I'm curious to know if anyone here does games programming or planning, any sort. I'm currently involved in some game design and coding for MUDs and I think it'd be neat to discuss and share ideas here.

I have only done games in vb 6.0 but would like to know more about muds

Well, I tried creating a game about 3 years ago, i've used a software though(Game Master Pro 3.5 or something). I did finish it but with lousy graphics and such plus I have to use their DLLs for their games to run... I was not a programmer then, just a video game junkie that wanted to make his own game.

I'm a game programmer but have not yet been able to break into an A list game. I was working for Sierra most recently which was my big break then they shut down the studio lol. Just my luck. Now I'm back making casual games. But it's actually pretty cool because I have so much ownership and design control over everything. Plus, if the game I'm working on sucks, I'll have a new one in a few months.

Our final project for one of my intro programming classes was a MUD of sorts. I think mine turned out pretty neat for not really knowing much in the way of programming.

p0e35: MUD stands for multi-user dungeons; it's an online text-based game and most of them are free and open to the public (you can get a listing at http://www.mudconnect.com). practically all of the MUDs out there are based on themes like medieval, modern, space, or based on movies/tv serieses like LOTR, star wars, avp, etc.

helix: wow that sounds tough for an intro programming class...?


darn :/

what sort of casual games do you make?


one of the sites for MUD developers that ranks high on my list is mudmagic.com. a lot of codebase and game design discussion goes on there. you might even be able to get ideas there for your game even if it's not a MUD.

i've made some simple games with a DOS game creation program called 'Megazeux' (based on ZZT) as well as with a program called 'Klik And Play'. Some of my friends are making simple games in Flash so i am considering starting to make games in flash (i currently only use flash for programming)

I'm working at WildTangent now and our games cover a number of different genres. I'm currently doing a word game and my next game will be a tycoon style game. Ideally I'd do some arcade style game as those are by far the coolest and most fun to make. We also make racing games so that would be fun...

do u guys maybe know wut program i could use to make games for like website, and is good for begginers?????????

I would use flash like you said. There are TONS of tutorials online. Java would be another option but not necessarily good for beginners.

dissipate: Hello there,

I am almost always involved with game design and planning. I am currently a student at Digipen and we don't have time for much else other than that. I have a text game project aproaching next semester and am hoping to convince my team to tackle a dungeon & dragon style command line parser text game. We all have our fair share in what goes into our games, but for my current team I am the technical director, so I'm pretty much happy coding what ever project we decide on, since I get to be in charge of making sure our code is superb.

MUD's can be very fun. Back when I was learning C I took on a side project to create a single command parder text game that plays like a single player mud. It turned out very well as a learning experience and allowed me to apply much of what I had learned.

Which MUD's do you code for currently? Are you doing the coding in a scripting language developed for those MUDS or using some sort of other language?

wannabeeaweak: Programs for making games for websites. This could be a possibly controversial subject. Many will argue that flash is by far superior, while others will argue that java is. Me, I think any tool is suitable if your comfortable with it. You can even forgo both and use plain html to make a game. It depends on how creative you wish to be. Using a database and php you can create a game similar to Kings of Chaos.

Web Game Builder - Tutorials and other resources for designing web and online games.

Flash Advisor - This place has some handy information for developing games in flash.

Flash MX Trial - And of course, you will need the ability to design in flash if you want to make flash games.

Java Boutique - This place offers tutorials on how to program with java, including designing and making some games. It also has a lot of nice samples to view.

I hope this has been helpful for you to find what you were looking for.

awesome, i didn't know there were so many games programmers around!


sweet. i quite enjoyed some of the games in the tycoon series.

speedi: heya. i did a bit of coding for adesa and i'm working with a couple of friends on a new codebase that uses sql instead of flat files. i'm code in C for both. would be interested to know how your D&D game turns out

I use a program called Game maker www.gamemaker.nl its okay and really well supported, maybe you should try it, it can be compiled to EXE from its own gmd format and has lots of dll's amd best of all its free for use.

i'm a wannabe! i study in a course relate to this... 1 and a half year more to graduation... make 2 game though... 1 is an pac man the other is an action rpg which i rushed overnight... lucky to get a good grade... well... i do both in macromedia director... i really like macromedia director... u are just messing with its property to get it work... the graphic wise was good becuz i took it from the web... (megaman x4's zero sprites) i love those library and sprites idea... makes everything so easy to use... u all shld try it...

