Something tells me that I might be biting off more than I can chew if I decide to make my own game, but I have been brainstorming. I have a couple of games in mind that might require players to keep their arsenal secret (like a card game or something similar).
Keep in mind that I have NO background in programming, but I want to put something simple together as soon as I can chisel out some ‘me’ time. Are there some user-friendly tools that can help me with my pipe dream?
Thanks in advance…
First. Don’t go into this with a game in mind. Second. Don’t go into this with a dreamcast game in mind.
At least half the starting Comp Sci students and my university went in wanting to learn to program to make games. They have all flunked out. You are not going to make a game if you try to learn to program to make a game, especially one as obscure as Dreamcast.
As a Comp Sci student with game making on my agenda I can tell you how hard and how large of a project it is. It’s not something you learn to do. It’s something you do with the things you have learned. If you do it the other way you will frustrate yourself and you will give up.
Keep your games in mind and work on the game concepts. You don’t actually need to program a game to make a game(especially a card game). Take some programming courses. Flesh out your game concepts. Once you are satisfied with your skill and your concept then think about how to program it. Not now.
Oh boy are you in for it. I don’t know anything about Dreamcast development, but you probably need to know how to program. Pick up the basics of programming by teaching yourself Java or C++ or something. You also need to know how to program for a game, which requires time-controlled loops, sprite and sound management, input recognition, etc., etc. It’s really NOT something to do for your first programming project.
If you’re really just interested in making games, I’d suggest making games for the PC using Game Maker (owned by Yo-Yo Games last time I checked). It will allow you to make a game with little to no programming experience. It handles all the hard stuff for you, like managing sprites, displaying sprites, displaying backgrounds, collision detection, and all that stuff. It works off a system of events, and you tell what to do during each event. Events are triggered by input, collisions, alarms you can set, a step event that occurs in each object every frame of the game, a draw event that occurs when drawing the sprite to the screen, etc. You fill in the events, and it handles all the hidden (and frankly, difficult to write) stuff that triggers them, and displays sprites for you (you tell it where to draw each sprite). It’s a good tool, and it’s also a really good intro to object oriented programming. You won’t be able to program for the Dreamcast, but you could transition to it if that’s what you really wanted. But you’re going to need experience with programming and basic game design to do much of anything.
There is no simple way to do it, you can’t really just jump into the deep end. Luckily there are tons of resources if you do want to learn. Somethings are harder than others but if you’re the self motivated kind the sky’s the limit. (For example the lead hacker/programmer for the Mother 3 translation had never done any programming prior to it, it took him over a year, but still he learned very complex hacks on his own with a little help here or there from others.)
Just so you know it is possible and there are a bunch of people back in the day creating games (chiefly for the VMU), but it really died out when the novelty of the VMU wore off.
Here is an old community that may have some info:
http://gamesource.groups.yahoo.com/group/vmu-dev/?yguid=37647683
Like it’s been said this wouldn’t be a good first project, but I give you the VMU link because it’s the only place I could think of that still has a working link. So if you get there, there may be some info there that can help you.
Don’t be discouraged. This may be a little too ambitious if you don’t have ‘any’ programming fundamentals. If you’re willing to sort through other people’s code you should be able to piece something together with time.
The Dreamcast has a very good homebrew dev environment in the form of KallistiOS. It can definitely output the display to the VMU because I’ve done it. Unfortunately it’s been a few years.
Hit up the DCEmulation forums and chat up the developers. That community is extremely friendly even if you come off like a total noob. Tell them that Kyle from Consolevision sent ya. :wgrin:
I appreciate all of the help thus far. I’ve been busy lately, but I at least wanted to get this thread out of my system. I have this simple 4-player “Pac-Man” style game I want to develop. I have some ideas on paper, and a few sprites & levels at my disposal.
I have some version of Game Maker (which I may have to update) that seems easy enough for me to plug and play. That may the first and best route for me to take this project. Since I eventually want to play (and transport) this on a console with friends, I figured the Dreamcast was a good place to start. I started an account with LavaLit (the BoR people) with the goal of making my game work in the confines of that engine.
In the distant future, I would like to expand to making games that utilize the VMU. For example, I would like to make a scrabble game and a dominos game. As you may already know, with the original games, it is imperative that a player’s ‘hand’ is obscured. No other system will allow me to obscure a player’s hand except the DC.
Some of you are probably wondering why I didn’t ask the lavlit/bor crew first. Well… I’m new to lavalit, and it’s gonna take me some time to get adjusted to hanging out on another forum. Besides, since I have some seniority and familiarity here, I figured someone with the right experience and know-how would be more than happy to help an old SRK brutha out.
Game Maker will probably just get in your way once you want to move it around. Like I said early:
It’s not something you learn to do. It’s something you do with the things you have learnt.