I actually only purchased the games that I didn't own physically because they were never given an Euro release, or from consoles I didn't own, like the original Splatterhouse.
Buying a game twice...not happening, they already got full profit (and European prices at that!) from my purchase.
Well, yes, I actually do different builds for and in my target platforms. It's an extremely brute and simple approach but never had a complaint from users. For the rest I provide the sources and detailed install instructions (download this, open this, type this, done) and a dummy build script in bash for those without autotools, and a more precise script for those with debian systems (fetches and builds everything).
Heh, well, I always thought of "sales" as "players" instead. I never intended to sell any of my (game) work, just hoping that people picks it up and enjoys it.
*old man voice* Come son, listen to my story. (Skip to last paragraph if you don't care:P)
Actually the promise came because someone, years ago, was concerned about starting a game because of costs in software and hardware. Writing my first game was painful but proved that it was possible, took a few months to get the engine rolling (C89 + GL + SDL + Lua) and then 24 hours to do the content using GIMP and Lua scripting (included 56 frames of animation for the player character and several animated tilesets, enemies and effects. GIMP is surprisingly good for sprite art!)
After that I tried to improve the engine but made bad design choices and the whole thing collapsed and the community dissolved shortly after. Real life kept me away from it for some years and I did plenty of code for a bunch of FOSS games (mostly roguelikes) and desktop software in the meantime. And at the start of this year my skills were good enough to give it another try, which I started after my hands healed from some sort of bone disease I still don't know anything about. This was on August the first, of this year, to be exact.
So yeah, I moved to C99, started to liberally use GL extensions and GLSL, learned a lot of theory about data structures to make better dungeon generation and data storage stuff...and right now I am with most of the IO (video, audio, mouse/pad input) complete, just needing to add entity logic and content, content, content.
I keep using GIMP for sprite/animation works, and Geany and GCC (DevCPP for win32) for building, Milkytracker for music, Zim to organize docs and planning, gdb and valgrind for debugging, Audacity (+microphone and a lot of luck finding sound from nearby objects) and Milkytracker's "draw sample" function for sound effects...And wikipedia, somehow, is an amazing resource for algorithms and theory.
That's pretty much my story as coder. Perhaps what makes me sad is the realisation that I probably came too late into the game (no pun intended). And that kind of thing is bothersome at the very start of a big project. I guess can always try console homebrew for those that use C-like languages. I'd like to try HTML5/JS games someday, but I need the speed of native code to pull out my favorite visual effects and insane item systems. Perhaps I can try a virtual machine with Android when I am done with this game. What languages are available? I don't think the C+Lua+SDL+GL combo is going to work there...or will it?
(By the way the friend I made the promise for was indeed motivated, which is a good thing! The more we are making games, the better!)
You got a good point, and fortunately learning how to do those in C gives you enough understanding to do them in...Lua, for example. Or Ruby to stay on-topic.
Actually I develop cross-platform FOSS games, not really stuck with Windows apps you know;) That I code games doesn't mean I don't take it seriously, despite (as pointed in other post) not being as passionate about it as other people here.
To be honest, I find portable devices to be expensive and not powerful at all. In my lunch break, with my cheap netbook, I can do everything I can do at home (2D work, 3D work, coding, tracker music, compiling, debugging, etc). It's the only way to develop a game while having an unrelated full-day work, IMO.
I don't feel phones and tablets went that far from the PDA except by being gifted with a modern web browser. With a mobile device, I'd only be able to watch videos and use online stuff like twitter or web browsing/mail/webapps.
You can argue that compiling and drawing is not the task for a phone...well, why not? They got everything else by now!
Note that I would like to be proven wrong. That'd give me some hope actually.
I am not really a professional coder. I don't even work in computer-science related jobs. I just spent my limited brain power into somewhat successfully learning a portable language like C with GL and such. Because of that, I am not as passionate about coding as many users in Slashdot. For me it's a means to an end (game dev), and a pretty painful one at that.
Without time and resources ($$$) to buy books it was a pretty slow and painful experience (specially because asking for coding stuff usually has 2/3 persons telling you to buy a book), having to learn from short (and at times misleading!) snippets on the internet or theoretical papers that at times barely relate to what you want to actually do.
