Just want to point out that every popcap game is in 2D. Every board game is essentially in 2D. Your options are not limited to a TDS or RTS. If I branch out to mobile games after I'm done my SC2 project, I have a puzzle/arcade style game that I would make. I chose the genre because it lets you fit in some simple fun and it seems WAY more manageable than a game with a campaign, or god forbid, multiplayer content.
I think that your approach of not worrying about the technical side, or how you'll be able to make it, is not a good solution. You should first figure out workable parameters and establish reasonable limitations, and then work within it. If you don't want to starve to death, I would say you should expect to make $20k per year by selling your game, but even then you will just barely get by. Assuming a full time workload on this project, what type of game could you make within a year that would earn you $20k? If you're really bright I think you could make at least one great game in a year, as long as you have a manageable project.
Edit: One more note, don't shortchange yourself on a corporate job. They often suck, and are less satisfying, but you'll be able to eat well and save for the future. Right after college I got a simple programming job for $55k, and then my free time became consumed with map development to satisfy my creative desires without any expectations of profitability.
You could make an MMO TPS/FPS in which you would control a space ship. The idea is to enter a battle via a matchmaker and gain exp to equip your ship with more powerful weapons etc, train your crew and eventually get a higher level ship. To make it more popular you could use well known ships from Star Trek or Star Wars universe.
I was planning to make it a SC2 mod but then I realized I lack the skills needed and the SC2 engine ain't that good for it
Sorry, don't want to derail zelda's thread, but I am confused. You infer that making a game in Java is a bad idea to begin with, but then you say that making your own engine will give you more flexibility. So are you saying that yes, programming your own engine is good, but doing it in Java is bad? Because I do intend on learning C+ + over the next 2 years, and then in college I would work on that some more. I just want to be making the best out of what I am learning. So basically, making a video game, making $1k max (probably more like $100), while learning all the basics of programming.
But yeah, because I feel bad making a totally off topic comment, I will respond to zelda's first post. I would recommend going for something that is fun for everyone. I'm not going to lead you down the same path I went down, because then you would be arriving at the same game I am making, but the idea is something like Farmville. Everyone can play Farmville, whether you are a girl, boy, 10, 8, 102, 73, 41, 23, you get the idea. Plus Facebook, that made the game super successful. But, there was something else. It was a competition. You want to beat your friends. What better way of getting ahead than to legally cheat? So they added in the stuff you can buy for like $1. That is a lot of money right there. So basically, I would go with something that is free, but requires you to buy stuff to REALLY get into the game. Make it fully playable though, not like a free trial.
Ya so that is my input. I wouldn't trust it though, as I don't really know what I am talking about :D
Sorry, don't want to derail zelda's thread, but I am confused. You infer that making a game in Java is a bad idea to begin with, but then you say that making your own engine will give you more flexibility. So are you saying that yes, programming your own engine is good, but doing it in Java is bad? Because I do intend on learning C+ + over the next 2 years, and then in college I would work on that some more. I just want to be making the best out of what I am learning. So basically, making a video game, making $1k max (probably more like $100), while learning all the basics of programming.
But yeah, because I feel bad making a totally off topic comment, I will respond to zelda's first post. I would recommend going for something that is fun for everyone. I'm not going to lead you down the same path I went down, because then you would be arriving at the same game I am making, but the idea is something like Farmville. Everyone can play Farmville, whether you are a girl, boy, 10, 8, 102, 73, 41, 23, you get the idea. Plus Facebook, that made the game super successful. But, there was something else. It was a competition. You want to beat your friends. What better way of getting ahead than to legally cheat? So they added in the stuff you can buy for like $1. That is a lot of money right there. So basically, I would go with something that is free, but requires you to buy stuff to REALLY get into the game. Make it fully playable though, not like a free trial.
