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Create Computer Games - Get Started on Creating Your Own Virtual Worlds
I've always loved video games, ever since I first played them on a friend's computer in the afternoon after elementary school. There's something almost magical about the fact that we can move images around and interact with virtual worlds, a living fantasy presented for us to interact with however we please. I've also always wanted to make games myself but, until recently, didn't have the technical knowledge to do so. Now, I'm a second year software engineering student, so if I weren't able to code a game without too many dramas there'd be something drastically wrong. But what about the common person: the person for whom the term 'memory leak' conjures up images of their grandfather, 'pipeline' is where the water flows, and 'blitting' is unheard of? Well, everyone can get in on the game creation process, and you don't even need to learn 'real' programming to do so. So where do games start? With an idea. Games, like all fiction, require an idea to be successful. Sure, in the same way you can just sit down and write a story without foresight, you can jump on in and slap a game together. However, unless you get ridiculously lucky, the best works are usually the ones that have been well thought out beforehand. There are two methods of planning a project. You can start from a known technological standpoint and build your project on top of that or you can just go for the design, add as many features and ideas as you like, and then remove the ones that you can't use when you've decided on the technology you're going to implement the game with. In general, the second type is probably the best one to go with when designing games. When you're first starting out however, the first option will save you many headaches. So, for a first game you're going to want a pretty simple idea. Don't get me wrong, crazy-go-nuts game ideas are fantastic, and there should be more of them out there, but you're not going to be able to create a real world simulator with fifty billion virtual people all interacting real time with your actions having a butterfly effect on the future of the virtual universe when it's just your first game. Really. Many people try it; none that I know of have succeeded. Imitation is the best way to start out. Simple games such as 'Space Invaders', 'Tetris', 'Pacman' or even 'Pong' are great places to start. All are largely simple to create but have some inherent challenges. 'Pacman' for example, requires path finding for the ghosts. I recommend that you start even simpler than that for your very first attempt. 'Space Invaders' is a nice point to jump in. You can make a simple, complete game without much effort and it's almost infinitely extensible. If you're stuck for an idea, pick a genre that you enjoy. Do you love adventure games such as 'Monkey Island', 'Grim Fandango', 'Space Quest', 'King's Quest' etc.? Design one of those. Are you into fighting games like 'Street Fighter', 'Tekken', 'Soul Calibur', 'Mortal Kombat' and so on? Come up with an idea for that. Do you like first person shooters such as 'Quake', 'Half Life' or 'Doom'? I don't recommend it as a first project, but you can always give it a go. Feel free to be as generic as you like, this is a learning experience after all. Now that you have your idea it's time to flesh it out. Don't worry about the technology or the fact that you may not know how to actually implement a game just yet, just grab yourself some paper and a pencil and go crazy with ideas. Describe the main characters, game play, goals, interactions, story, and key mappings, anything you can think of. Make sure you have enough detail so that someone can read through the notes and play through the game in their head with relative accuracy. Changing game design during the coding process is almost always a bad idea. Once it's set, it should remain set until the tweaking phase (I'll go into this more later) or you're likely to enter 'development hell', where the project goes on and on; more and more work is done with less and less outcome. At the end of this period of your game creation, you should have the following: - A written outline of the game's characters and possibly a sketch or two (be they space ships, yellow circles, cars or the prince of the dark kingdom of Falgour, you need to know who or what the player will be and who they will compete against) - A written outline of the story (if there is one, this isn't too vital for 'Space Invaders' or 'Tetris', but for 'Uber Quest: An Adventure of Awesomeness' it's a really good idea) - A description of game play, written or storyboarded. Storyboards are visual representations of