I only managed to finally master C like one or two years ago.
Thus, I honestly don't know if I am capable of moving over at this point. Maybe if I knew any other programmer in the flesh I'd be able to relit my fire, but I am the only code literate person that I know of.
(Besides, developing for those devices requires buying one of said device, and in one case I know of, the SDK isn't free. I can't stress the lack of $$ for this enough. I also happened to promise all my games would cost as much as it took to develop them, which is $0.0 until I am either dead or starving to death)
In that case, I don't think they'd "ask" or "want" you to erase anything. Best case scenario, it's taken away from you. Worst case scenario, you never see it again. (bonus points for getting physically assaulted)
Hell yeah! Lua is an extremely capable embedded language, quite fast and easy to code for, while being flexible. It's also open, and there's plenty of documentation lying around.
My second choice would be Python, but I'd love to live in a world where a lot more things can be done through Lua.
I am part of that "1/3", European. Based on my entire life experience, and specially the current, I can assert that you are a liar. Let me know when the only thing you can fill your stomach with is charity food. I grew that way, and I am pretty confident I didn't imagine it.
If it can happen to me it can happen to anyone. No matter what statistics say about "rich".
This is a classic scifi scenario, just entirely reversed. Let's send our "alien" meteorites to crash on other planets and spread our biological monsters! Now let's hope European(*) Bruce Willis doesn't try to nuke it before it arrives.
(*) I am obviously talking of the on-topic Europa, but the idea of Bruce Willis with stereotypical French attire kind of makes me giggle. You know the beret and stripped shirt and baguette thing (no offence intended to real Frenchmen. Salut!)
I am a game creator. Tried android, found it mostly useless, didn't try iOS but I am a C89-C99 guy, don't want to learn O-C, and I doubt it'll be that much better. So from my perspective of things, where "using my device to work" translates to game creation stuff:
Drawing in a tablet - Fingers won't cut when you are trying to sketch something on the go. Not suitable for pixel art. Definitely not something I'd change my wacom tablet for.
Typing in a tablet - Definitely possible but much slower and clumsier than using a keyboard.
Coding in a tablet - See above. Add GL ES which is a downgrade compared to the desktop GL. Is there any port of GCC for such devices? Lua will probably be fine for this though.
Designing in a tablet - If there is any sort of composition tool, something like Blender or a feature-complete image editor (copy-paste-drag-drop-layers-etc), storyboards and such might be possible, which would be a legitimate use for them. Diagrams and other "minimal office" tools would come in handy.
Music in a tablet - I assume there are trackers, at least, coded for tablets. I didn't try any but I remember reading about them...so this is a pretty valid used I guess, unless I am wrong about what I read.
Debugging in a tablet - I seriously doubt you will be able to take your C+SDL+GL (with proper extensions)+Lua code from your PC to your tablet and be even able to run it. This is a very valid purpose for a device if I want to code while commuting or generally while losing time waiting for stuff.
Note that I have an EEEPC701, the "original netbook" and it DOES support all of the above. Tablets are a toy unless they are up to par with my (considerably cheaper at launch time) EEE. I don't care if it's the free and open Android or the closed but popular iOS. I want work done on the go, tablets aren't fit. They still are pretty much a glorified PDA. And, yes, there is a minimal need to do that on the go. It's a good way to have commutes not be a complete waste of time.
The problem is that your fingers obstruct your vision, so touching is not that useful to me. The day one table can handle pen input the same way as my wacom tablet does, we'll talk. The moment I can drag and drop small numbers in an editor or spreadsheet without losing visibility because of my fingers, or needing a massive cell space for each number, we'll talk. The moment I can play a "touch" game without the freaking finger getting in the way, we'll definitely talk. Alternatively, when our fingers are totally transparent we'll talk.
...no, you are not too old. Unless your brain is malfunctioning due to age, you should be as able as when you were a kid. It just requires more patience, from what I noticed.
I recommend you pick C# over Java. (I am a Linux user, and yes, I find annoying I can't use WINE to run those, but that's not the point). C# is less portable but is faster. Java is slower, but portable. (And both have a lot of code references). Also seems there are concerns about Java's future (which I happen to see more realistic than the C# FUD about it being replaced with HTML5+JS, fat chance), which makes me, personally, wary of it.
