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Beginners > New to GBA Development

#176849 - shawnbusker - Sat Oct 15, 2011 6:01 am

Hello, I am Shawn, and I am just now learning about gameboy advance coding development, and I am eager to code applications and games for the gba. I have already set up devkitpro, and I am now awaiting a flash cart for my gba. I even tried out the first demo "Hello World" application and tested it on VBAdvance. It was a remarkably easy experience to do this. Firstly, what application will I need to transfer data from the computer to the flash cart? The one I ordered was a parallel port to ext port on the gameboy. Second, would this cord allow me to backup games? And lastly, what is the GBA really capable of doing? I mean, I plan on creating a game but I'm not sure how well it would run. My game is based off of Minecraft and Terraria, combining the 2D landscape of Terraria with the gameplay, and physics of Minecraft. What kind of coding would be necessary to generate a landscape in a game like Minecraft, in 2D, not 3D? I did a quick search on the landscape generation and fractals, but I am not quite sure the gba would have enough power to do this. Although many 3D games play extremely well, I could be wrong about how much power would be needed for a simple 2D terrain generation. Also, how would breaking and creating entities go? Would each block generated need it's own identifier? I am extremely excited and curious about how this will turn out. If anyone is interested, and is very educated with gba development, would like to help me out, I am recruiting some people into my team of developers for the game. I am also looking for an artist who can design artwork for the game. Thanks

#176905 - keldon - Sun Oct 16, 2011 11:40 pm

Welcome to the community.

Quote:
I mean, I plan on creating a game but I'm not sure how well it would run. My game is based off of Minecraft and Terraria, combining the 2D landscape of Terraria with the gameplay, and physics of Minecraft. What kind of coding would be necessary to generate a landscape in a game like Minecraft, in 2D, not 3D?

Hmm, that question - believe it or not - may be better reflected back upon yourself. You tell me, what is a landscape composed of, how can you describe that in your own words? Once you have answered that, think about how you will tell that to the compiler.

Your suspicions about the 'id' were correct, your code will be keeping track of objects in whatever way it sees fit. As an exercise, I would study some old 2d games and make an attempt at dissecting the mechanics and worlds.

Though an excellent starting point is a maze; challenge yourself to create a maze generator without using any tutorials or anyone else's code to do so. Start designing mazes on paper first, and I will let you know that the simplest way of doing it by hand is to first start off by drawing (on squared paper) the correct path of the maze (in red ink), then drawing some dead paths in blue ink, and finally drawing the walls in black ink.

Quote:
If anyone is interested, and is very educated with gba development, would like to help me out, I am recruiting some people into my team of developers for the game. I am also looking for an artist who can design artwork for the game. Thanks

You are in good hands here, there are plenty of coders who can help guide you. Artists are around too, and with your code created you will draw the needed attention. I might warn you that recruiting teams is an undertaking in itself, probably requiring much more skill than coding, but the people are here and I'm sure they will be more than willing to collaborate when they see your wonderful scene generation code ^_^