggestions.

Which ever way we go I think this is a great idea!

I know his intention was to try to get people to work on the game collaboratively. That hasn't really happened yet. (That's my fault as much as anybody's. I wanted to join in, but haven't yet made it happen.)

I wonder if for one of these challenges, perhaps the next one, we tried to compete, instead of cooperate? And of course, I mean that in the loosest sense of the word.

Basically, we'd pick a game or a loose concept, and each make our own variation of it. Perhaps we can give out little titles for different things, or perhaps not. But I think the real value would be something to the effect of everybody shares source code with everybody else, or we all join in a discussion or something about what we learned, and what we liked and didn't like.

I just wonder if part of the reason why it has basically been only PiscesMike writing code with Emblis and me more or less just watching is because collaborating around the world with different quantities and placements of free time is a harder problem to solve than just making a simple game.

I've been wanting to put together a game-from-scratch tutorial set, and to do that, I need to build a game from scratch. A little competition just might be what gets me going with it.

I don't know the specific details of how this would work. If others are interested, we could sort through it.

(And I wouldn't be against two or three people still teaming up together for the competition, if they can manage the collaboration. The goal is to learn and improve, not to be truly competitive.)

Any takers?