Themes for a first timer....

Themes for a first timer....

scjohnson243 20 Aug 2015 14:29

So - I have said it a few times I'm a new c# guy, I'm a DB guy at work and have written a few basic C# windows forms and SSIS package's and things like that… I have been through RB's book (excellent) and can follow the basic stuff, deciding to try this because I'm a guy thats been gaming for a long time, seems like a fun way to get better at programming and do something I enjoy. I have never written a game of any sort before, and this will be my first very basic attempt at SOMETHING, I understand a few of you guys have done this before as a beginner so would like to pick your brains.

For a theme I want to chose something simple to complete as my first "Game", and as I get more skills/experience I'll either add more to it, or chose something more exciting….

The games I tend to play more these days are the ones with lots of "AI", Where I do not directly control the characters, things like dwarf fortress, Majesty(LOVE THIS GAME), and so on. I have a feeling this would be a little to complex even in a simple form - but on the other hand something like pong seems overly simple. So I was thinking perhaps a 2d scroller, something like a waterered down "defender" type (Move spaceship up, down, shoot) randomly spawn enemies on the right side of the screen and have them move left… Depending on how its going I could either stop there if that takes the entire challenge to figure out, or time permitting could add things like Powerups, gaining levels, etc, stuff like that….

Any opinions out there, any roadblocks you guys ran into that you wouldn't mind sharing with a new guy?

I am leaning towards UNITY to develop in as my first jump, but MonoGame seems much like XNA and I have actually looked at that before, so have not completely decided - I want to come up with something and stick to it to the finish, I can change it later, but it seems important to have a complete "Game" when I'm done…

Anyway, Rambling because people keep walking into my office.. Thank you all!

Re: Themes for a first timer....

rbwhitaker 20 Aug 2015 14:37

I think you could quite possibly complete a good Defender-like game in a month, even as a beginner. I'd probably have to agree that something like Dwarf Fortress with a lot of AI might be too much to start with. It's hard to judge how hard it is to make games (and to know what parts will be hard and what parts will be easy) until you have some experience with it.

I always tell beginners no RTS games, no RPGs, no FPSs, and definitely no MMOs. I try to encourage people to start with cloning a classic arcade game or a more modern casual game. They're far simpler. And if you're straight up cloning a game (legal issues aside… don't try to sell the game when you're done) then you can often find art and sound to steal, and you don't have to worry about play testing, tuning the fun factor, and a million other game design decisions, and you can just focus on understanding how to arrange the bits to make a functional game.

I'd say Defender seems to fit the bill on that.

After the first game, it starts to get easier to understand what's going to be hard and what will be easy, and it gets easier to try to invent your own game from scratch or to tackle a more involved game.

That's just my opinion, and I'd love to hear what some other people around here have to say on the topic as well.

Re: Themes for a first timer....

scjohnson243 20 Aug 2015 16:00

Thank you RB, thats what I was thinking, also. I would really like to hear other opinions out there about this.. Maybe experience you had, pitfalls, etc….

The thought of developing anything is overwhelming, so to get past that personally with any project, I break it down into really small pieces (Step 1 make spaceship appear on screen, step 2) make spaceship move up and down step 3) make spaceship shoot)

I figured I would get to as many "Steps" in 30 days as I could and see where I'm at in the end - to get a "full game" I would think it needs a way to interact (move around shoot enemies) and end the game (you die) the rest in between is all going to depend on how far I get…

—- Another genre I find interesting is time management games (well done ones) things like the old theme hospital, and the like - again, this is more advanced but seems like it could be a fun project…

Tower defence is another possibility I was considering, but do not know enough to make it interesting at all… maybe the next challenge! :)

Anyway, would love more opinions!

Re: Themes for a first timer....

Brett208 20 Aug 2015 19:06

SC,

I would not recommend creating your own graphics, sound effects, or music for your first game unless you are already a decent artist or musician/sound tech. If you have to make your own graphics, aim for very simple. It is too much work to balance this stuff with learning game programming.

Be very careful about feature creep. If you want to create a finished/polished game, every feature you add has to be tested and refactored and making a complete working game is a lot of work, especially if you want a menu/high score system.

I agree with RB to avoid complex games like Real Time Strategy or Role Playing Games. They both have unrealistic amounts of content (graphics) and complex AI. Complex AI is best to not tackle until you are comfortable making a game. By the way, Dwarf Fortress is the craziest freeware game I have ever seen.

Don't be afraid to refactor your code. Early on, you might not want to because it will break what is working. It is kind of like proof-reading though, by refactoring your code you will hopefully learn a ton about programming it better. It will also hopefully be easier to add new features as you refactor your base code into more manageable pieces. I would also recommend trying to get something compiled and drawing on the screen early. This way you can test often to see what works/doesn't work quickly.

I've always used XNA/C# which has been easy to learn but cannot speak to Unity.

Best of luck and I look forward to seeing the progress you make. The first games I tried programming was a Real Time Strategy game. It was a complete disaster and never completed.

Re: Themes for a first timer....

