#34532 - liquidspaceman - Fri Jan 21, 2005 1:18 am
I have recently become interested in Game Boy Advance development. 2 months ago I downloaded the Ham kit and have begun tinkering with creating basic stuff. I have made it through some very simple tutorials.
My goal when beginning this task was to eventually create a Zombie game, one that I've had in mind for a while. I have never done any game programming so I figured the GBA was a good place to start. I figured that if I was ever going to learn Game Developing, the Game Boy would be a true test as to whether or not I had it in me.
Well though the tutorials are going well, I can't help but feel like maybe it's all a pipe dream. Allow me to explain a little more. I am a dreamer but I am also realistic. I'm not going to churn out the next Grand Theft Auto for the GBA, not by myself and certainly not starting as a beginner.
Several problems plague my conscience.
#1. Even if I did learn GBA programming at an intermediate level, by then the DS and Playstation Portable will dominate the handheld gaming scene and I will have to re-learn from scratch. My game boy experience will be pretty much worthless.
#2. The fact that creating a game like GTA, Metal Slug Advance or some other game is created by a team of 20 programmers over a 10 month period really makes me re-think the idea of being able to realize my dream of creating this game. I mean, if it takes 20 programmers 10 months, what? It's gonna take me 3 years or longer? Will I finally proclaim in 2015, "Voila, my Zombie game has come to fruition."
Seems like a lot of programmers/developers might have the same dreams and are more talented than I am at programming. They'd be able to realize it quicker.
#3. I'm more of an artist/creator/designer than an actual programmer. Though I have some basic skills in Java, I can't say that I'm even an intermediate programmer. The reason? Programming hurts my brain. I have never been a fan of math and writing hours and hours of code really doesn't seem like my thing. So if I don't consider myself a bonafide "coder" then what's the point?
I can go through scripts and creating graphics and storylines, but it's all going to mean diddly if I can't get it to be programmed. Approaching a group of programmers is going to sound silly. They will ask, "What do you bring to the table?" I will say, "Great Ideas and graphics skills" and they will laugh their asses off.
The real work is in the coding, not in the creating. Anybody can create a story.
So ultimately I am faced with a choice. I can keep pursuing this pipe dream or I can give it up. I know what you're thinking. "If you already have that attitude, you have no place in this business." That's not the point. I am merely a "realistic person" trying not to get myself sucked into a 2 year odyssey that ends in disappointment.
Many of you are expert programmers and I see the problems you have in creating simple games like Tetris. How am I, a lowly beginner programmer ever going to create a game that is 3 times as complex?
Am I living a dream? Be brutally honest with me.
To go back to my Zombie game, though money isn't a factor, I would definitely like for a particular game to be noticed at a time when that platform is popular. I mean, you can write a game for Atari 2600, but your audience is going to be maybe a handful of people. Though I would give my game out for free, what's the point if nobody will play it?
Imagine making a film for the world to see and then it can only be seen on Betamax VCR's. What would be the point of only a handful of people are going to care when I'm done?
This thread may get me flamed off the board with my first post, but I'm sorry. I'm just a guy at a crossroads, trying to achieve the impossible and seeing Mount Everest in front of me and all I have is a backpack full of canned goods. Maybe I should change my attitude.
Or maybe I should start simpler? Should I make a Flash game first? I'm sure many game developers and idealists are faced with this type of dillemma every day. I hope you won't flame me for thinking out loud.
I really wish I could make my Zombie game however and all I have is a few word documents with the idea. But as they say on most Game Developers sites..."Ideas area a dime a dozen."
SIGH
#34533 - yaustar - Fri Jan 21, 2005 1:30 am
Depends on what your true goal.. learning to program or making/releasing a game?
You say that programmnig hurts your brain so I assume the latter and suggest that a program like Games Factory (which I think is free now or you can get it off cover CDs) or similar which is a lot easier to 'program' as it is based on things like "if X hits Z then do B" in a visual interface..
