Writing a Video Game
Well, I've always wanted to create a video game. The first time I ever wrote the famous Hello World, I was in the fourth grade. My parents had Santa deliver a Coleco Adam computer. Originally for my sister Nikki, but in few short weeks she tired of me wanting to be in her room to play on it - it was moved to my room.
I don't think my parents realized just how much I would naturally take to computers. Yeah, we had an Atari 2600 that I had about worn out playing, but to their surprise I was printing and writing programs that printed things almost immediatly. I discovered magazines like Family Computing and Compute that would publish programs in pring and I'd tirelessly type them in and run them! I taught myself how to store data sequentially and create a program to catalog my 8 or 9 records. I create a program to print me a checklist for my baseball cards. I even wrote a little drawing program that I took to school and showed off to one of my teachers.
Computers became everything for me. Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga 500, IBM PC's (even if I was biased against them - yes I was an Amiga snob), etc. I cannot even begin to calculate the hours I must have spent on my computers. That brings me back to what I am about to embark upon.
I always wanted to write a game, but never really knew how. Programming classes don't teach that - because 99.9% of all professors never even done it themselves. Hard to teach something you've never done.
Well, I've been doing a lot of reading and realize I need to approach game programming like any other software project I have done thousands of times.
My first step is deciding the game I want to write. I've decided to write a old-School role playing game. Role playing games ("RPG") are fun because they usually tell a story and you have to keep it moving forward. I grew up playing the Ultima and Bard's Tale games. Things to GOG.COM I still get to play Ultima 1 from time to time!
So, I want to write a game like that. Well, with that said I have to get my plan of attack in order.
Step 1: Define the game and its parameters - Maps, Characters, Creatures, Items, Spells, etc. All those things that make an RPG exciting. Also, I need to think of the best way to "define" these things. I plan to create everything and store it in XML form. So I guess the first thing I need to do is create a Map editor, Character Editor, etc. This will be done in Visual Studio 2010 (XNA is probably the final platform), but my editors will be pure .Net 4.0. Winform applications for now.
I'll give an update next week with a peak at my editors.
I don't think my parents realized just how much I would naturally take to computers. Yeah, we had an Atari 2600 that I had about worn out playing, but to their surprise I was printing and writing programs that printed things almost immediatly. I discovered magazines like Family Computing and Compute that would publish programs in pring and I'd tirelessly type them in and run them! I taught myself how to store data sequentially and create a program to catalog my 8 or 9 records. I create a program to print me a checklist for my baseball cards. I even wrote a little drawing program that I took to school and showed off to one of my teachers.
Computers became everything for me. Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga 500, IBM PC's (even if I was biased against them - yes I was an Amiga snob), etc. I cannot even begin to calculate the hours I must have spent on my computers. That brings me back to what I am about to embark upon.
I always wanted to write a game, but never really knew how. Programming classes don't teach that - because 99.9% of all professors never even done it themselves. Hard to teach something you've never done.
Well, I've been doing a lot of reading and realize I need to approach game programming like any other software project I have done thousands of times.
My first step is deciding the game I want to write. I've decided to write a old-School role playing game. Role playing games ("RPG") are fun because they usually tell a story and you have to keep it moving forward. I grew up playing the Ultima and Bard's Tale games. Things to GOG.COM I still get to play Ultima 1 from time to time!
So, I want to write a game like that. Well, with that said I have to get my plan of attack in order.
Step 1: Define the game and its parameters - Maps, Characters, Creatures, Items, Spells, etc. All those things that make an RPG exciting. Also, I need to think of the best way to "define" these things. I plan to create everything and store it in XML form. So I guess the first thing I need to do is create a Map editor, Character Editor, etc. This will be done in Visual Studio 2010 (XNA is probably the final platform), but my editors will be pure .Net 4.0. Winform applications for now.
I'll give an update next week with a peak at my editors.
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