In 4th semester I had a project of Game pack..

we 3 members amde a game pack of 6 games... I was leading it

I made two games scrabble and Luddo... we got 2nd prize in uni
made all games In VB

any if u want those

i also made some games in C++ but in graphice mode i made only 1 game thats " Da Ghin Sar " ...... check it out & rate me guys please ...

i would like to learn how to make games, and i don't have a program
to make games for my web site and i want one, could any one tell
me wut programs would be the good for begginers and u can post
them on web site?????????????

Wannabeweak, next time, please read the thread. you asked your question before and speedi3579 had already been so nice to give you a whole and complete answer. (And is it really needed to put 13 '?' marks there? ;O)

3D DOS games in the palm of your hands!. And I mean on N-Gage not on GP32

this is the emu we really need, but i can't seem to find any thing related on the search engines

not in order to use DOS apps but in order to play all those nice DOS games from the 90's
Almost every game publisher wrote or ported their games to DOS. So the game titles are endless and available freely. And many of them are now free of charge downloads from the authors.

Given microsoft has made all the DOS tech info available to the public. It should be one of the easiest N-Gage emulators to make.

any takers?

How feasable is it to create a webpage based rpg using php? Is this an bad idea, only I know of several online games that have used this language.

I'm a beginner game programmer. The game programming language that I am using is DarkBASIC Professional. Even though I haven't had that much time to use it, I still thinks that it is a great language. One of these days, I will be able to start on a game project. That'll be cool!!

If you ever need access to cheap game building tools then you can go to the GameCreators webpage.

Wow, seems like everyone hav their own way of learning/making games. This is so cool. Well, I started off with programming at first, u all should know, all the if..else..then, for(blabla; blaba; blablaa++) stuff. It then eventually moved on to graphics programming. Picked up some 3D skills. Made a crappy game for my final project though . But hey, I know tis gonna be a passion, and for anyone out there I feel ya, and Im pretty sure ya feel me too...right?

Hey, this is a very cool topic.