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#34534 - liquidspaceman - Fri Jan 21, 2005 1:44 am
Yes my goal is to release a Zombie game. It's not necessarily the release of the game actually, it is the creation of the game, from my brain to an actual working game that is the goal.
My goal would probably be summed up as this:
Take my idea for a Zombie game using my unique ideas for storyline/action/gameplay, etc. and create an actual working game that reflects what I am thinking in my head.
If I were a film fan, you could say that I wanted to bring my ideas to film.
Well my main goal is to bring my Zombie game idea to the gaming scene. The platform doesn't matter. I simply picked the game boy because it seemed like the simplest machine to program for. Though after reading as much as I've read, it is nowhere as simple as I first made it out to be.
I am a designer first, programmer second. If I can get somebody to do the work for me, I'd rather pay them 100 bucks rather than spend 3 days doing it myself. I am not one to sit down with code.
It's more of a time constraint than anything else. I simply do not have the time to sit down and spend 8 hours trying to learn some new function, much less several weeks or even months. I have a job that takes up most of my time and a wife and 5 month old daughter when I'm not working.
I have maybe 3 hours at night tops. Not enough time to program or learn complex things. I have enough time to "dabble."
So my goal is, to bring my Zombie game to life in any platform as long as people can play it and say, "Yeah that was a good idea, you were right man..."LOL. Well, the compliments are secondary. I mainly want to bring my idea to life and don't want to spend 10 years learning GBA to do it.
In reality, I would pay somebody to develop it before I did the coding myself. I just don't have the time.
But realistically, can a game be created on the GBA with say a bankroll of $1500 dollars? I doubt it. Then again, I dont know enough about the GBA to make that kind of estimate.
I just want to bring my idea to life...it's that simple.
#34535 - ScottLininger - Fri Jan 21, 2005 2:03 am
What's your idea about? Care to share? If it's cool enough, maybe someboy on the board will be interested in collaborating.
-Scott
#34537 - DekuTree64 - Fri Jan 21, 2005 3:07 am
I'd tend to agree with Yaustar, using a pre-made engine would probably be best. I made my first game on RPGMaker 95, and had a blast doing it. Never was quite finished, but it did get to be pretty long.
It's a lot of work to get enough of a base built on GBA to really get into the game design. Particularly making a level editor is the first big hump to get over, since it does have to be pretty much finished before you can even start on the game. That is, unless you can find a good pre-made editor.
With a little work, you could probably hack something simple together on the GBA just to show off your cool art and level designing abilities (even if it doesn't actually work very well), and hopefully someone will like it enough to help bring it to life. The experience you gain would make working with a programmer much easier for both of you too.
Still, you can do some pretty cool stuff with pre-made engines too. Just depends on how much work you're willing to put into it.
I second Scott's request to hear more about your game ^^
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#34539 - Zhila - Fri Jan 21, 2005 3:14 am
I think a good suggestion would be to work on the artwork/concept of the game, and get with someone(s) who know how to make engines/etc, and work as a team to make the game. I myself am the opposite, I can program, but I'm crap as far as art/concepts go. You should find someone like me (not me specifically, I'm far too busy with other projects).
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#34550 - tepples - Fri Jan 21, 2005 6:27 am
By "Zombie game" do you mean a clone of Ghosts n Goblins? Use Photoshop or whatever artists use to make a 240x160 pixel mock-up of what the screen would look like during the game, and some of us may be able to help you out a bit more.
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#34563 - poslundc - Fri Jan 21, 2005 3:16 pm
| liquidspaceman wrote: |
| Am I living a dream? Be brutally honest with me. |
Odds are, dollars to donuts, your game will never see the light of day.
This does not make it a worthless endeavour, though.
If it's something you want to do, commit to it and see it through as far as you can take it. Accept the offers of help you may get from here and elsewhere. You may accomplish a lot, even if you don't arrive at a finished product, and it may serve as a valuable resource when you are looking at starting other projects.