Ya so that is my input. I wouldn't trust it though, as I don't really know what I am talking about :D
----
Yes, you got it. You certainly CAN make it in Java; however for any heavy application it's not advisable. Java is very slow. It's perfectly fine for slower things (like games that take up very little power, or basic applications). I don't use it at all; personally I can't stand the language, but other people seem to like it (I like Python, but only really use that for prototyping work). I believe there's an engine someone is writing using Java (Cafu, maybe, can't remember the name, but I think that's it), but you will rarely see Java used in serious game development because of the speed issues, because of the way it runs (using a virtual machine, instead of compiling to machine code). You could probably pump out programs a lot faster using it, but in games speed is essential and can become very noticeable very quickly. In the event that they had designed it to compile to machine code, Java would probably have overtaken C++ by now, but for some reason they made the decision not to. I would advice using C++ or C# for an engine or 3D game; if it's slow paced or 2D or something (like Angry Birds, or browser based games), Java will be perfectly fine probably. You could even use C if you wanted to, but that would be some fairly weird programming (look at the older id Tech engines, up to 3 I think are all in C).
For Zelda, you could do something like Defcon. It was extremely popular for a while, but make it somewhat more advanced. I was going to do it a while ago, but never really got around to it and now I'm too busy with my projects to do it anytime soon. I was going to use OSM data for major roadways, get population densities for the major cities, etc.
I've actually been looking around, and have found that Java is actually no longer as slow as it used to be. I don't understand it, but apparently they added something that DOES compile to assembly, and now Java is comparable to C+ + (as long as you have the compiler thing installed, which I think comes with the standard JRE now) in speed and effectiveness. But it is still just comparable. From what I understand, C is still the fastest, C+ + trailing close behind (if you use the OO part of it), with Java actually closing in on C+ +.
That is just what I have been reading, I have no idea if any of it is true. About 50% of what I read says Java is slow, and the other 50% says that Java has added something so that the speed issue no longer applies (as much). Once again, not sure which part is true.
I've actually been looking around, and have found that Java is actually no longer as slow as it used to be. I don't understand it, but apparently they added something that DOES compile to assembly, and now Java is comparable to C+ + (as long as you have the compiler thing installed, which I think comes with the standard JRE now) in speed and effectiveness. But it is still just comparable. From what I understand, C is still the fastest, C+ + trailing close behind (if you use the OO part of it), with Java actually closing in on C+ +.
That is just what I have been reading, I have no idea if any of it is true. About 50% of what I read says Java is slow, and the other 50% says that Java has added something so that the speed issue no longer applies (as much). Once again, not sure which part is true.
----
If they did that may help, but as I said, I don't use Java so couldn't care less. Beyond it being slow I hate the syntax and the API is horrible, and no operator overloading, it requires overly complicated constructs for otherwise simple things as I recall (only ever used it in high school for a class and once in college in some general programming class I had to take. It was like an overview of the languages we could take courses in, like they do for foreign language. So I have fairly minimal interaction with it, other than what people tell me and the basic I know about it). It's somewhat popular now likely because before C# and whatnot, your options for high-level languages were fairly limited and most were even worse than Java. I don't mean to totally flame the language (well I do, but I mean I don't care if you like it or want to use it or whatever), but I would advise against using it and nothing else.
And C is faster than C++, but marginally, and I think almost irrelevantly; I forget why, but there is a reason. I'll look into it sometime to be sure, but I think it might have something to do with how small the language actually is. That's why it's typically used for Operating Systems (and because you obviously need to compile the language to machine code, and a compiler for C is far easier to do than a compiler for C++). In theory you could use any language nowadays for an OS (I've been thinking about writing one after I finish with my engine, as I want to eventually get into the OS and console war if the company ever gets that far. I'm aiming for East India Company status personally, although now that police forces are a common thing I think it's unlikely I'll be allowed to have my own army), as long as you can get it into machine code. Technically even Java could if you could make the Virtual Machine compile the language; maybe even just have the VM in machine code, and then just run the OS on top of that. I don't know if anyone has ever written not in C though (except Unix, which was written in machine code originally).
Well I will just repeat what I have been told 1000 times. C is good for pretty much everything non-game. C+ + is good for all high end games, and counsol (how in the hell do you spell counsol? counsel doesn't look right either...) games, and then Java is good for pretty much everything that is an application. Java isn't meant to run by itself, as far as I can tell. 2D or low quality 3D graphics, windowed (or applets in websites) games, or pretty much anything that needs to be portable. I think that is why Java is the most popular "language" for making iPhone games, forgetting all of the engines already made of course. Not sure what those are coded in.
But yeah, Java is easy, Java IS fast, and Java is very portable. As far as I can tell, the only problem with Java is memory issues, and that doesn't make a difference in most cases.
