Amateur Game Making Night

[clyde]

Boy am I glad that I pasted that script in this thread. That would have sucked.

[aperson]

It seems like you are making really good progress and have an organized approach. The hardest part of making games is just working on them regularly - it's like losing weight. The majority of people fail because they don't stick with it. It's also easy to get bogged down in constant "improvements" that theoretically make the game better but in reality don't make any progress. (There's a thread on Neogaf about amateur game making, and one guy on there has posted about improvements to his UI code for like a year...)

 

When I started making games it was like:

 

You see werewolf

 

1: Run away

2: Fight it!

 

My friend and I wrote an RPG that didn't use functions because at the time we didn't know how to use functions in Pascal. It was like...100 pages long. And just one function that was a huge assortment of loops and conditionals. So basically...the best advice you'll ever get is just keep at it. Quitters never win! (And winners don't use drugs, according to William S. Sessions)

[mike]

Boy am I glad that I pasted that script in this thread. That would have sucked.

 

Did you lose your work or something? You should totally use github (or some other kind of version control). I recommend github because it's super simple to use if you download one of their desktop apps (Windows and OSX are available). If you don't want to give them money then your repo has to be public but for $7/mo you can get up to five private repos. I think for a public repo basically nobody will ever find it unless you actively promote it, but the privacy thing is nice to have I guess. It's mostly just an awesome way to avoid losing all of your stuff though.

[Spenny]

BitBucket will give you private repos for free. I have not used it though, only heard of it.

 

SourceTree is the software I use for using git. Apparently the people who make that also make Bit Bucket. I just found that out as I was copying links. 

[clyde]

Did you lose your work or something?

I just decided to open up the script to look at it non-commitally which led to a small change that I had to save to run, and that led to another. An hour later I had erased an re-written many parts to discover that the plan would not work and I had saved over many times.

I knew better than to do that.

[aperson]

I use Bitbucket. Works fine. There are suitable clients for Windows 7, older versions of WIndows and Mac.

 

I do my python editing and text file editing in Eclipse, which has a restore from local history option.

[clyde]

I got the lerp on the text-box working. I learned a few tricks. I found that if you use the target-position of the lerp to test a bool, you might need to consider that it'll just barely not make it all the way there.

https://v.cdn.vine.co/r/videos/D21A41330B1060724446563889152_17a5e14e92b.4.8.2536498241051319297.mp4?versionId=MSZPZdT2yTl5Lmb9kV.3vpilwViED2Rm

 

I still need to do something about the portrait which is a massive pain due to it's viewport nature and add a parameter to Say() so that it only lerps in and out when the character changes. That'll be another day. I'm actually kinda excited about trying to use the TextAsset thing for my dialogue at some point. It seems glamorous. 

[Joewintergreen]

I just got back from San Francisco yesterday, and woke up super early this morning and was like "fuck it let's make one of those John Woo dive-through-air-shooting-guys action games that were all the rage in the HL1 modding community, so I started dicking around on UE4 and now I have a first person thing with Thief-style mantling, The Specialists-style leaping through the air, and a triggerable bullet-time powerup. Bam.

[chummer]

I just got back from San Francisco yesterday, and woke up super early this morning and was like "fuck it let's make one of those John Woo dive-through-air-shooting-guys action games that were all the rage in the HL1 modding community, so I started dicking around on UE4 and now I have a first person thing with Thief-style mantling, The Specialists-style leaping through the air, and a triggerable bullet-time powerup. Bam.

Any video of it? I'm curious to see it.

[BigJKO]

I suggest you figure out a way to get text out of the code entirely. Generally if something is purely data you don't want it in code - outside of code it's easier to edit, you don't have to recompile to run, if it's text having it separate makes it easier to spell check, to localize for different regions, etc.

 

In Unity you can have a text file as an asset and load it like any asset / resource. It can be xml, json, plain old text or whatever. (Actually it can be anything...but don't worry about that)

 

In the project I'm working on now I have something similar, where conversations have different speakers and such. I use a JSON format to specify each speaker, their position, their dialogue, etc. What you are doing is fine for now, but once you are somewhat happy with it it will probably become a pain in the ass to work with.

 

Also, to answer your random thing about "I'll be honest, I don't know why it needs the (GameObject) part, but it does."

 

Your ArrayList is untyped. It's a container of generic objects, and generic objects can't be assigned to non-generics without casting. For all your compiler knows your generic object might not GameObject or subclass, so you have to explicitly cast it. In C# however you can use typed data structures. I don't believe ArrayList can be typed but List can. So you can do something like:

 

List<GameObject> myList = new List<GameObject>();

 

When you do this you are telling the compiler that your List is specifically a list of GameObjects rather than any ole C# object, which allows the compiler to do more type-checking, which is generally a good thing. It's good to use strong typing whenever you can. In a complex program you may have a lot of data structures (like...thousands or more) and if they are all generic it's up to your comments and memory to determine what they are supposed to hold. Whereas if they are all typed the code is self-documenting and the compiler can prevent you from making type errors.