PiscesMike 20 Aug 2015 22:53

I agree with RBWhitaker and Brett208 in the sense that your first ever game should be a clone. There are multiple reasons for this. The most important being able to make a good attempt at the learning curve and the ability to reuse graphics and sound(s) from previous games. I can say with absolute certainty, that graphics take up wayyyyy more time than they should. In the last collaboration I spent at least half of the time formating stuff for animations, converting the files to the correct type, and getting them imported into the project and organized without actually creating any NEW artwork.

That being said, you seem to have a pretty good grasp on the type of work involved with where you want to start. Pong does seem pretty simplistic, and if you're familiar with using velocity physics in a Vector2D format you should be able to move into a more advanced game pretty easily. I think I'd pick a game that focuses on core game mechanics: collision detection, user input, and basic AI. Add to that the requirement of rendering, stats tracking (score, high score, lives left, etc), and optional menus or credit(s) screens and you've already got a full roster ahead of you!

And, lastly, I'm a pretty big proponent of XNA. As I understand it, XNA is no longer being developed, but there are also no plans to discontinue support for it. As it seems, both Unity and Monogame are GUI's built around XNA (or game studio 4.0) with the additional ability to deploy to a better diversity of platforms. For the moment, I don't mind being relegated to PC, Xbox, and the Windows phone. If I get something out for those platforms, then porting to Unity or Mono probably won't be that big of a deal. I believe that if you start with XNA/Game studio 4.0 you'll have a great foundation for pursuing work in either or any other UI's based on the XNA framework.

Cheers and have a great day!

---

"May the mercy of His Divine Shadow fall upon you." - Stanley H. Tweedle, Security Guard class IV, The League of 20,000 planets

Last edited on 20 Aug 2015 22:55 by PiscesMike Show more

Re: Themes for a first timer....

Marcus42 20 Aug 2015 23:41

I've also got to really agree that the first game that you make should probably be a clone, although I'd encourage you to consider putting your own spin on it. Take, for instance, our theme for the first competition on this site: Space Invaders with a twist. That was my first real game to finish, and it was great to have a basic idea and gameplay to copy, but to still be able to flex your creative muscles and do some thinking from a programmer's perspective about what the best way to implement a new feature would be.

The largest possible problem with that is the artwork required. For myself, artwork has been something I've needed to sink a fair amount of time into every single competition, and I usually alternate between hand-drawing it and using a technique I figured out to get some really nice looking animations. (Feel free to ask if you're interested.) Both methods do take a lot of work, though, and I would encourage you, like everyone else, to make very simple artwork the first time around, or else to find some. If you decide to just straight-up clone a game, probably try to find the artwork. If you're putting your own twist on it, though, I'd recommend making your own.

One thing that I've learned: stay away from AI for quite a while (although I know that you were already planning that)! Whatever game you pick, make it something where the enemies, or opponent, or whatever, has very simple, predictable behavior. It never occurred to me when I was making my Space Invaders clone-ish thing, but it was really great to have the guys you need to fight just stay in a single formation, move to the left and right at simple speeds, and slowly move down closer to the player. The firing was completely randomized (if I'm remembering correctly …), the unique behaviors weren't too different, and coding any individual feature was relatively easy, so the challenge was really on tying it all together, which was good for a first game. The second competition, I decided to try to make an AI, and starting on that basically ended the competition for me. I did manage to get it to the point where you could sorta play it, but there were a lot of issues and it was coded badly.

It's very possible to get around that, however. The next two games I made seem like they have an AI character, but it was all very simple behavior. The monster in Shadow's Veil would spawn randomly on one of the four sides of the screen and then walk straight towards the player, completely ignoring walls, and then I had some stuff for interaction with the player, but it was nothing complex even though it seems like a fairly competent monster. The fact that it could walk through walls and suddenly dash towards you from behind could be sorta scary (well, at least for me, lol!), and you never knew when it was following you, but the code was simple. The enemies in Constant Through the Ages are obviously very simple, but putting in so many of them hides that, because it's a horde mode sort of thing. That's what I'd recommend for you (or any beginner) for a while - find ways to hide the fact that you're not actually programming a smart AI once you're coming up with game ideas from scratch.

Oh, and if you get stuck on programming a certain feature that's really frustrating you, start work on another part of your game and come back to it later. This isn't applicable in every situation, but I've certainly found it to be helpful before to be able to get away from whatever is bugging me. (Forgive my not-very-funny programming pun.)

Last piece of advice: even if you don't have any questions, but especially if you do, stop by the chatroom periodically, or just whenever you're programming. There may not be anyone around, but there often is during the competitions, and it can be fun in there.

Welcome aboard! (Sorry for the long post!)

Re: Themes for a first timer....

scjohnson243 21 Aug 2015 15:21

Thank *EVERYONE* for a lot of good advice I appreciate it and am excited to give this a try!

First Game will be simple hopefully to learn the basic concepts and will try to build something a bit more detailed each time…

Funny story - I was talking to my wife and daughter about my commiting to do this for the next 30 days and I mentioned something about using XNA, I said it seemed like it was great, and I said, "Heck that game we have all been playing, Terraria was written in XNA, I beleive…"

Of course, thats all my 6 year old heard, so now she expectes Daddy to have Terraria 2 written in 30 days.. shes very excited.

/sigh.