I, Myself, am a true beginner in programming. My first thought early on, was to learn programming so I could build games, applications and provide solutions to freelance and be my own boss someday. Java was all the hype. It boasted about how much easier than C++ it was in how it used no functions and the syntax was supposed to be "cleaner".
What I found out, was that after falling asleep while scanning through the huge API and class moduals, I lacked retention and applicable skill set on how to put my ideas into a pseudo-code sketch and translate that into functionling programs. But, Hey, I sure could make a interesting "Hello World" program.
I started experimenting with arrays and loops, creating objects like people with extra arms and body parts and bad table manors. but I was still unable to grasp the tangability of OOP and making it work for me.
I feel the approach to programming for a beginner, depends on the person. I once talked to a awesome coder in a yahoo chat room who told me that "...if you can code well in one language, you should be able to be able to code well in any language that is OOP. Coding is an art". He got mixed responses from others in the chat room. but I was able to relate with his "artistic" analogy. To veiw somting as an art, fuels creativity. I am a musician. I play a few diffent instruments, including piano. some with piano then branch off. I had no interest in piano, but I found my nitch and was good at my nitch. I also got better from sharing my ideas and teaching people and collaberating with other artists. I probably would have lost the desire to learn music if I started with piano.
I am still glazing over Java to see what sticks in my mind in hope that it will make sense to me someday. And C++ the same. I relate to java a little better because it looks a little closer to JavaScript(even though entirely different) to me. I have gotten into 3DCG some time ago with VRML and my roomates AutoCad. Then I found out about a program called Blender. It was absolutly freightning in that it lacked documentation and the interface seemed so cryptic. The site said that it was able to do all this stuff and that more was comming. It's functionality was based on this language called Python. I was truely intimidated. I gave up on the Blender. Then some 4-5 years later, I typed Blender in google and was blown away. It has it's own API(Application Programming Interface) of Blender called the Blender Python API. I hit a recommended link to one of their many support and development sites and found an enormous community of people who give freely of their time and skill sets to help Blender grow. I am addicted to learning python and Blender now. for the beginners like myself, this is about as close to the power of game programming and development you can get without learning C++ or Java and Java3D right way. I found that python is a great primer to C++ and Java because it was based off of those 2 languages and Turbo Pascal. The Language does not require compilation and is highly interactive, OOP and you see the results of everything you type in real time with it's IDLE and SPE(a cool IDE for Blender Python) development environments. What makes Blender Rock so hard for the noobie programmer is that it is a Full Suite of tools that are growing on a daily basis and you can talk directly with the people who build it and even add to the builds yourself.
to make this incredibly long story shorter, in Blender, you could model a low poly game figure, give em unique materials and texture, unwrap and paint UVs, paint directly on the model, access or create your own plugins easily and even get help for creating them from other coders, rigg your model, add pose keys and sliders(RVKs: Relative Vertice Keys, Actions and NLA: Non Linier Animation strips) pose and add awesome IK/FK, Port your animations to the Game engin controls, export toall of the major 3D formate, export to VRML, import many formats as well, Use intuitave interface tools for handling game engine physics, Rigid body dynamics, gravity, AI, and (Oh, did I forget to mention it has it's own built-in game engine?)more, At the same time have a video compositor with numorous plugins(even make your own) for alpha, blue and green screening and make movies in numorous formats, make renders that are photorealistic, Radiosity and angularmap rendering, HDRI illumination, video and interactive matirial and textures, full keyboard , mouse, joystick, tablet intergration, socket programming, and custon GUI building and all while learning python! That is really exciting to me. And I am understanding more about c++ and Java now because of my increasing knowlege of Python with this cool and easy model/composite/render/game programming application. And it is Open Source (GNU). There is countless documents, learning materials and tutorials for all levels.
last week, I even grabbed a copy of DEV C++ to try and stumble through some "hello World" tutorials and I'm going to reinstall Eclipse IDE and head back over to IBM Websphere to go though the RCP and TCP/IP Sockets tutorials again and hope that I gain an even deeper understanding of the languages.
Just like music, the instrument can be really inspiring to create cool things. I mean, I can play "Little Wing" on a 40 dollar pawn shop guitar and still be good. But when I pick up a PRS and plug into a Seymore Duncan and add a lil chorus and play little wing, people cry. Music is my Tao, and soon, OOP will be too.
I hope this long letter was an inspiration to other beginning programmers like myself to find and object oriented language that you can get close to immediate results to inspire you. It gets intimidating being a person in a foreign land where you can't speak the language. But eventually, you will meet enough people who will guide you and point you in the right direction. But there will always be those people who could just go to Barnes & Nobles and learn to speak Laotian in a week.
Here is a link to some amazing screenshots to showcase some of the functionality and UI of Blender and the Game Engine. This site and community is like the HUB of Blender users. This screenshot section are viing for recognition at the main developer and documentation site. Here, a beginner can quickly get their feet wet with Blender/python and game engin programming in python(a awesome language). It's not C++...Yet.

http://www.elysiun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=35681

I will create small tutorials here for beginners, and I encourage you experienced programmers to put love here to and show cool ins and outs of how a beginner gets to where you are. It will only make you stronger, not to mention the good Kharma.
Everything I learn well and test, will find it's way here eventually to help out beginners in OOP to grasp python game programming such as standalone RCP python applications, Custom GUIs and IDEs, Pygame, and Blender Python.
Thanks for tolerating this and hope that I had not overstepped my bounds in this forum. As my intentions are well, but I will always attempt to surround myself with kind natured people and walk away from negativity and ego always.
Thank you

P.S.
Reality Factor is a cool and intuitave game creation program also, but nowhere near the power of Blender though. And it's not entirely Open Source.