 

Anyway it seems like you are making good progress, these are just some suggestions to take into account eventually.

 

Just wanted to put this out there: aperson, your posts in here on programming advice and such are absolutely amazing and helpful. All of 'em! Thank you so much for contributing here, it's been insanely helpful to me even when you're just posting suggestions for other people's problems.

 

So.. THANKS!

[osmosisch]

Yeah, excellent, constructive stuff.

[lloydp]

Agreed.

 

Small update on my western adventure game/visual novel: I looked further in to Ren'Py and it seems too good not to use for the type of game I'm making. It uses Python for scripting, and a programmer friend of mine recommended Python as a good beginner's language, and he even had a great book to give me -- Hello World! Computer Programming for Kids and Other Beginners by Waren & Carter Sande.

 

While I'm not completely new to programming (I do a load of front-end web stuff), my visually-orientated brain still does not have a great fundamental understanding of the underlying principals, and this book really starts from ground zero. I mean, I've bluffed my way through arrays and whatnot in php but it's about time I learned this stuff for reals.

[Berzee]

I recently decided to take the 3d graffix engine Irrlicht for a spin (as an alternative to Unity, because using Unity usually makes me feel more like I'm configuring software than writing it =P) and, for the first time in my life, actually did what everyone suggests and made a practice Pong game. =P This marks the first time I've actually finished a 3D game (with musics and victory conditions and everything), and also the first time since college that I've endured C++ linker shenanigans without doing this. ->  (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

 

It looks 2D because it's using Orthogonal projection, but I know it my heart that it is 3D.

 

After making this I got to thinking that if ever decided to pour more hours of my life into a 3D Pong game, I would make one where the ball is a Business Worker w/ Suit+Briefcase sprinting across the table, and one of the paddles is a House and one of the paddles is an Office Building, and behind each paddle there is a tall cliff o'er spiky rocks. I would call it WORK-LIFE BALANCE VOLLEY. When the ball goes over the edge it would yell things like "Per your requeeeeest..." (on the office side) or "Oh I already ate supper oooouuut..." (on the home side).

[HelpfulProgrammer]

Thanks for your kind words friends.

Sadly I post this from beyond the grave (read this in a spooky voice for maximum effect please!) as I was IP banned by a mod for inexplicably not fitting in with what from the outside looks like a self-evidently ridiculous insular bubble. It turns out, in a twist that is incredibly shocking to nobody with a brain, that a professional in the video game industry reacts poorly to forums where they see people they know and respect ridiculed by people who are speaking out of their asses.

I genuinely love helping people make cool games and get better at programming and stuff! So I would love to stay and help you guys out. But I assume this account and probably this post will be deleted in short order by the nefarious Herr Tobacco. (You figure he would at least have the decency to say "uh guys, aperson isn't going to reply to you" while running his finger across his throat)

Good luck in your programming endeavors. If you guys frequent a games/programming forum that isn't modeled after Nazi Germany only more dystopian post it here and maybe I can continue to help you out. I'm not sure how much helpful programming advice you'll get on forums like this - cough cough.

So farewell my friends. Whenever you run into a particularly nasty bug listen to the wind, and perhaps you'll hear it whispering my name:

aperson....aperson...aperson...

---

Seriously though, thanks for the kind words, sayonara! (Also f uck Nick)

[clyde]

https://v.cdn.vine.co/r/videos/8A646E7A001061541280372445184_1f31c153ad4.4.8.6490640263603901969.mp4?versionId=hatBBQRgHizQ9XdrDLn3K8p07tjLli6k

[Gormongous]

Thanks for your kind words friends.

Sadly I post this from beyond the grave (read this in a spooky voice for maximum effect please!) as I was IP banned by a mod for inexplicably not fitting in with what from the outside looks like a self-evidently ridiculous insular bubble. It turns out, in a twist that is incredibly shocking to nobody with a brain, that a professional in the video game industry reacts poorly to forums where they see people they know and respect ridiculed by people who are speaking out of their asses.

I genuinely love helping people make cool games and get better at programming and stuff! So I would love to stay and help you guys out. But I assume this account and probably this post will be deleted in short order by the nefarious Herr Tobacco. (You figure he would at least have the decency to say "uh guys, aperson isn't going to reply to you" while running his finger across his throat)

Good luck in your programming endeavors. If you guys frequent a games/programming forum that isn't modeled after Nazi Germany only more dystopian post it here and maybe I can continue to help you out. I'm not sure how much helpful programming advice you'll get on forums like this - cough cough.

So farewell my friends. Whenever you run into a particularly nasty bug listen to the wind, and perhaps you'll hear it whispering my name:

aperson....aperson...aperson...

---

Seriously though, thanks for the kind words, sayonara! (Also f uck Nick)

 

Aperson, I know you aren't going to read this, but if you do, you should know that this sort of behavior is exactly why you got banned. You argue every little thing to death, in the process insulting the people who disagree with you far more than they ever did Ken Levine, and when you're asked, then told, then made to stop, you create another forum account just to get in the last word (by calling Doug Tabacco, a professional in the video games industry whom we know and respect, a bully, a coward, and a Nazi, which certainly qualifies for "ridiculing" and "talking out of your ass" in my book, whether or not you're serious).