If I could choose between doing nothing and doing something I probably wouldn't finish, I'd choose the latter any day.
Dan.
#34569 - sajiimori - Fri Jan 21, 2005 7:42 pm
| Quote: |
| I have never done any game programming so I figured the GBA was a good place to start. |
Your computer is a better place to start. Writing for an embedded system will only make things more complicated.
| Quote: |
| I figured that if I was ever going to learn Game Developing, the Game Boy would be a true test as to whether or not I had it in me. |
"It" is nothing more than a desire to develop games and the willingness to do what that entails, and you can discover that anywhere.
| Quote: |
| Even if I did learn GBA programming at an intermediate level, by then the DS and Playstation Portable will dominate the handheld gaming scene and I will have to re-learn from scratch. |
For one thing, it's far from being "from scratch". There are many game development skills that carry across platforms. Besides, a beginner should not try to develop a game that requires DS and PSP features anyway.
| Quote: |
| I mean, if it takes 20 programmers 10 months, what? It's gonna take me 3 years or longer? |
There are ways to speed development (such as using an existing engine), but the more important thing is to not aim too high for a solo beginner project. There are some experienced programmers here who can help you pare your design down to something that can be accomplished in your desired timeframe.
Also, most GBA games don't have 20 programmers. My last project had between 3 and 6 depending on how you count.
| Quote: |
| Seems like a lot of programmers/developers might have the same dreams and are more talented than I am at programming. They'd be able to realize it quicker. |
Yup. If you can't handle that fact, then you'd better go work at McDonald's or something. Game development is hard, even if you minimize the amount of programming you have to do.
| Quote: |
| They will ask, "What do you bring to the table?" I will say, "Great Ideas and graphics skills" and they will laugh their asses off. |
Yes, you are far less likely to find programmers who will make your game for you if you can't pay them or offer them a professional working environment. If you minimize the necessary programming and are still unwilling to do it yourself, then the story is probably over.
#34579 - Quirky - Fri Jan 21, 2005 10:48 pm
| sajiimori wrote: |
| Quote: | | I have never done any game programming so I figured the GBA was a good place to start. |
Your computer is a better place to start. Writing for an embedded system will only make things more complicated. |
The GBA is great for game development! Beginners included I'd say.
PC development in C/C++ requires a fair amount of non-game programming knowledge - stuff with linking, using libraries, handling OS events, setting up threads etc etc. Unless you go for (perhaps) Java, with its semi-awkwardness for the end user and general bad rep, or Blitz Basic, which costs cash, is not "proper coding" but does seem able to give good results without too many tears, then the PC has too much baggage and extra effort required...
With the GBA you know you've got the stuff there to do tiles, sprites, scaling etc pretty easily out of the box. The "Hello World" on the GBA is usually a home-drawn sprite on a tile background, all without using any libraries. How long before you could do that with, say, vanilla SDL? (Well, OK, not much longer, but it'd have a lower "gamey" code to "stuff" code ratio for sure)
OK, once you start writing larger, more complex stuff, the PC/GBA easieness divide is narrowed somewhat and the GBA reaveals its own problems. But by then, with the experience gained, the advantages and disadvantes of both platforms can be seen clearer.
#34582 - poslundc - Fri Jan 21, 2005 11:17 pm
| Quirky wrote: |
| PC development in C/C++ requires a fair amount of non-game programming knowledge - stuff with linking, using libraries, handling OS events, setting up threads etc etc. |
Almost every compiler suite out there provides support for ANSI C projects, which require none of that knowledge and easily provide the best and safest environment to learn programming in.
Dan.
#34592 - Miked0801 - Sat Jan 22, 2005 1:24 am
Yep - Why learn about EWRAM/IWRAM/VRAM accessing with funky machine API when you can write a program in a console app (or whatever) to do your first basic printf("Hello World"); on a PC. Go to GBA when you have a basic understanding of bitwise operators (a journeyman C skill.) Without them and basic pointer theory, all you'll be doing is cutting and pasting from examples without a clue of what's going on.
