Game 2: Labyrinth

So back to java for game two. I was inspired by nethack and hoplite, an android game. I used http://game-icons.net/ for the images.

Coding this was a lot easier, especially debugging it, as I was used to the language. I used Slick2D for the graphics end which was fun to use at first but turned out to be a bit of a mistake. The community has disappeared and it hasn't been updated in a year. I also had to take the sound out as that was causing it to crash and I was getting a bit sick of Slick at that point!  Exporting to anything runnable outside the ide was a bit of a pain and I tried getting it to work on a browser for about 2 hours before giving up so unfortunately it's a downloadable jar file. It was weird to not be using a child/parent hierarchical graphics system. It made it a lot easier at first but I ended up missing it.

I think one of my weak points at the moment is getting libraries to work and exporting my code. Hopefully in a few weeks I'll be a lot better. I love solving little puzzles and seeing it all work though; making a hex dungeon generator was really good fun, so was getting line of sight to work. I really like simple dungeon crawlers also so it was an enjoyable subject for me. It didn't turn out as fun as I was hoping but it's still early days.

I'm moving house next week so I will probably end up learning a new language/library but just cloning a game for next Sunday.

Game 1: Breakout

My first game is done! Some personal stuff got in the way of work but I managed to get something finished-ish out. Putting the final touches on a game takes longer than I was expecting. I was planning on adding some music and power-ups and silly effects but ended up running out of time.

I started trying to make something in GameMaker Studio. I liked the very visual programming style and how intuitive it all felt. The in-built tutorials in particular are extremely well-made, I would definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to start making games without any programming experience. I found it difficult to do complex things as a lot of things were being done automatically and, after looking at some workarounds, decided to try something else.

This game was made in ActionScript 3 using the Flex library. Actionscript is a dynamically-typed language but I used it in strict mode, which seems to be about half way between dynamic and static typing. It was interesting learning the new syntax and the graphical manipulation was a lot easier than swing. Because I was unfamiliar with the language and library, it made debugging very difficult. I struggled with importing different types of files in Java but it was a bit less painful in Flex.

Next week I plan to go back to Java and will hopefully not make a clone of a 40-year-old game : )

A new beginning

About 4 years ago I trained to be a nurse because I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life and it seemed like a good thing to try(and it was free). I have worked as a nurse for a year and now I know that I don't want to do it any longer. Over the past year I've been making a game in my spare time and it's been really enjoyable; if I can make a job out of it then I should really give it a go. So I quit my job and have just finished my last shift!

My programming experience so far is-

Java- messed around with a bunch of stuff. Started making a huge game using swing. Learnt after about a year that you shouldn't start by making a huge game and that you shouldn't make huge games in swing.

Other languages- basically nothing. I'm glad that it seems that almost all skills seem to be transferable though.

My plan is to make a game every week, inspired by Rami of http://www.vlambeer.com/, and eventually learn enough to
a- get a programming job using my experience from weekly games and other stuff
b- have a good idea, make a big game and become a rad indie dude
preferably before I run out of money!

I'll be updating this blog at least every Sunday with a new game and I'll be trying out various languages and libraries as I go. I am a bit rubbish at art and music so everything will be simple-looking and sounding for now, but maybe I'll get better at that too!