It all depends on the task is I guess the point. You wouldn't code a game in raw PHP (I don't think? Maybe you would), but try writing a full website in Java.
Oh and the Java API has worked pretty well for most people, including me. As for other languages, I admit I don't have much experience, but Java is most definitely not the useless language you claim it to be. Oh and if you were talking about de-constructors, there shouldn't be a need for them with the garbage collection. And the syntax is literally almost the exact same as C+ +. As fare as I can tell, C+ + uses more colons and that is about the only syntactic difference.
Varine seems like he's trying to push his idea that java is bad just on the terms that he doesn't like it. The rest of the programming world seems completely fine with it so much to the point apps are being made with it. The games you're talking about taco probably aren't 3D games. Most likely games like angry birds and what not.
Quote from Keyeszx:
Varine seems like he's trying to push his idea that java is bad just on the terms that he doesn't like it. The rest of the programming world seems completely fine with it so much to the point apps are being made with it. The games you're talking about taco probably aren't 3D games. Most likely games like angry birds and what not.
----
No, they're not okay with it; there are plenty of other people who dislike it just as much as I do, to the point that there are websites and pages dedicated to talking about how much Java sucks. Apps are made with a large variety of languages, Java just happens to thrown in there and is likely popular as you can write them faster than with other languages, and because there are mass amounts of people with little programming knowledge and an idea they want to do, so they pick Java because it's apparently relatively easy to learn. And I don't claim it to be useless, I claim it to be stupid. I'm pushing anything on you, as I said I couldn't care less if you use or not, but I remain firm that it is not a good choice for game development, and it should not be the dependent language that you program in. And no, operator overloading and destructors are no the same thing. And the syntax is not the same. For instance, in Java, functions need to be a part of a class, in CPP they don't.
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Curse Premium@Varine: Go
Game Maker can do quite a lot online with 39dll. There have been 2D mmorpg's made with it.
Just want to point out that every popcap game is in 2D. Every board game is essentially in 2D. Your options are not limited to a TDS or RTS. If I branch out to mobile games after I'm done my SC2 project, I have a puzzle/arcade style game that I would make. I chose the genre because it lets you fit in some simple fun and it seems WAY more manageable than a game with a campaign, or god forbid, multiplayer content.
I think that your approach of not worrying about the technical side, or how you'll be able to make it, is not a good solution. You should first figure out workable parameters and establish reasonable limitations, and then work within it. If you don't want to starve to death, I would say you should expect to make $20k per year by selling your game, but even then you will just barely get by. Assuming a full time workload on this project, what type of game could you make within a year that would earn you $20k? If you're really bright I think you could make at least one great game in a year, as long as you have a manageable project.
Edit: One more note, don't shortchange yourself on a corporate job. They often suck, and are less satisfying, but you'll be able to eat well and save for the future. Right after college I got a simple programming job for $55k, and then my free time became consumed with map development to satisfy my creative desires without any expectations of profitability.
You could make an MMO TPS/FPS in which you would control a space ship. The idea is to enter a battle via a matchmaker and gain exp to equip your ship with more powerful weapons etc, train your crew and eventually get a higher level ship. To make it more popular you could use well known ships from Star Trek or Star Wars universe.
I was planning to make it a SC2 mod but then I realized I lack the skills needed and the SC2 engine ain't that good for it
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Good point. Will take a look at some of their games. Although I had another idea very similar to plants v zombies.
Right. Except that I cannot get a job while I'm in school. But I can make an amazing game :D
@Varine: Go
Sorry, don't want to derail zelda's thread, but I am confused. You infer that making a game in Java is a bad idea to begin with, but then you say that making your own engine will give you more flexibility. So are you saying that yes, programming your own engine is good, but doing it in Java is bad? Because I do intend on learning C+ + over the next 2 years, and then in college I would work on that some more. I just want to be making the best out of what I am learning. So basically, making a video game, making $1k max (probably more like $100), while learning all the basics of programming.
