Topic by Binary solo 2015-01-06 21:23:43

  • Registered: 2014-10-21
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Hi
I'm a sociology student which means in other words I don't know nothing bout coding. I have had brewing inside me an idea of developing an audio game. What I want to do is to make good gameplay and a good soundscape to go with it. The idea I'm currently having is some kind of a pirate game where you are the captain of the ship and have to do stuff. This idea of gameplay is not very original and has been used in at least a few games accessible to blind users. My idea as of now is pretty fluid and my problem is mainly in which direction to swim so to speak. I have no experience with coding and but have found some people who do to be with me on the team. What I'm asking for is basically any advice you can give. What is possible with what resources? Where should you start? Is it better to start developing one gameplay mechannick and build on that or to allways keep the final picture in mind. What programming languages do you think might be good for this kind of game?
Yeah... any advice much apriciated

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Reply by tward 2015-01-06 22:25:23

  • tward
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Binary solo, the first thing you need to do before you and your partners write a single line of code is develop an outline for your game. By an outline I'm not talking about a few generic ideas, but flush out how the game will work in theory, figure out some mechanics, ideas for game levels, etc. In short, figure out all the nitty gritty details before you start writing the game else you'll have to figure it all out later on which will not be easy to do.

As far as the subject of programming language I'll just say it depends on many different factors. What platform or platforms you intend to support, what APIs you intend to support,the amount of heavy mathematics, etc. There is no one-size fits all answer to your question and this is where an outline may help. The more details we know about a given game the better we can direct you to the right tools and languages to create it.

Sincerely,
Thomas Ward
USA Games Interactive
http://www.usagamesinteractive.com

tward's Website

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Reply by Binary solo 2015-01-07 20:25:24

  • Registered: 2014-10-21
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Thank you for that advice. this is exactly what I was asking for. As for my idea the basic idea is to create a game where you are the captain of a ship with lots of canons and have to do stuff you sea in pirate movies and games. I figure that writing a system for economy and such is a smaller problem than the main gameplay which is controlling your ship in combat. The idea that's at the top of my head right now is to have the system hybrid turnbased. That is the clock is allways ticking but the main thing you are doing to interact with the game would be issuing commands. I guess the feel of this would be a little like the Star trek maps in Time of Conflict. Another idea is to have this a completely turn based game which I guess is easier on the programming side. the thing is though, I don't know.

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Reply by Zersiax 2015-01-07 22:47:52

  • Registered: 2010-05-05
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I recommend just leaving out the whole programming thing for now.
First, define your game. Write it down in such a way that someone who hasn't been with you when the idea first started to exist knows exactly what kind of game this is going to be. You say you command a pirate ship, that is a good start. Now, see if you can think up some things this ship needs to be able to do. You mention cannons, so I am guessing a combat element is involved. A cannon needs to be able to load ammunition and fire it among other things. I am also guessing the ship needs to be able to move across a map, but I am already guessing here because your plot could contain the fact that your ship is actually stranded and you have to somehow get loose by using resources from the surrounding landmass or so. What is the game's objective? Are you fighting other pirate ships? Are these other ships, if they exist, player-controlled or computer-controlled? Is there going to be a storyline or is it just separate tactical scenarios? This is the kind of thing you need to ask yourself before you do anything else. Once you have a good outline, that's when you start thinking about what technologies etc. to use.

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Reply by Binary solo 2015-01-08 00:33:42

  • Registered: 2014-10-21
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The reason why I'm so concerned about the actual technology is mainly because when it comes to programming I know very little. I've worked with some data bases so I'm not completely new to coding but what I want to get a feal for is basically how much can be accomplished with x amount of resources. How big is the project to write a game where you control a ship that can fight other ships on a map in realtime? How much difference would it make if the combat system was completely turn based. I'm trying to gage the size of my project so as to be able to decide how large I can think given my resources.

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Reply by Zersiax 2015-01-08 02:03:42

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Hmmm. Turn-based combat would make it a little easier for you I think, since you don't really have to concern yourself with realtime stuff the AI needs to be able to do etc. What you want to build can easily be done in something like BGT if you want to learn a language for pure audiogame creation or any conventional language like Python, visual basic .net etc. if you want to be a bit more mainstream smile

Balliol

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Reply by frastlin 2015-01-08 17:09:57

  • From: Hayward CA
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You can do just about anything. The stuff that is really difficult right now is:
1. multiplayer
2. perfect 3d sound (you can do basic panning easy)
3. graphics
4. having a map environment like Swamp.

These kind of things can be done, but it will take a little more time.
What you could get in a matter of maybe a couple months of just you and programming in python is something
like this
Basically text.
If you wished to ad a costom user interface and whatnot, it would take you another couple months, but then you would need to come up with all the sounds and know when to stop with the features.

first do what everyone has been saying and plan it out:
what game would you like it to feel like?
what is the point?
what makes your game unique?
what is the game play?
write out all the numbers and figure out what number of stats everything has, how everything moves, how fast everything moves...
If you can, play a paper version with someone and see how they think it is.

Then, if you have a teem, have one person build sounds and another build the engine and if you can, another work on story and game play.
You can do everything, but I can tell you from personal experience that you have to be pretty super-human to do everything on your own.
At this point you should consider what platform to use.

Next get 1 super basic encounter done so someone who plays gets a feel for what the game would be like.
Then get people in to play.

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