Help - Help me decide on what game to build!!!!

[rlculver]

Hi

Any ideas on a basic game for me to build for my Visual Programming Unit. I am a newbie!!! - Please help me think of a good and releively easy one.


Thanks

[plenderj]

You're a newbie with 184 posts ?

- jamie

[Fox]

Why not?

1 "How can I..."
2 "Is there a way to..."
3 "What does..."
4 "And what about..."
...

*g

[SteveCRM]

He might be a newbie to graphics...

You can try a shooting scroller (might flicker though)...
You could try a racing game but they're hard...
You could try something similar to mancala...

[Fox]

Yea, was just kidding *smile*

Try a jump 'n' run, that's one of the easiest funny games Take a look at my homepage and download some demos if you need help - or ask here at VBW

[Sastraxi]

RTS games are cool.. I'd like to see one be made in VB though. If you do an RTS, start with ONE unit and work your way up.

RPGs are cool, lots of people try to make them and they seem simple... use DDraw to get good effects.

what about a space invaders type game?

[HarryW]

Most of those described will take far longer than you'd want to spend for an academic exercise, you need to make levels and scripting engines and all sorts. I'd recommend you stick to the old arcade game type things, like Space Invaders (as suggested) or Pong, or Tetris, or Snake, or something of that ilk. They won't suck so much of your life away

Of course, if you have a few months of free time...

[plenderj]

HarryW,
you said there about snake.
I decided a while ago to make a snake game, and it took me a loooong time

Could never get the shaggin thing to move properly.
But I finally finished it and then put in multiplayer.

So anyone up for 64 player snake

- jamie

[Jotaf98]

Arcade games are the easiest thing to do.

You could use a simple image for the map and a tile engine for the obstacles, in a text file. But NO SCROLLING, it's too hard for your first game. All you see is the image, and nothing more

Maybe a multiplayer death-match styled game?... With killer bunnies jumping and all?...

[Balder]

I think "simple" board games like Othello, chess, Mines (...and tons of others) are an excellent way to get started.
Theese are often easy to get to work, but add details/graphics and they can become very complicated.
Tetris is one of my favourite projects, i made tetris versions long ago and I am still doing new ones of it.

Good luck!

[CyberCarsten]

Hi rlculver!

My first game was very simple.
The main strategy was to catch a dropping ball.
If you catch, you get points, if you don't, you get penalty points....
Maybe thats something for you??? You could also start with the classic Tic Tac Toe game (good tutorials at www.about.com ) ...The point is...do not start right off trying to make a "mega" 3d game like Quake III or Half-Life, if you don't have any experience in game programming...
I wish you the best of luck!
You are welcome to ask me, if you have questions...

[amesjustin]

I am also a newbie and am currently working on a single player Tic Tac Toe game. I could show you what I have done to help get you started, and maybe we could bounce some ideas off of each other!

-Justin

[kedaman]

Afaik, aiming too high usually doesn't result in anything. I could work all my life time on a project and never get ready, even a tic tac toe game could be hard for a newbie. RTS and RPG's are out of sight even for advanced programmers.

[amesjustin]

2-player Tic-Tac-Toe should not be TOO difficult unless you are VERY new to programming. Again I am currently working on a single player and could help you.

[HarryW]

plenderj - I made a snake game in C++ with DirectDraw a month or two ago. It's still technically a work in progress, I ought to finish the damn thing with a start screen and menu and stuff. As far as the actual game goes it's complete, but the frills aren't there yet.

The way I did it was using a limked list. All you have to do then is move the tail of the list to the new position of the head, and mark the new head. All the other bits of snake can stay where they are, you don't have to worry about moving them. It also allows you to stack up tail blocks on top of each other when your snake grows, and the snake will grow one block at a time. Hmm not sure if that makes much sense.

Of course, since I was using C++ I could allocate memory for the snake dynamically as it grew, which you can't do in VB. You can use a dynamic array though, and use a cursor implementation of a linked list.

[plenderj]

HarryW, I never thought of that.
Ive been using dynamic arrays of UDTs, remembering where each block is, and where each block has to go.

I never copped only 2 blocks move ...

Oh well, time to cut out half the code

- jamie

[Jotaf98]

I also had an idea for a snake game, you had a dynamic array with the x/y positions of each "square" of the snake. You then just replaced the last square's position with the new position, and redimmed the array to make it larger. THAT would be fast, don't you think?

[plenderj]

Well, what i did was as follows :
(i know it looks odd, but it works great !)