Basically, if you don't care about annoying Linux users, go with C#. If you are using less common OSs and speed is not a concern, go with Java.
Also just for fun I'd learn Lua or Python. Lua is extremely easy to learn, and a seasoned programmer would master it in seconds. Python is just useful to know IMO.
Although since you list C skills, I'd personally stick to C until the very end. Super fast, super portable, time-proven and still in use (can be a pain to code but I find it way worth it).
It limits your choices when designing, it limits your choices when interacting, and the outcome is too familiar to surprise. Sure, a little amount of realism is desirable. Such as if you shoot stuff, it dies. Or if you run out of bullets, you need more.
There is also a movement of players of "games where the author is not some corporate drone thus you can talk to him/her" who is extremely vocal about realism and attempt to pressure the author of a fantastic game to nerf it into realism. I wish those guys were to shut the hell up and take a lesson or two in game design or usability. (Yes, games also need that)
I solved this situation by installing both Emacs and Vim. Suddenly the wars ended.
(although jokes aside, I actually have "conflicting" apps installed, although I am a KDE user I have Unity around for just playing around and stuff like that. Same with Vim/Emacs. I don't care about install space (NOTE: ANYONE WHO COMPLAINS ABOUT THE BIiiiiIG SPACE REQUIREMENT OF QT/GTK/WHATEVER LIBRARIES CAN GO *censored*. It's less space than downloading a movie (even a legal one)), and at times it's fun to change around)
Slashdot Mirror
I was being redundant on purpose, to get the point across you know, but you are absolutely spot on there.
Technically yes, I think. But I am no lawyer. It *should* be.
What can I say other than...good point.
I also realise how stupidly easy it would be to bring Earthbound to Europe as well, but we know how this crap works.
I actually only purchased the games that I didn't own physically because they were never given an Euro release, or from consoles I didn't own, like the original Splatterhouse.
Buying a game twice...not happening, they already got full profit (and European prices at that!) from my purchase.
That's the whole idea behind them, selling you ROMs and a license to use them.
Well, yes, I actually do different builds for and in my target platforms. It's an extremely brute and simple approach but never had a complaint from users.
For the rest I provide the sources and detailed install instructions (download this, open this, type this, done) and a dummy build script in bash for those without autotools, and a more precise script for those with debian systems (fetches and builds everything).
Heh, well, I always thought of "sales" as "players" instead. I never intended to sell any of my (game) work, just hoping that people picks it up and enjoys it.
*old man voice* Come son, listen to my story. (Skip to last paragraph if you don't care :P)
Actually the promise came because someone, years ago, was concerned about starting a game because of costs in software and hardware. Writing my first game was painful but proved that it was possible, took a few months to get the engine rolling (C89 + GL + SDL + Lua) and then 24 hours to do the content using GIMP and Lua scripting (included 56 frames of animation for the player character and several animated tilesets, enemies and effects. GIMP is surprisingly good for sprite art!)
After that I tried to improve the engine but made bad design choices and the whole thing collapsed and the community dissolved shortly after. Real life kept me away from it for some years and I did plenty of code for a bunch of FOSS games (mostly roguelikes) and desktop software in the meantime. And at the start of this year my skills were good enough to give it another try, which I started after my hands healed from some sort of bone disease I still don't know anything about. This was on August the first, of this year, to be exact.
So yeah, I moved to C99, started to liberally use GL extensions and GLSL, learned a lot of theory about data structures to make better dungeon generation and data storage stuff...and right now I am with most of the IO (video, audio, mouse/pad input) complete, just needing to add entity logic and content, content, content.
I keep using GIMP for sprite/animation works, and Geany and GCC (DevCPP for win32) for building, Milkytracker for music, Zim to organize docs and planning, gdb and valgrind for debugging, Audacity (+microphone and a lot of luck finding sound from nearby objects) and Milkytracker's "draw sample" function for sound effects...And wikipedia, somehow, is an amazing resource for algorithms and theory.
That's pretty much my story as coder. Perhaps what makes me sad is the realisation that I probably came too late into the game (no pun intended). And that kind of thing is bothersome at the very start of a big project.