But yeah, because I feel bad making a totally off topic comment, I will respond to zelda's first post. I would recommend going for something that is fun for everyone. I'm not going to lead you down the same path I went down, because then you would be arriving at the same game I am making, but the idea is something like Farmville. Everyone can play Farmville, whether you are a girl, boy, 10, 8, 102, 73, 41, 23, you get the idea. Plus Facebook, that made the game super successful. But, there was something else. It was a competition. You want to beat your friends. What better way of getting ahead than to legally cheat? So they added in the stuff you can buy for like $1. That is a lot of money right there. So basically, I would go with something that is free, but requires you to buy stuff to REALLY get into the game. Make it fully playable though, not like a free trial.
Ya so that is my input. I wouldn't trust it though, as I don't really know what I am talking about :D
Great to be back and part of the community again!
I'd play that game if it was well-made and looked good. :)
Quote from TacoManStan:
@Varine: Go
Sorry, don't want to derail zelda's thread, but I am confused. You infer that making a game in Java is a bad idea to begin with, but then you say that making your own engine will give you more flexibility. So are you saying that yes, programming your own engine is good, but doing it in Java is bad? Because I do intend on learning C+ + over the next 2 years, and then in college I would work on that some more. I just want to be making the best out of what I am learning. So basically, making a video game, making $1k max (probably more like $100), while learning all the basics of programming.
But yeah, because I feel bad making a totally off topic comment, I will respond to zelda's first post. I would recommend going for something that is fun for everyone. I'm not going to lead you down the same path I went down, because then you would be arriving at the same game I am making, but the idea is something like Farmville. Everyone can play Farmville, whether you are a girl, boy, 10, 8, 102, 73, 41, 23, you get the idea. Plus Facebook, that made the game super successful. But, there was something else. It was a competition. You want to beat your friends. What better way of getting ahead than to legally cheat? So they added in the stuff you can buy for like $1. That is a lot of money right there. So basically, I would go with something that is free, but requires you to buy stuff to REALLY get into the game. Make it fully playable though, not like a free trial.
Ya so that is my input. I wouldn't trust it though, as I don't really know what I am talking about :D
----
Yes, you got it. You certainly CAN make it in Java; however for any heavy application it's not advisable. Java is very slow. It's perfectly fine for slower things (like games that take up very little power, or basic applications). I don't use it at all; personally I can't stand the language, but other people seem to like it (I like Python, but only really use that for prototyping work). I believe there's an engine someone is writing using Java (Cafu, maybe, can't remember the name, but I think that's it), but you will rarely see Java used in serious game development because of the speed issues, because of the way it runs (using a virtual machine, instead of compiling to machine code). You could probably pump out programs a lot faster using it, but in games speed is essential and can become very noticeable very quickly. In the event that they had designed it to compile to machine code, Java would probably have overtaken C++ by now, but for some reason they made the decision not to. I would advice using C++ or C# for an engine or 3D game; if it's slow paced or 2D or something (like Angry Birds, or browser based games), Java will be perfectly fine probably. You could even use C if you wanted to, but that would be some fairly weird programming (look at the older id Tech engines, up to 3 I think are all in C).
For Zelda, you could do something like Defcon. It was extremely popular for a while, but make it somewhat more advanced. I was going to do it a while ago, but never really got around to it and now I'm too busy with my projects to do it anytime soon. I was going to use OSM data for major roadways, get population densities for the major cities, etc.
@Varine: Go
I've actually been looking around, and have found that Java is actually no longer as slow as it used to be. I don't understand it, but apparently they added something that DOES compile to assembly, and now Java is comparable to C+ + (as long as you have the compiler thing installed, which I think comes with the standard JRE now) in speed and effectiveness. But it is still just comparable. From what I understand, C is still the fastest, C+ + trailing close behind (if you use the OO part of it), with Java actually closing in on C+ +.
That is just what I have been reading, I have no idea if any of it is true. About 50% of what I read says Java is slow, and the other 50% says that Java has added something so that the speed issue no longer applies (as much). Once again, not sure which part is true.
Great to be back and part of the community again!
Make a legend of zelda game in the spirit of zeldarules28
Quote from TacoManStan:
@Varine: Go
I've actually been looking around, and have found that Java is actually no longer as slow as it used to be. I don't understand it, but apparently they added something that DOES compile to assembly, and now Java is comparable to C+ + (as long as you have the compiler thing installed, which I think comes with the standard JRE now) in speed and effectiveness. But it is still just comparable. From what I understand, C is still the fastest, C+ + trailing close behind (if you use the OO part of it), with Java actually closing in on C+ +.