Private Sub MakeBoard(Optional full As Boolean)
    Me.Hide
    If full Then
        j = 1
        For j = 1 To 3600
            'spot() = control array of shapes
            Load Spot(j)
            With Spot(j)
                .BackColor = &H80000005
                .BackStyle = 0
                .Bordercolor = &H80000008
                .BorderStyle = 0
                .BorderWidth = 1
                .DrawMode = 13
                .FillColor = &H0&
                .FillStyle = 0
                .Height = 135
                .Width = 135
                .Left = 135 + (Int((j Mod 60) * .Width))
                .Top = 135 + (Int((j / 60)) * .Height)
                .Visible = True
                .Shape = 0
            End With
            DoEvents
        Next
    End If
    For X = 0 To 3599
        If (X <= 59) Or (X >= 3539) Then
            Spot(X).FillColor = Bordercolor
        ElseIf ((X Mod 60) = 59) Or ((X Mod 60) = 0) Then
            Spot(X).FillColor = Bordercolor
        Else
            Spot(X).FillColor = BGColor
        End If
    Next
End Sub

So then, every often, I just fill the shape with a certain color. Works very well ...

- jamie

[Jotaf98]

Nice code

But won't the squares flicker a bit?...

[plenderj]

Nope.
It runs perfectly.
Here's the exe :
http://www.everyman.ie/jamiep/snake.zip

Dont bother trying the multiplayer part - its not finished yet.
Im not releasing the src till im done

- jamie

[plenderj]

Also,

That compiled fils is using the following 'dash' of GetTickCount() :

Private Const UpdateSpeed As Long = 60

Private Sub RunGameLoop()
    Do While doloop
        CurrentTick = GetTickCount()
        DoEvents
        If ((CurrentTick - LastTick) >= UpdateSpeed) Then
            LastTick = GetTickCount()

So obviously it could be sped up, but on this P-III its a tad difficult to control

- jamie

[HarryW]

Jotaf - that's pretty much what I meant

[Jotaf98]

Oops, you're right - but when you see my version of Snake, know that I did it without knowing of your technique

[Jotaf98]

Huh... HarryW... there's a problem with my code: when a new piece is added, it has some bugs... how did you do it?

[YoungBuck]

Anybody interested in putting together a 194x or Galaga type game with DX??

[Jotaf98]

HarryW: Forget about it, I worked it out. Thanks anyway

YoungBuck: Not everyone knows those games. Can you elaborate a bit more, please?...

[YoungBuck]

Their both shooters, but these two are my favorites from childhood

Galaga

1943

[plenderj]

Ive written a space based shooter-upper game.
It not an arcade type game.

Its more frontier elite.
The idea behind it was to make a multiplayer version of frontier elite.

This project is how I learned VB as a matter of fact.
But I'm still working on it.

Its very fast - and doesnt use any DX.

I'm thinking of posting the source code.
Whaddaya think ?

- jamie

[Jotaf98]

Sure, post it - we'd really like to see it

[plenderj]

Perchance detect I a hint of sarcasm ?

- jamie

[Jotaf98]

Sorry if I sounded sarcastic (and rude) - but what I meant was that there aren't that many good games in VB, so we'd like to see it.

[plenderj]

K.
Ill stick it up on the web tonight.

Its an odd feeling you get when you release your baby for so many years as public domain ...

- jamie

[Jotaf98]

Hey, if you don't wanna post the code, don't do it!

I'd just like to see what you could do with VB, so you could post only the EXE

[plenderj]

Ah to hell with it.
In a few minutes time, the uploading of the 3 mb file called craft.zip will be finished to :
http://members.fortunecity.com/plenderj

It is the entire source code + history of craft.
By history, I mean the source of every version.

Hope you enjoy.
I enjoyed working on it.

This game is how I taught myself Visual Basic.
I didn't know a line of VB when I started.

Let me know what you think.
Obviously its far from finished, but with work and college 'n all, I don't have time to make games anymore

Anyway, I'd like to continue working on it, if anyone else is interested ...

The url should be :
http://members.fortunecity.com/plenderj/craft.zip
and will be there in 2 minutes.

- jamie

[plenderj]

Fortunecity would appear to think its being smart ...

Goto this url
http://members.fortunecity.com/plenderj/

and click on the link

- jamie

[Jotaf98]

Sorry for going so much off-topic, but I'm not gonna start a new thread because of this. I just want to hear 2 or 3 opinions: do you think my signature is too long? If yes, which part should I cut out?

"Sorry for the inconvenience" (or whatever )

[plenderj]

I'd just leave in the code piece ...

[Jotaf98]

Thanks

And I've downloaded your game, it's cool but the code is a bit messy. Anyway, nice piece of code