ideas. Draw your characters in actions, with arrows showing the flow of action and short written descriptions detailing the events occurring in your image (because some of us aren't fantastic artists and our images can be a little? open to interpretation?) Now that you have a fleshed out idea, it's time to work out how this will all get put together. If you've gotten to this point and are worried that you're going to have to spend years learning complex programming languages in order to implement your idea, fear not! Others have already done the hard yards for you. There are many RAD (Rapid Application Development) Tools available for game creation, a number of which are available for free online. Some of them still require you to learn a 'scripting language' (a simplified programming language made for a specific task) but in general this isn't too complicated or involved. I've compiled a brief list of some of these I have found at the end of the article. The free ones are listed first, organized by game genre. Well, that should be enough to get you started in the creation of your game. The most important thing to remember once you've gotten this far is that you need to complete your game. Many people start a project and then lose interest and it fails, or they keep moving on to one new project after another without finishing anything. Start small, build a working (if simple) game that is, above all else, complete. When you get to this stage you will always have a huge number of things that you wish to change, fix etc. but you'll get a great feeling from knowing that it is, in its way, finished. From this point, you can start the tweaking phase. Play your game a few times and ask others to do the same. Take note of what isn't fun or could be better and change things here. At this stage, it is more important than ever to keep backups of previous versions so that if a change doesn't work you can go back and try something different without losing any of your work. It is at this point that you can add all new features, improve graphics and sounds, whatever you please, safe in the knowledge that you're working on a solid foundation. When you're happy with your game, why not share it with the world? There are many cheap or free places out there for you to host your files on and then you can jump on link lists and forums and let everyone know about your creation. Well, I hope that this has been a helpful introduction into the art of creating games. It's a great deal of fun, and can open whole new avenues of creative expression for you to explore. Jump in and have fun! Links: General Game Creation:(Tools that allow easy creation of many different game types)Game Maker: http://www.gamemaker.nlMegaZeux: http://megazeux.sourceforge.net/ Adventure Games:(Games such as Monkey Island, King's Quest, Space Quest etc.)Adventure Game Studio: http://www.bigbluecup.comAGAST: http://www.allitis.com/agast/3D Adventure Studio: http://3das.noeska.com/ADRIFT (for text adventures): http://www.adrift.org.uk/ Role Playing Games (RPGs):(Games such as Final Fantasy, Breath of Fire, Diablo)OHRPG: http://www.hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce/RPG Toolit: http://www.toolkitzone.com/ Fighting Games:(Games such as Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Soul Calibur etc.)KOF91: http://sourceforge.net/projects/kof91/MUGEN (unfortunately the site is largely in French): http://www.streetmugen.com/mugen-us.html Side-Scrolling Games:(Games such as the 2D Mario Games, Sonic the Hedgehog, Double Dragon etc.)The Scrolling Game Development Kit: http://gamedev.sourceforge.net/ There are many others available as well. One particularly useful site for finding game creation tools is: http://www.ambrosine.com/resource.html Also of note, although not freeware, are the excellent game creation tools available by Clickteam at: http://www.clickteam.com/English/Klik and Play and The Games Factory in particular are the programs to have a look at and download the free demos of. If you really want to do things right and program the game yourself, there are some excellent programming resources available at the following locations: Java Game Programming:http://fivedots.coe.psu.ac.th/~ad/jg/http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1262.asphttp://javaboutique.internet.com/tutorials/Java_Game_Programming/ Visual Basic Game Programming:http://markbutler.8m.com/vb-tutorial.htm C++ Game Programming:http://www3.telus.net/alexander_russell/course_dx/introduction_dx.htmhttp://www.rit.edu/~jpw9607/tutorial.htm General Information:http://www.gamedev.net/http://www.gamasutra.com/ Daniel PunchM6.Nethttp://www.m6.netDaniel Punch is a university student learning how to make a living through having fun.