That is just what I have been reading, I have no idea if any of it is true. About 50% of what I read says Java is slow, and the other 50% says that Java has added something so that the speed issue no longer applies (as much). Once again, not sure which part is true.
----
If they did that may help, but as I said, I don't use Java so couldn't care less. Beyond it being slow I hate the syntax and the API is horrible, and no operator overloading, it requires overly complicated constructs for otherwise simple things as I recall (only ever used it in high school for a class and once in college in some general programming class I had to take. It was like an overview of the languages we could take courses in, like they do for foreign language. So I have fairly minimal interaction with it, other than what people tell me and the basic I know about it). It's somewhat popular now likely because before C# and whatnot, your options for high-level languages were fairly limited and most were even worse than Java. I don't mean to totally flame the language (well I do, but I mean I don't care if you like it or want to use it or whatever), but I would advise against using it and nothing else.
And C is faster than C++, but marginally, and I think almost irrelevantly; I forget why, but there is a reason. I'll look into it sometime to be sure, but I think it might have something to do with how small the language actually is. That's why it's typically used for Operating Systems (and because you obviously need to compile the language to machine code, and a compiler for C is far easier to do than a compiler for C++). In theory you could use any language nowadays for an OS (I've been thinking about writing one after I finish with my engine, as I want to eventually get into the OS and console war if the company ever gets that far. I'm aiming for East India Company status personally, although now that police forces are a common thing I think it's unlikely I'll be allowed to have my own army), as long as you can get it into machine code. Technically even Java could if you could make the Virtual Machine compile the language; maybe even just have the VM in machine code, and then just run the OS on top of that. I don't know if anyone has ever written not in C though (except Unix, which was written in machine code originally).
@Varine: Go
Well I will just repeat what I have been told 1000 times. C is good for pretty much everything non-game. C+ + is good for all high end games, and counsol (how in the hell do you spell counsol? counsel doesn't look right either...) games, and then Java is good for pretty much everything that is an application. Java isn't meant to run by itself, as far as I can tell. 2D or low quality 3D graphics, windowed (or applets in websites) games, or pretty much anything that needs to be portable. I think that is why Java is the most popular "language" for making iPhone games, forgetting all of the engines already made of course. Not sure what those are coded in.
But yeah, Java is easy, Java IS fast, and Java is very portable. As far as I can tell, the only problem with Java is memory issues, and that doesn't make a difference in most cases.
It all depends on the task is I guess the point. You wouldn't code a game in raw PHP (I don't think? Maybe you would), but try writing a full website in Java.
Oh and the Java API has worked pretty well for most people, including me. As for other languages, I admit I don't have much experience, but Java is most definitely not the useless language you claim it to be. Oh and if you were talking about de-constructors, there shouldn't be a need for them with the garbage collection. And the syntax is literally almost the exact same as C+ +. As fare as I can tell, C+ + uses more colons and that is about the only syntactic difference.
Great to be back and part of the community again!
Varine seems like he's trying to push his idea that java is bad just on the terms that he doesn't like it. The rest of the programming world seems completely fine with it so much to the point apps are being made with it. The games you're talking about taco probably aren't 3D games. Most likely games like angry birds and what not.
Quote from Keyeszx:
Varine seems like he's trying to push his idea that java is bad just on the terms that he doesn't like it. The rest of the programming world seems completely fine with it so much to the point apps are being made with it. The games you're talking about taco probably aren't 3D games. Most likely games like angry birds and what not.
----
No, they're not okay with it; there are plenty of other people who dislike it just as much as I do, to the point that there are websites and pages dedicated to talking about how much Java sucks. Apps are made with a large variety of languages, Java just happens to thrown in there and is likely popular as you can write them faster than with other languages, and because there are mass amounts of people with little programming knowledge and an idea they want to do, so they pick Java because it's apparently relatively easy to learn. And I don't claim it to be useless, I claim it to be stupid. I'm pushing anything on you, as I said I couldn't care less if you use or not, but I remain firm that it is not a good choice for game development, and it should not be the dependent language that you program in. And no, operator overloading and destructors are no the same thing. And the syntax is not the same. For instance, in Java, functions need to be a part of a class, in CPP they don't.