clyde

Amateur Game Making Night

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I have no idea what I'm doing with the Trello thing, so if anyone wants admin status or to just join, send me the information I will need to add you.

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I think IRC is what's been missing from my life since I last used IRC. Come idle at #idlethumbs everyone!

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This is a great idea! It seems we're all of varying levels of experience, and I'm shocked to realize I've moved up from amateur to something else - I have a couple GameMaker experiments and prototypes under my belt already. I'm actually determined to make a new game every month this year, and I have two so far (the last one was that Candy Jam game I posted in the 'plug your shit' thread). I've only just started work on March's game if anyone wants to get in on this...

 

Also I've never used IRC, but I'm down to try it out!

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I'm in. A friend and I have just decided to try our hand at making something very very small in Unity. I'd love to watch what you guys come up with and have a place for feedback.

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Guys this IRC channel is BUMPIN'.

 

And if I ever figure out what it takes to make some other ops in the channel for when I'm not around, we'll be golden. You know, on the off-chance, some unscrupulous sort opts to join us. Besides myself, I mean.

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Maybe have a few projects? I actually find that coordinating effectively is the hardest thing for remote groups of hobbyists. As the group size increases and increases it will likely become harder and harder to manage. Honestly managing the various workflows and "pipelines" of getting content into the actual project is a challenge for even professional developers all sitting in one room. Unity certainly simplifies this but there are a lot of other considerations as well. 

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Yes, at this point we have a nice foundation for communication. It's probably a good idea to start organizing this thing, if we want to be serious about it. Maybe separate first into two groups: people who want to work alone (for now), and people who want to work in a group. I'm sure a number of us fall in the former as we're just learning and practicing. The latter can then discuss and split into smaller groups based on interest and desired roles.

 

I'm not good at organizing things though so someone else should do this!

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Hey people!

 

Not sure if this is the kind of thing you want posted here, but there is a game jam called The Flappy Jam right now.

 

You make a simple but difficult game  that can be based on Flappy Bird, but doesn't have to be.

 

It's a cool jam with a basic concept that I think would be fun for beginner and expert game developers alike.

 

I hope people are interested.

 

Here is the game I made for it: http://fashionbatman.itch.io/the-flappy-saga

 

I used unity and it was easy and tons of fun to make.

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So I'm kinda teaching myself Unity because this thread is cool.

 

Also I have already started lurking in the irc channel. As some of you might have noticed.

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Guys this IRC channel is BUMPIN'.

 

And if I ever figure out what it takes to make some other ops in the channel for when I'm not around, we'll be golden. You know, on the off-chance, some unscrupulous sort opts to join us. Besides myself, I mean.

 

I used to be an IRC Wizard many years ago, let me see what I remember. You basically need to have registered your nick on the server, and register the channel to that nick. Any other ops or admins must also have a registered nick, so that the server recognizes the person.

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I used to be an IRC Wizard many years ago, let me see what I remember. You basically need to have registered your breckon on the server, and register the channel to that breckon. Any other ops or admins must also have a registered breckon, so that the server recognizes the person.

 

I couldn't help myself.

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So I hit a brick wall when the Unity tutorial I was working on required me to code. I'm going to learn how to code for a little while until I am at least somewhat familiar with what is going on. Folk in the IRC channel were saying that I can learn C# or JavaScript for Unity. I was thinking that I should learn C#, but then this morning I saw that Code Academy has JavaScript classes and not C# ones. I like Code Academy. 
If I use JavaScript in Unity, will I be missing out on any essential functionality?

Also, I'm going to add the IRC channel to the first post in the thread. I had a great time hanging out with y'all yesterday and last night.

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Which Unity tutorial are you doing Clyde? I'm currently working through them. There's a fairly decent course on coursera.org (here: https://www.coursera.org/course/gameprogramming) which you may find useful for learning the basics of C#. It's geared towards using XNA but it also takes you through from the beginning how to code in C# (and there's no harm in learning how to use XNA!). 

 

It sounds like we're probably at similar levels, I'm just learning how to use C# myself :)

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I'm doing this tutorial:
http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/projects/space-shooter
Once I got to 105 "Moving the Player", it expected me to write script. I'm sure I could have eventually figured out how to copy and paste properly, but I took it as an impetus to learn enough to know what I am doing. 

I just watched a couple of Youtube videos about choosing between JavaScript and C# for use in Unity and the consensus seems to be that c# is capable of more (but not anything I will ever use) and JavaScript is a bit easier for beginners. One honest looking fellow in a fushia jacket in front of a bunch of textured metal confidently told me that it I learn JavaScript and then decide to switch over to C#, then it won't take me very long because I will still have the programming fundamentals.
Code Academy's lessons are fun (based on my experience learning some Python there) so I'm probably going to do it there. I like earning badges. http://www.codecademy.com/tracks/javascript
 

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I did the code academy for python and i thought it was pretty neat. Sometimes the solution won't register even though it is correct, so just head over to the forums and you should be able to copy and paste the exact solution it is expecting.

 

I'm spending 30 mins with gamemaker every night if i can. So far i can move a snake on a grid and draw a health bar.

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Speaking as a programmer, I think you'd be fine learning Javascript for this.  All of the fundamentals of object oriented programming are there, most of what you'd end up having to look up if you wanted to then learn C# would be syntax, and most IDEs are actually pretty good about predicatively filling things in for you.

 

That Unity Space Shooter tutorial is really good.  I just finished it myself last weekend.  The only thing I'd tell you to watch out for is in one of the later lessons they have you creating a material or something for the orange laser I think, and the thing you are creating already exists in the directory where you're working, so I ended up having to delete it before creating it again.

 

Also as a B.Math graduate, I'm ashamed that I didn't know what a Quarternion was.

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This guy is clearly enjoying himself. 

 


Is there a computer-game terrain artist that is known for being incredibly influential like Sesshu Toyo or something?

 

I'm spending 30 mins with gamemaker every night if i can. So far i can move a snake on a grid and draw a health bar.

That's awesome. 
 

 

That Unity Space Shooter tutorial is really good.  I just finished it myself last weekend.  The only thing I'd tell you to watch out for is in one of the later lessons they have you creating a material or something for the orange laser I think, and the thing you are creating already exists in the directory where you're working, so I ended up having to delete it before creating it again.


Thanks for the warning.

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I'm ashamed that I didn't know what a Quarternion was.

man ain't nobody knows what a quaternion is

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C# and Java are close enough to each other that whatever you choose, it will be fairly easy to change your mind later. I like C#, but I have history in C (including learning XNA) so that helps.

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^^^ Java and Javascript have basically nothing in common except being able to run "easily" on most OSes.

Also as a B.Math graduate, I'm ashamed that I didn't know what a Quarternion was.

They're fucking awesome for 3D stuff. But yeah, shit's weird. Next thing you know you're all Hamiltonian all up ins.

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