Tell me what you think for my project.

[D4n1sD]

Ok I was thinkin of making a new project about a game, I would
like this game to be 2d as I am not really that experienced with 3d
graphics neither how to controll them in C++ also the 2d whould be easier for me to program as there is going to be movement only into
2 cords. But I still don't know how to make it work out.

The concept of my game is about Street Gangs, Cars, Shootings
etc and I am having some trouble making them realistic and fair

I have been thinking of the ancle the gamer will controll his char
I was thinking something like from above the head but again how
I could make roads above him and how he can see his char and than....
I am really confused... Please tell me your opinion.

I am programing this alone but if anyone wants to come and join me his welcome!

[jwenting]

start by writing a good design rather than randomly quoting some wild ideas and hacking code together.

[D4n1sD]

I think thats the way all games work... I just need to set goals.
Make chars city think of plot etc.. and than program..

[Sodabread]

Games generally work a lot more phases than just game design => code. There's concept design (treatment, high concept, general ideas, etc...), game design (character development, level design, items, backstory, serious breakdown of algorithms & gameplay systems, etc...), tech design (module interaction, coding standards, class members & functions, etc...), then code.

It works a bit differently if you're part of a team where one person can focus on the design, another on the tech and another on art, because some parts can work in tandem. As a lone developer, you have a long road ahead of you if you want to make a full game. Take it from me. I've tried to make myself believe in the past that I didn't need full design & technical documentation, then the coding progress is terrible because I didn't think things out, and the gameplay turns into a jumbled mess of non-related systems that just don't flow.

Making a game really is more about forethought than it is about actual development. Yes, coding is key to getting the project done, obviously, but the pre-development stages can make (when it's done right) or break (when it's done wrong or not at all) any game development project.

[jwenting]

the same is true for all development work :)
I however call everything pre-implementation phase (and parts during implementation) to be design phase.
Design is far more than writing some tech document, the concept art, story, etc. all belong in it.

[Sodabread]

Agreed, J, I just realized that I didn't mention that every single detail should be documented before implemented. It's amazing that I can write so much and miss something so crucial :)

[D4n1sD]

Agreed, J, I just realized that I didn't mention that every single detail should be documented before implemented. It's amazing that I can write so much and miss something so crucial :)

@SodaBread I really thank you for your advice, but the main reason
I want to make a game is not to make money from it, or become
famous... its just to learn... I can learn advanced programing
through this. My main goal is other, but you can say its mostly a
game for my self, than for the open public, and thats why after
finishing it I will give out to ppl the source code so that more
people have the chance to learn.

[emilo35]

It sounds to me as if you would like to create a version the early GTA games, right? You might want to try out some 2D programming to start with, since you really don't need the extra work that adding some perspective requires. I say start out easy, maybe using Java and its Graphics2D library. Try experimenting with coordinates, object orientation, animation, and always keep in mind to make everything as dynamic as possible. If you are representing some city or whatever, always program it so you can switch to a completely different city just by changing a path to a file somewhere or an integer flag.

Start out easy, and as you learn, solutions to more advanced problems will be clear to you. If you start out making a flat city with no roads crossing under or above each other, you'll soon see a solution to how you can add new "floors" to your map-representation.

I would suggest you start out with something like a 2D bomberman like game. When you got a map that works, try making the number of players dynamic. Then you move on adding maybe a level-maker, level generator, different powerups etc.

Good luck to you, and have fun :D
Emil Olofsson

[D4n1sD]

It sounds to me as if you would like to create a version the early GTA games, right? You might want to try out some 2D programming to start with, since you really don't need the extra work that adding some perspective requires. I say start out easy, maybe using Java and its Graphics2D library. Try experimenting with coordinates, object orientation, animation, and always keep in mind to make everything as dynamic as possible. If you are representing some city or whatever, always program it so you can switch to a completely different city just by changing a path to a file somewhere or an integer flag.

Start out easy, and as you learn, solutions to more advanced problems will be clear to you. If you start out making a flat city with no roads crossing under or above each other, you'll soon see a solution to how you can add new "floors" to your map-representation.

I would suggest you start out with something like a 2D bomberman like game. When you got a map that works, try making the number of players dynamic. Then you move on adding maybe a level-maker, level generator, different powerups etc.

Good luck to you, and have fun :D
Emil Olofsson

Ur smart guy ;) Yeah its a kind of GTA game but the way I like
it coz R* has fuck up most of the series... I still find the name
Grand Theft Auto ridiculous I dunno if its only me.

Well while searching for a 2d game I saw dark GDK. Its a c++
library for game programing, I realized that making a 2d game
from a 3d game doesn't different that much from programing aspect.

I am not that good into java so I better stay away of it till
I am more advanced into C++

[digital29]

I think you could also do it in mario-style, I mean 2D.
I see that many games like that appeared recently..and they are quite fun :)
2D doesn`t mean bad graphics..if you are good you can do something cool

[D4n1sD]

I think you could also do it in mario-style, I mean 2D.
I see that many games like that appeared recently..and they are quite fun :)
2D doesn`t mean bad graphics..if you are good you can do something cool

do u or anyone else by any luck now any 2d game engine or
any tut or anything that can help related to 2d games??

[Sodabread]

Check out GameDev.net for some tutorials.

Regardless if the game is for yourself or for anyone else to play, you'll still need to at least critically think about the technical design of the game if nothing else. Decide which modules you want to be talking to which other modules and lay that all out. Determine what each module needs to do in its entirety. It's difficult, but it's worth so much when you actually start developing. Yes, this may change as you're developing, but changing a plan is better than not having one.

Example: You'll have to have a rendering engine. How do you want to draw everything in your game? Do you want to have rendering bins for different parts of your game (tiles, characters, objects) that each of those parts can dump a rendering object into? Or would you rather have the rendering engine call a draw function in each factory/manager class that draws all the necessary objects that it contains? How are you going to load your images? Are you going to have any parallax scrolling?

There are going to be a lot of these questions for every subsystem you create and it's going to lead you to having better code if you really plan it out. Plus, having detailed documentation can help clear your mind about what your initial goals were when you started a certain system, if it happens to become cloudy when in development. That happens quite often.

Also, if you don't want to do an entire design document, you should at least break down your features into how you want them to work and write it all down. That combined with the tech doc should keep everything pretty clear through development.