[Richter]

So I've been programming in various languages for like 12 years. Started with QBASIC, went on to C, Turbo Pascal, Visual Basic, bla bla. Tried everything once, and every single time I try to make a fucking RPG in it. I always, always fail because RPGs are insanely complex and take a long time to develop. Also since it's the first project I tackle in that language, that means I'm an amateur and should not be trying to make a freaking RPG.

Anyway, I still want to make a damned game and I've got the means now. I've been re-inspired by the iPhone game thread here and by a friend of mine who's working on an independent XBLA game. But my motivation is always fleeting and I'm looking for a way to stay motivated. There are like 50 fucking projects I've started like this and have been meaning to finish ...

Here's some of the crap I've made in the past:

- Spacius! (JavaScript -- my most recent game. finished!!)
- Seanbaby's Magic Bus Ride Trip (QBASIC (DOS), intentionally bad for hilarity's sake, old as fuck)
- Benzer II: Benzer Goes Home (few years old, flash, unfinished as hell, kind of a sequel to Seanbaby, embarrassing about screen)
- Breakout clone (JavaScript, unfinished)

The current project that I've been tinkering on for a few years here and there and want to complete is yet another RPG, this time oldschool-style (like Dragon Warrior) and in Flash/AS3. I'm going to use free sprites for the game's initial prototypes/demos but someday I will need a real pixel artist.

Anybody else working on stuff?

[XMark]

I've been working on an RPG on and off (mostly off) for years now.

I actually finished one in QBasic a long time ago in a galaxy far away. It was called "The ARC Legacy". If you were active in the QBasic scene back in the day, you may have heard of it. My current project (projected ETA sometime before I die of old age) is a remake of it.

Here's a page of my stuff:
http://abstract-prod...s.net/games.php

[tibone]

Right now, i'm not working on anything.

I did some stuff, way back, and did more recently a Windows vertical shmup called "Space Hell".
I wish i could work on the sequel, but, quite honestly, i lack the skills to make decent graphics, so, i kinda gave up on the work.
And that kinda put everything else on halt too.
Lack of motivation is a bitch.

[Josiah Tobin]

I worked on the independent action-RPG Lynn's Legacy as one half of a two-man team. I did the pixel art, music, story+game manuscript, and maps. A friend of mine, cha0s, did the coding. Check it out here.

I also did the music for Terry Cavanagh's Squish and Lachie Dazdarian's Barren. I did the pixel art for the big ending cutscene in Barren as well. Oh, and of course I did all the pixel art and music/sound for the recent iPhone strategy game Castle Conflict.

Currently, I'm working on a big project that's been in the works for some time. Kind of my big personal game project that will finally let me die in peace once it's finished. Can't disclose anything about it yet, though. (ooh professional)

I've also done soundtrack work for the occasional independent game, including music for Dark Ages II waaay back when. I was terrible at music then but it was a relatively high-profile thing for me at the time. I'm also doing tile pixel art for XMark's previously mentioned RPG during its spurts of productivity.

~Josiah

[TheoConfidor]

You guys rock! Josiah, I am especially impressed by your work. Castle Conflict looks amazing!

I did some pixel art and level design for a couple of games for Palm OS. I was going to post a link to the two games I worked on, but the site is currently down. Maybe the fellow no longer maintains his company website.

[SnappleMan]

Hey Game DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS

[arise_shine]

It was always a dream to develop games for a living. Then I found out that it's impossible to get a job, and those that do often work 80-hour weeks tweaking blitter functions, only to have the game cancelled. So I relegated it to "hobby" status. Which means I have to to actually finish anything. My "grand idea" is a RTS snowball-fight game. But I end up surfing The Shizz and playing Axis & Allies on my computer instead. I'm a procrastinator.

[Shoe]

SnappleMan, on May 22 2009, 07:32 PM, said:

Hey Game DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS

16:07 norg_work> hahahahaha
16:07 norg_work> underboob sweat
16:07 Shoe> it happens, it's kinda tragic
16:08 rauble> you can collect hardened underboob sweat and use it like crisco
16:08 Shoe> but it makes sense!
16:08 Omnideth> is it kosher though?
16:08 Shoe> rauble: like steve ballmer's pit sweat?
16:08 norg_work> DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS
16:08 Omnideth> calm down norg
16:08 Shoe> DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS
16:09 norg_work> DEVELOPERS
16:09 Shoe> WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
16:09 rauble throws a chair at Omnideth
16:09 norg_work> DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS
16:09 Shoe> YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
16:09 norg_work> GIVE IT UP FOR MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
16:09 snappleman> DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
16:09 Omnideth ducks.
16:09 snappleman> norgue missed his cue
16:09 norg_work> BASS

[raubhimself]

hahha

i started working on a game one summer between semesters, using the pygame engine. i got as far as having a character that could walk in 4 directions (animated with 2 or 4 frames per direction, i forget), and i could switch between window/fullscreen. i would like to finish that game but it took me 4 hours to make the character and 30 minutes to get him walking around in 4 directions, i hate/suck at making pixel art. also i'm a sack of shit that doesn't have the motivation or discipline to finish anything i start.

i just thought of a somewhat simple way to do random level generation for this game as well... awesome.

<edit> one of the biggest stepping stones is figuring out how to modularize things in "the loop", etc. i had a class in college in which i made a pretty well functioning network multiplayer FPS, but a lot of the character and network and weapon classes were handled for us, we just connected the parts mostly. the biggest thing is how to handle multiple levels, i have no idea what the best way to do that is.

options i see is having one main loop and a level object and just a sort of procedural script type deal, or not having a loop for the overall game, and giving each level its own loop. i dunno, thinking is hard right now.