 

I sincerely hoped that you'd find a tone and place suited to you in the Idle Thumbs forums, but since you don't seem interested in that, I now sincerely hope that you find a different forum where you don't feel the need to insult others when talking with them. I think everybody, yourself included, will be better off for it.

[BigJKO]

I'm not sure how much helpful programming advice you'll get on forums like this - cough cough.

What does this even mean??

[osmosisch]

As far as I can tell it means that according to him you can't both be pleasant and give good programming advice.

[clyde]

https://mtc.cdn.vine.co/r/videos/93B1604BBB1061729399407304704_1e44513076c.4.8.7571257716039982179.mp4?versionId=paX1DszXx_kqjqw2hl6gklyHp3xpwCFE

[BigJKO]

Haha, that looks lovely, clyde! I love the sounds.

[clyde]

I think the sample is an 808 bass-drum (I found out that music tracker modules are a super deep hole last night).

I'm planning to make it so that a bunch of variables will be manipulatable by the player because it's really fun to play around with that stuff. I just sat there for an hour playing with variables. That's a good sign.

[HelpfulProgrammer]

Aperson, I know you aren't going to read this, but if you do, you should know that this sort of behavior is exactly why you got banned.

Why would I want to fit in with this crowd? I genuinely have no idea.

This community is a tiny bubble - the vast majority of people who sign up for these forums post maybe zero or one times, quickly realize it's a small clique full of self-reinforcing behavior and smartly fuck right off. In terms of post quality this place is well behind Neogaf ffs - well behind.

There's no universe in which "Boo fucking hoo" is a good post. On here posts like that are congratulated by multiple other members - literally celebrating how rude and awful they are to another poster.

A bunch of you are extremely nasty, but you're nasty to people who can't or don't fight back. When you shit on them they look around and see everyone in your clique shitting on them too so they just go away. And thus even though your community is extremely toxic you don't see any problems, because it self-selects and self-reinforces.

The guy who you all savaged in that Bioshock Infinite thread? Guess when the last time he posted was? You all shit on him, then you high-fived each other for shitting on him, then he didn't post any more. And because he just stopped posting instead of fighting back you didn't experience any disruption and can keep pretending that you aren't bullies.

Why is that acceptable in the culture here? Not just acceptable - encouraged! That's not a culture a normal person would want to be a part of.

Throughout this whole mess your philosophy has been "it's bad to insult people - unless we're the ones doing the insulting." This is so self-evidently ridiculous yet you see no problem with it. Where was your pearl-clutching in the BI layoff thread, when there was post after post of nasty invective before I even showed up? Nowhere to be found. If I'm the problem why did that transpire before I posted?

"I sincerely hoped that you'd find a tone and place suited to you in the Idle Thumbs forums..."

I don't want to fit in here - that would be disgusting. That would mean I've accepted and helped normalize the culture of casual nastiness and ignorance. Yeah, I could fit in. When 3 or 4 posters in a row pile on someone and rip into them I could join in and say "yeah, way to shit on that guy! Good job everyone!" I could do that - but why would I? Fitting in to an awful community isn't a virtue.

Go back and read that BI layoff thread and stop reading when you get to my post - don't even read it. Do that with an open mind and try to adopt the perspective of someone other than yourself. Instead of evaluating who is on your side look at how people treat each other. And ask yourself, is this civil? Is this constructive? Is this the sort of behavior that should be considered normal or even encouraged? Are these posts in line with the values I claim to espouse?

You freaked the fuck out when I said "Boo fucking who" to you before, even though that was me quoting someone else. Yet when that statement was originally made in earnestness rather than to make a point you had no reaction. It was completely acceptable to you. You've learned to either turn a blind eye towards or actively encourage that sort of behavior.

To be fair you don't seem like someone who revels in nastiness the way some of the people here do. You just accept it as normal and thus help normalize it. I don't honestly think you're a shitty awful person - maybe none of you are shitty awful people. But being shitty and awful is the social norm. It's so normal to you that you apparently don't even see it. But I suspect a lot of people do see it and are repulsed.

Bye Gorm. I sincerely hope you can look around you with fresh eyes and gain some perspective, instead of continuing to indulge in transparently self-serving philosophy.

Feel free to delete this account whoever. I've said what I wanted.

[chummer]

Feel free to delete this account whoever. I've said what I wanted.

[subbes]

[chummer]

Question for all you programmers out there. Do you folks keep a syntax guide handy when you're coding? I'm learning JavaScript through Codecademy (my first programming language) and as I'm finishing up the last course I find that I still need to turn back to earlier lessons to remember what the thing I'm about to make looks like.

 

If you do have a guide, which one do you use? Not asking just for JS specifically- though if you have one for that I wouldn't mind taking a look at it.