I guess can always try console homebrew for those that use C-like languages. I'd like to try HTML5/JS games someday, but I need the speed of native code to pull out my favorite visual effects and insane item systems.
Perhaps I can try a virtual machine with Android when I am done with this game. What languages are available? I don't think the C+Lua+SDL+GL combo is going to work there...or will it?
(By the way the friend I made the promise for was indeed motivated, which is a good thing! The more we are making games, the better!)
You got a good point, and fortunately learning how to do those in C gives you enough understanding to do them in...Lua, for example. Or Ruby to stay on-topic.
Actually I develop cross-platform FOSS games, not really stuck with Windows apps you know ;)
That I code games doesn't mean I don't take it seriously, despite (as pointed in other post) not being as passionate about it as other people here.
To be honest, I find portable devices to be expensive and not powerful at all.
In my lunch break, with my cheap netbook, I can do everything I can do at home (2D work, 3D work, coding, tracker music, compiling, debugging, etc). It's the only way to develop a game while having an unrelated full-day work, IMO.
I don't feel phones and tablets went that far from the PDA except by being gifted with a modern web browser.
With a mobile device, I'd only be able to watch videos and use online stuff like twitter or web browsing/mail/webapps.
You can argue that compiling and drawing is not the task for a phone...well, why not? They got everything else by now!
Note that I would like to be proven wrong. That'd give me some hope actually.
I am not really a professional coder. I don't even work in computer-science related jobs. I just spent my limited brain power into somewhat successfully learning a portable language like C with GL and such.
Because of that, I am not as passionate about coding as many users in Slashdot. For me it's a means to an end (game dev), and a pretty painful one at that.
Without time and resources ($$$) to buy books it was a pretty slow and painful experience (specially because asking for coding stuff usually has 2/3 persons telling you to buy a book), having to learn from short (and at times misleading!) snippets on the internet or theoretical papers that at times barely relate to what you want to actually do.
I only managed to finally master C like one or two years ago.
Thus, I honestly don't know if I am capable of moving over at this point.
Maybe if I knew any other programmer in the flesh I'd be able to relit my fire, but I am the only code literate person that I know of.
(Besides, developing for those devices requires buying one of said device, and in one case I know of, the SDK isn't free. I can't stress the lack of $$ for this enough. I also happened to promise all my games would cost as much as it took to develop them, which is $0.0 until I am either dead or starving to death)
...but this statement:
> Of course, mobile computing is the way to go
It kind of depresses me for some reason. I am not being ironic, I am serious. I don't know why that makes me feel down.
I feel like all the training I did to be able to code games** in a PC is going to be obsolete before I know it.
**or any other desktop coding
>However, the source code can be compiled with the Express editions of Visual Studio.
From the article, thought I'd clarify that for you. No need to thank me.
In that case, I don't think they'd "ask" or "want" you to erase anything. Best case scenario, it's taken away from you. Worst case scenario, you never see it again. (bonus points for getting physically assaulted)
Oh, pretty birdies~
Hell yeah! Lua is an extremely capable embedded language, quite fast and easy to code for, while being flexible. It's also open, and there's plenty of documentation lying around.
My second choice would be Python, but I'd love to live in a world where a lot more things can be done through Lua.
I am part of that "1/3", European.
Based on my entire life experience, and specially the current, I can assert that you are a liar.
Let me know when the only thing you can fill your stomach with is charity food. I grew that way, and I am pretty confident I didn't imagine it.
If it can happen to me it can happen to anyone. No matter what statistics say about "rich".
This is a classic scifi scenario, just entirely reversed.
Let's send our "alien" meteorites to crash on other planets and spread our biological monsters!
Now let's hope European(*) Bruce Willis doesn't try to nuke it before it arrives.
(*) I am obviously talking of the on-topic Europa, but the idea of Bruce Willis with stereotypical French attire kind of makes me giggle. You know the beret and stripped shirt and baguette thing (no offence intended to real Frenchmen. Salut!)
The Doctor in his TARDIS will come save us all. It's not the first time it happens. Everybody lives!!1one
I am a game creator. Tried android, found it mostly useless, didn't try iOS but I am a C89-C99 guy, don't want to learn O-C, and I doubt it'll be that much better.