[Ryan8bit]

Richter, on May 22 2009, 02:52 PM, said:

The current project that I've been tinkering on for a few years here and there and want to complete is yet another RPG, this time oldschool-style (like Dragon Warrior) and in Flash/AS3.

ORLY?

I've been learning AS3 because it's a hell of a lot different than AS2 in several important ways. I'm actually working on three games right now, but they're all in limbo.

One is a mega man hybrid just for learning AS3. It was going well until my boss said I should do other things at work. Ha! I really don't have that much time to work on stuff at home.

Another is an adventure game (think King's Quest) that I've already programmed the basic interface for in AS2. This one I'm making with two other guys instead of alone... and you thought it was hard to just motivate yourself! We're still mostly in the concepting stage.

Another is just a simple point and click guessing game that is so basic. The programming is all done, so it's mostly down to the artwork, which is super tedious, and I'll probably never get around to it.

Actually, I have a huge list of games I want to make. I have it written on a sheet of paper next to my other creative endeavors like music and making videos. It's too bad I rarely complete anything on the list because of CHILD. Add onto that procrastination and I get pretty depressed just looking at the list.

[Ken Oh]

http://www.wesnoth.o...hp?f=15&t=21234

[Rize]

I did some DS homebrew programming once. It started when I randomly asked an almost total stranger on a message board if he wanted to make a game. Having a partner generally keeps you motivated. At least it does me. I wish I could have said the same of my partner. Actually, I think he started out in good shape, but it quickly became apparent that my coding skills far outclassed his and he lost interest (although pretended like he was still doing stuff long enough for me to get some serious work done for 3 or 4 months).

I started out making random test demos for graphics and touch screen detection. I eventually made a symbol detection system (you would draw a scribble, the code would parse it into lines and then examine the angle between each line segment to determine if you drew a valid symbol or not; it actually worked really well). We wanted to make a Castlevania style action-adventure where you controlled character movement with one hand and tapped and drew symbols with the other hand to attack and cast spells (I've since refined the idea to be even more playable). After the symbol editor, the most I ever managed was to get a single, non-animated sprite on screen with multiple scrolling backgrounds. However, some coding error occured that I was unable to track down. I was too inexperienced a coder for such a large project (and to do this day I've never written any sprite animation code... it can't be that hard but for some reason it scares me). I eventually gave up, joined a DS coding contest and made a little tetris-clone called FLUX which you can download here (don't know if it runs on emulators).

http://nintendo-ds.d...o.uk/flux.shtml

The version with music has 2 virt chiptunes and half of his dr. mario remix stuffed into the file as raw pcm playing on a single midi channel.

So yeah, I would recommend getting a partner, setting reasonable goals and watch as stuff gets done.

[Richter]

tibone, on May 22 2009, 01:12 PM, said:

I wish i could work on the sequel, but, quite honestly, i lack the skills to make decent graphics, so, i kinda gave up on the work.

That's the same problem I usually run into, but from here on out I'm ripping graphics and/or using free ones. Fuck making your own unless you're a kickass artist. It's slow and looks bad in the end, at least for me.

Josiah Tobin, on May 22 2009, 04:09 PM, said:

Oh, and of course I did all the pixel art and music/sound for the recent iPhone strategy game Castle Conflict.

I play it often, it's fun!

Ryan8bit, on May 26 2009, 10:22 AM, said:

I've been learning AS3 because it's a hell of a lot different than AS2 in several important ways.

AS3 is like Adobe's answer to everyone saying JavaScript is shitty. It has classical inheritance, even better OO handling and strong typing if you WANT. I fucking love it.

Ken Oh, on May 26 2009, 10:41 AM, said:

http://www.wesnoth.o...hp?f=15&t=21234

Wow screenshots speak 2984723 words. That looks awesome!

XMark: I want to try our your shiz but I gotta find a PC first
Rize: that looks cool too. I've been meaning to set my DS up to play homebrew games.

The recurring theme is lack of motivation! Let's DO ITTTTWTT

[Josiah Tobin]

Richter, on May 26 2009, 02:15 PM, said:

tibone, on May 22 2009, 01:12 PM, said:

I wish i could work on the sequel, but, quite honestly, i lack the skills to make decent graphics, so, i kinda gave up on the work.

That's the same problem I usually run into, but from here on out I'm ripping graphics and/or using free ones. Fuck making your own unless you're a kickass artist. It's slow and looks bad in the end, at least for me.

As both a longtime pixel artist and fan of independent games, I can say that I almost always prefer ameture (I ask you, Firefox, how is that a typo?) looking original graphics over visuals ripped from other sources or public resources. Even if it's pretty clearly 'programmer art' as many call it, it represents much more personal investment in the project than ripped graphics-- at least to me. Plus, technical skill with a grid of pixels isn't everything-- I've seen some pretty damn stylish visuals that don't really have any particular awe-inducing pixel-pushing behind them. It's all about how you use the skills you do have.

Just something to think about.

~Josiah

[Emptyeye]

I've been working on learning some Visual Basic stuff, hopefully to be useful at work, but I'd like to do some non-work stuff with it too. Hopefully, I'll eventually make what would essentially be a glorified old-school dungeon crawler (Think early Wizardry and/or Ultima games). Still in the concept stages though.