#34598 - yaustar - Sat Jan 22, 2005 2:19 am
| Miked0801 wrote: |
| Without them and basic pointer theory, all you'll be doing is cutting and pasting from examples without a clue of what's going on. |
I did that O_o ..... and paid the price for it (sink or swim scenerio)
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#34602 - tepples - Sat Jan 22, 2005 3:15 am
| Quirky wrote: |
| PC development in C/C++ requires a fair amount of non-game programming knowledge - stuff with linking, using libraries, handling OS events, setting up threads etc etc. Unless you go for (perhaps) Java, with its semi-awkwardness for the end user and general bad rep, or Blitz Basic, which costs cash, is not "proper coding" but does seem able to give good results without too many tears, then the PC has too much baggage and extra effort required... |
Not in my experience. The Allegro library makes it easy to read the keyboard and blast bitmaps to the screen, hiding a lot of the complexity of DirectX. And unlike SDL, I could actually figure out how to get the Allegro library working in MinGW.
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-- Where is he?
-- Who?
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#34607 - sajiimori - Sat Jan 22, 2005 4:25 am
For any future readers interested in using SDL with MinGW, this page helped me when I was getting started a few years ago:
http://www.spacejack.org/games/mingw/mingw-sdl.html
#34631 - blinky465 - Sat Jan 22, 2005 11:36 pm
| liquidspaceman wrote: |
| If I were a film fan, you could say that I wanted to bring my ideas to film. |
Are you hoping to be the director? Or would you be willing to give your script to, say, Leonard Nimoy to direct? (he's a known and proven director, just like many of the guys on these board are accomplished developers, but would their style match what you're after).
Would you be able to let someone else take your ideas and interpret them how they see best?
| liquidspaceman wrote: |
| The platform doesn't matter. I simply picked the game boy because it seemed like the simplest machine to program for. Though after reading as much as I've read, it is nowhere as simple as I first made it out to be. |
A Windows-based game would be easier to produce since there are so many "ready-to-run" game engines developed; but even then there's a massive job to be done!
| liquidspaceman wrote: |
| If I can get somebody to do the work for me, I'd rather pay them 100 bucks rather than spend 3 days doing it myself. I am not one to sit down with code. |
It's difficult to put a value on something you don't understand. For example, it may take three days just to debug a couple of functions- it's also easy for unscrupulous types to fleece you for doing practically nothing! Creating a game from nothing could take months - even as an optimistic estimate....
| liquidspaceman wrote: |
| I have maybe 3 hours at night tops. Not enough time to program or learn complex things. I have enough time to "dabble." |
Don't forget this is a hobby project - don't let it take over your life!!
| liquidspaceman wrote: |
| I just want to bring my idea to life...it's that simple. |
Why not put your ideas on a website or something and link to it from here.
If you just want to see your game being created, let everyone see what you've got - don't be afraid of your ideas being ripped off; most developers never finish their games and many are too busy on their own projects anyway. And if someone does rip off your ideas - bingo! - mission accomplished; your ideas get put into a game!! ;-)
I'm open to ideas for a collaborative project.
I can code in C and - using HAM and HEL (I'm a GBA newbie too) - can put together a simple game framework. I'm rubbish at graphics.
I can also put your own roms onto 32Mbit flash carts for about ?4.50 per cart (I've had the hardware thingie through for taking the rom from the PC into an internal flash rom, but I'm still waiting for my sample batch of blanks to transfer it to. I'm confident that I'll be able to put roms onto carts for this kind of price though).
I'd be interested in working in a 'team' on a game (any game) - ie with other people who can do the music, sfx, artwork, sprite animation (ooh the thought of multiple frames of animation make me cold), level/room design. I don't know what level of commitment I could offer, but would keep going while it held my interest!