So from my perspective of things, where "using my device to work" translates to game creation stuff:
Drawing in a tablet - Fingers won't cut when you are trying to sketch something on the go. Not suitable for pixel art. Definitely not something I'd change my wacom tablet for.
Typing in a tablet - Definitely possible but much slower and clumsier than using a keyboard.
Coding in a tablet - See above. Add GL ES which is a downgrade compared to the desktop GL. Is there any port of GCC for such devices? Lua will probably be fine for this though.
Designing in a tablet - If there is any sort of composition tool, something like Blender or a feature-complete image editor (copy-paste-drag-drop-layers-etc), storyboards and such might be possible, which would be a legitimate use for them. Diagrams and other "minimal office" tools would come in handy.
Music in a tablet - I assume there are trackers, at least, coded for tablets. I didn't try any but I remember reading about them...so this is a pretty valid used I guess, unless I am wrong about what I read.
Debugging in a tablet - I seriously doubt you will be able to take your C+SDL+GL (with proper extensions)+Lua code from your PC to your tablet and be even able to run it. This is a very valid purpose for a device if I want to code while commuting or generally while losing time waiting for stuff.
Note that I have an EEEPC701, the "original netbook" and it DOES support all of the above. Tablets are a toy unless they are up to par with my (considerably cheaper at launch time) EEE. I don't care if it's the free and open Android or the closed but popular iOS. I want work done on the go, tablets aren't fit. They still are pretty much a glorified PDA.
And, yes, there is a minimal need to do that on the go. It's a good way to have commutes not be a complete waste of time.
The problem is that your fingers obstruct your vision, so touching is not that useful to me. The day one table can handle pen input the same way as my wacom tablet does, we'll talk. The moment I can drag and drop small numbers in an editor or spreadsheet without losing visibility because of my fingers, or needing a massive cell space for each number, we'll talk.
The moment I can play a "touch" game without the freaking finger getting in the way, we'll definitely talk.
Alternatively, when our fingers are totally transparent we'll talk.
Wow, that's so meta. How many beowulf clusters will be needed for that?
...no, you are not too old. Unless your brain is malfunctioning due to age, you should be as able as when you were a kid. It just requires more patience, from what I noticed.
I recommend you pick C# over Java. (I am a Linux user, and yes, I find annoying I can't use WINE to run those, but that's not the point). C# is less portable but is faster. Java is slower, but portable. (And both have a lot of code references).
Also seems there are concerns about Java's future (which I happen to see more realistic than the C# FUD about it being replaced with HTML5+JS, fat chance), which makes me, personally, wary of it.
Basically, if you don't care about annoying Linux users, go with C#. If you are using less common OSs and speed is not a concern, go with Java.
Also just for fun I'd learn Lua or Python. Lua is extremely easy to learn, and a seasoned programmer would master it in seconds. Python is just useful to know IMO.
Although since you list C skills, I'd personally stick to C until the very end. Super fast, super portable, time-proven and still in use (can be a pain to code but I find it way worth it).
You myopic, apologetic fool.
People like you are the cause such DRM schemes go forward, you disgust me.
It limits your choices when designing, it limits your choices when interacting, and the outcome is too familiar to surprise.
Sure, a little amount of realism is desirable. Such as if you shoot stuff, it dies. Or if you run out of bullets, you need more.
There is also a movement of players of "games where the author is not some corporate drone thus you can talk to him/her" who is extremely vocal about realism and attempt to pressure the author of a fantastic game to nerf it into realism. I wish those guys were to shut the hell up and take a lesson or two in game design or usability. (Yes, games also need that)
I solved this situation by installing both Emacs and Vim. Suddenly the wars ended.
(although jokes aside, I actually have "conflicting" apps installed, although I am a KDE user I have Unity around for just playing around and stuff like that. Same with Vim/Emacs. I don't care about install space (NOTE: ANYONE WHO COMPLAINS ABOUT THE BIiiiiIG SPACE REQUIREMENT OF QT/GTK/WHATEVER LIBRARIES CAN GO *censored*. It's less space than downloading a movie (even a legal one)), and at times it's fun to change around)