I dunno if this has already been said because i skipped over some pages but the best site for game programming and developement has to be gamedev.net hands down.

There may also be a game developers group if you live in a tech city(like I do). If you go there you can get tips from the pros. I live in Raliegh, and so my developer friend was able to go and have so beers with one of the makers of Unreal. Not only that, but those people make great job contacts. If you haven't done so already, go and see if there is anything like that near you.

excellent site, cheers!

I found when i dabbled in games programming (very very slightly) that there were some excellent recources avalible for directx programming that ventured into engine programming etc. i do not remember the links although i think i googled all of the sites that i used.

i do have to admit that blender is awsome for game programing but i dont realy like their 3d editor program a friend of mine recomended anim8or its a great program that is extreamly easy to use and is quite powerful and the file types can be inported into blender so check it out www.anim8or.com they just came out with a beta for the next version its a little buggy but its worth it

3d game studio is the best


try to use it

This may not be for game making, but according to professionals, Java will kill any C language. And yes GameDev is awesome!

From almost the moment I began programming I've made games. They are what spurred me learn programming. Until recently I had wanted to get a job making games after I got out of college. I changed my mind though after reading about the terrible hours game programmers work and about how they typically get paid less than normal programmers. So I think I'll get a normal programming job and keep making games as a hobby.

I agree that GameDev is a great site. It is where I learned a alot of what I know about making games.

My suggustion to anyone who wants to start making games is to search the internet, find a few good tutorials, and dig in. If you decide to use a language like C++ then it will take awhile to learn. But trust me, if you stick with it then all the work will be worth it. It is a great feeling to be able to set back and play a game that you made.

For anyone interested in what I use to make games I use C++ and Directx. For 3-D models I used MilkShape. It is shareware, but it is pretty good.

I started programming when I was only 10 years old (I'm now 13). I saw a book about HTML and I getted interested. I buyed the book and I started studying and after a few weeks I was able to make my very first, very simple site, I still have it on my computer, but it never came online because I didn't know anything about uploading and things like that. A few months later I found GameMaker and I started to make my own games.

If you wanna start games programming then you should search on web, it's the largest library on earth and you can find more about game programming then you will anywhere else in this universe. That's also the way I found Astahost.com and Gamemaker.nl, the last one is the site of a very good gamemaking-program that I use now for a couple of years and still like it. The programming language GML that is used in it is pretty similar to C++ but much easier to learn, at least I think so. I tried to learn C++ but the first time I didn't understand the halve of it. Then I started with GML and after that I readed some books about C++ and believe it or not but now I totaly understand the most of it. I can make nice games in GML and I now started to make some games in C++. The thing I want to say is: you should try GameMaker, it's such a nice program and it's realy beginners-friendly. If you want to try it, and I highly recommend that if you are a beginner that wants to see good results at once. You can download it at

www.gamemaker.nl

with a complete documentation that will help you a lot. You can also search the web for tutorials or check the tutorial section at Astahost.com. Here it is:

http://www.astahost.com/index.php?showtopi...92&hl=gamemaker

It isn't the best tutorial I've ever seen, there have to be some better ones on the web, just do some googling to find them. You will get about 557.000 hits if you do. I'm sure there will be some good ones between them that will surely help you to improve your coding.

If you don't want that and just want to C++ I also suggest you search on google, you will find some nice compilers and lots of resources and tutorials. The Astahost tutorial forum has a own section for C++ where you realy will find some interesting things.

I've tried both RPG maker and GM to develop games. Flash is excellent too. They all have their advantages, but nothing beats building something from the ground up. I suggest learning a language. There are a ton of resources on the net to teach you something like C to begin with. If you can master C and C++, you'll almost only be limited by your creativity.

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