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Game Design > Game with minigames: Different exe files?

#120238 - Optihut - Thu Mar 01, 2007 11:30 pm

Hi all,

I am not entirely sure whether I am able to finish this project, but I'd like to get back into game programming. The last big thing I did is already 10+ years past and recently I have only done 1 page programs to calculate something and stuff like that. Work related I am contemplating to write a tiler for gerber files, even though something like that already exists on sourceforge.

But anyway, right now I have an idea for a game, that would be loosely inspired by Chivalry, Sword of Aragon and Millenium 2.2.

What I would like to do is incorporate several minigames as it was the case with Chivalry. The question is whether it would make sense to program each minigame individually and have the main game somehow call the minigames and receive values upon their termination. Then again, it might be better just to have everything in one big project. What's the general opinion on this?

Best regards,

Optihut

EDIT: Fixed links

Last edited by Optihut on Fri Mar 02, 2007 1:05 am; edited 3 times in total

#120241 - gauauu - Fri Mar 02, 2007 12:04 am

Are you talking about a PC game, or a GBA game?

As a GBA game, it wouldn't make sense to separate them out into different projects. So I'm assuming you mean a PC game.

In my opinion, the advantage to separate .exe files would be that you could play each minigame separately without having to play the full game.

The disadvantage would be that the transitions between the minigames wouldn't be as nice (loading and bringing focus to a different gui window).
Pick your poison....which is more important, presentation, or the ability to play the games separately?

(There's all sorts of other fun issues to consider like using framework libraries to make each minigame easier to code, but those could live either in the main code, or in some sort of shared library, so it's not a breaking point either way)

#120244 - keldon - Fri Mar 02, 2007 12:10 am

If all of the games have the same basic initialization then you can have stand alone games, but you can also have any program link into it (depending on your experience). Exe's can export functions in the same way as DLL's.

#120250 - Optihut - Fri Mar 02, 2007 1:00 am

@gauauu:
I did indeed mean PC game, sorry about the confusion. While porting (something) to DS is eventually on the agenda, I really need to complete a project on the PC first, as that strikes me as easier.

The ability to play the mini games individually is one of the advantages I had in mind. Also, I could start working on a mini game first and then add the other mini games and the main game later. That would save me from planning one big project that's going to fall apart due to the task appearing too big.

@keldon:
Thanks for the info. I guess I need to look into how to pass values back and forth then.

#120269 - tepples - Fri Mar 02, 2007 4:25 am

gauauu wrote:
Are you talking about a PC game, or a GBA game?

As a GBA game, it wouldn't make sense to separate them out into different projects. So I'm assuming you mean a PC game.

In my opinion, the advantage to separate .exe files would be that you could play each minigame separately without having to play the full game.

Or that one part not being used at the moment doesn't take up RAM. This is especially important on the DS, where memory is limited. A lot of Xbox games have one executable for the menus and one for the game.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.

#176504 - Optihut - Tue Aug 09, 2011 7:53 am

Thanks for the (spam) bump, Peter Amigo. I never actually sat down and worked on this. Man, I miss programming, sucks to be busy with other stuff.