Latest News:Site: Yahoo! News Search Results for news News Corp says Mark Williams interim Premiere CEO (Reuters via Yahoo! News) News Corp. executive Mark Williams has taken over as chief executive of German pay-TV broadcaster Premiere in an interim capacity, News Corp. said after the move led to renewed takeover speculation. News Corp. says Mark Williams interim Premiere CEO (Reuters via Yahoo! News) Mark Williams, a News Corp. executive named late on Wednesday as chief executive of German pay-TV broadcaster Premiere, has taken over in an interim capacity, a News Corp. spokeswoman said on Thursday. Column: Palin's Nomination Good News Even For Democrats In Alaska (CBS News) So, John McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate. Let me just say, wow. That's not exactly what I repeatedly shouted out when I first heard the news, but it's close enough for publication. Like everyone else, my astonished reaction wasn't due to the event itself being inconceivable - I've heard pundits debating the likelihood of a McCain / Palin ticket for months. Premiere CEO Is Replaced by News Corp.'s Williams (Update2) (Bloomberg.com) Sept. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Premiere AG , the German pay- television company partly owned by News Corp., said Chief Executive Officer Michael Boernicke is being replaced by a senior News Corp. executive. News Corp exec becomes chief of Germany's Premiere (Reuters via Yahoo! News) News Corp's chief financial officer for Europe and Asia has been named chief executive of German pay television group Premiere, following the resignation of Michael Boernicke, Premiere said on Wednesday. Phila. mayor to announce grim budget news (Philly.com) The Nutter administration is expected to announce grim budget news today, which is all but certain to lead to significant spending cuts - perhaps as high as 10 percent - in some city departments, according to three sources familiar with the budget. News Corporation to redevelop London Wapping site (Reuters via Yahoo! News) Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is to redevelop its Wapping site in London, moving all its UK businesses, including News International, Harper Collins, MySpace and Dow Jones, under one roof. Tribune blames Google for damaging news story (Market Watch) SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Tribune Co. said Wednesday that the mistaken online publishing of an old news story that cratered UAL Corp.'s stock price earlier this week was because of a repeated technology failure at Google Inc. DeJesus, Royals sad at Sweeney news (MLB.com) DeJesus, Royals sad at Sweeney news Six-year-old story pops up on Google News, triggering United Airlines share price collapse (Tech Digest via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News) Three cheers for automated technology! The Google News "Googlebot" search routine decided last weekend that a six-year-old story regarding United Airlines filing for bankruptcy was new and exciting. Site: news - Google News News roundup: Cool reception for automakers on Capitol Hill - USA Today
MORE RESOURCES: Site: Yahoo! News Search Results for games Cubs-Astros games postponed because of Ike (AP via Yahoo! News) The first two games of this weekend's series between the Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros have been postponed because of the potential impact of Hurricane Ike. Video games sales rise 9 pct in August: NPD (Reuters via Yahoo! News) U.S. video games sales rose 9 percent in August from a year earlier, marking the smallest monthly sales increase in more than two years, according to data from research firm NPD on Thursday. Models reveal 'geology of Games' (BBC News) Decades of data are turned into 3D graphics of what lies beneath the 2014 Commonwealth Games host city. Cubs-Astros games postponed due to hurricane (Fox Sports) The first two games of this weekend's series between the Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros have been postponed because of the potential impact of Hurricane Ike. Baseball officials also were anticipating that Sunday's series finale also might be postponed. One of the scenarios under consideration was to play a doubleheader Monday, and make up the third game on Sept. 29 if it's needed to decide a ... Verizon Wireless Releases Dozens Of Games From 10 Publishers (paidContent.org via Yahoo! Finance) It's all about games today for Verizon Wireless . The carrier released dozens of mobile games from 10 publishers. Gameloft , Glu Mobile , Konami Digital Entertainment, Mobitween, Namco Networks, RealNetworks , SkyZone Entertainment, Smashing Ideas, Capcom Interactive and Sony Pictures Television all teamed up with the carrier to launch games such as The Dark Knight and Sally's Salon. Cubs-Astros Games Postponed Because of Ike (ABC News) Cubs-Astros games Friday and Saturday postponed because of Hurricane Ike Ike threat postpones first 2 games of Cubs-'Stros (CBS Sportsline) The first two games of this weekend's series between the Cubs and Astros have been postponed because of the potential impact of Hurricane Ike. Cubs-Astros games postponed because of Ike (Chicago Tribune) Houston owner Drayton McLane is holding out hope the two Cubs-Astros games postponed because of Hurricane Ike can be played Sunday and Monday at Minute Maid Park. But Lou Piniella? "Unless this thing totally bypasses the Houston area, I don't know how you can get into Houston, or if they had to get out, how they would get out." Central update: Brewers at Phillies on Thursday RosenBlog: Cubs' ... Ike postpones two Cubs-Astros games (MLB.com) Two Cubs-Astros games postponed Can the Games Usher in New Era for China's Disabled? (Time.com via Yahoo! News) As the host nation's athletes continue to gather golds at the 2008 Paralympics, many in Beijing hope the Games will open doors for China's other 83 million disabled citizens Site: games - Google News Saturday's top TV games - San Francisco Chronicle
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