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A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game

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Re: A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game

#21

Post by warfangle »

radmuzom wrote: post #8
z3phyr wrote: post #4

Off Topic: Some people say that Game Development is Saturated, but I believe that there is still a lot to accomplish and still tons of ground braking innovations in every sphere of Game Development are waiting for many more generations of prodigy. Some people say that the Graphics are solved but I believe, we still have miles to go for true realism. Please carry on with the innovations in game dev :)

Graphics is important and I believe we will continue to see further innovations in this space. However, I believe that we still need to achieve a lot in "story-telling" in games. The Mass Effect series is probably one of the best out there - the setting, characters, interactions, morality and gameplay.

If you think ME is the epitome of storytelling in digital gaming, I highly suggest you grab Planescape:Torment from Good Old Games[0]. And grab a few mods to modernize the experience[1].

0. http://www.gog.com/game/planescape_torment

1. http://www.gog.com/news/mod_spotlight_planescape_torment_mod...

Re: A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game

#22

Post by forrestthewoods »

CmonDev wrote: post #3
munificent wrote: post #2

I've been working on a roguelike for, I think, about 14 years now. It's gone through several rewrites, different languages, different UIs, and it's never come close to being done. These days, I tend to think of it more as a garden: something for me to putter around in but not as much a product (though I would love to get it to a point where other people can play it).

I wonder if all developers could be roughly split into two groups: those who have lots of small initial projects and those who have mostly one big project (also unfinished but with more progress).

I'd put all people, including non-developers, into two groups. Those who finish their side projects and those who don't. The size of the first group is very, very small.

Re: A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game

#23

Post by mrec »

munificent wrote: post #2

I've been working on a roguelike for, I think, about 14 years now. It's gone through several rewrites, different languages, different UIs, and it's never come close to being done. These days, I tend to think of it more as a garden: something for me to putter around in but not as much a product (though I would love to get it to a point where other people can play it).

I really like the garden analogy. It's something I usually feel obscurely guilty about just puttering, but I probably shouldn't. Personal projects are supposed to be a hobby, not an obligation.

Re: A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game

#24

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

Torn wrote: post #11
ansimionescu wrote: post #7

Windows-only sigh How difficult would it be to port this? edit: it's not a snarky, rhetorical, question – I really want to play this

So you'd have to port the Multimedia Fusion 1.5 (MMF) engine he used to make the game in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_Fusion That thing is going to be closed source, ancient, and not actively maintained. 1.5 seems to have been released in 2001. Why don't you download a free MS VM from https://www.modern.ie/en-gb/virtualization-tools#downloads and then try it on there using something like VMWare or Virtual…

Were later versions of MMF somehow not backwards-compatible?

Re: A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game

#25

Post by Torn »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #24
Torn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you'd have to port the Multimedia Fusion 1.5 (MMF) engine he used to make the game in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_Fusion That thing is going to be closed source, ancient, and not actively maintained. 1.5 seems to have been released in 2001. Why don't you download a free MS VM from https://www.modern.ie/en-gb/virtualization-tools#downloads and then try it on there using something like VMWare or Virtual…

Were later versions of MMF somehow not backwards-compatible?

No idea; a quick Google tells me there were some compatibility issues

http://community.clickteam.com/threads/34059-MMF-1-5-to-MMF2...

Re: A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game

#26

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

Torn wrote: post #25
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were later versions of MMF somehow not backwards-compatible?

No idea; a quick Google tells me there were some compatibility issues http://community.clickteam.com/threads/34059-MMF-1-5-to-MMF2...

Heh.

I work on Gang Garrison 2, a game still actively developed which is also reliant on a dead game creation tool (Game Maker 8.0), so this is sadly familiar.

Re: A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game

#27

Post by VikingCoder »

z3phyr wrote: post #4

Off Topic: Some people say that Game Development is Saturated, but I believe that there is still a lot to accomplish and still tons of ground braking innovations in every sphere of Game Development are waiting for many more generations of prodigy. Some people say that the Graphics are solved but I believe, we still have miles to go for true realism. Please carry on with the innovations in game dev :)

For-Profit Game Development is completely saturated. Especially for salaried workers.

For-Hobby game development, or entrepreneurial game development (low probability of pay-off) is a blooming field.

People like MAKING GAMES.

Re: A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game

#28

Post by vidarh »

thisjepisje wrote: post #5
z3phyr wrote: post #4

Off Topic: Some people say that Game Development is Saturated, but I believe that there is still a lot to accomplish and still tons of ground braking innovations in every sphere of Game Development are waiting for many more generations of prodigy. Some people say that the Graphics are solved but I believe, we still have miles to go for true realism. Please carry on with the innovations in game dev :)

And don't forget non-realism, there's still lots to explore in that area too.

While I see the appeal in realism, I'm in this camp. I don't really play any games with "realistic" graphics. I'm sure they'd be fun, but I've just never gotten into them.

I play old games, or "casual" games on my phone, neither type of games where realism is much of a factor.

I have a game idea I hope I get time to do one day, but if I ever do, it will be 2d - on purpose - and somewhat pixelated, also on purpose. In part because I love some of the visual effects of pixel art. And realism would not even remotely be a priority for the graphics.

Re: A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game

#29

Post by fredleblanc »

With all of this dedication to a project, I had to download it and try it. Early on there's a room where everything is pitch black and it wants you to go back and find something "luminous." So you're thinking, probably a flashlight or torch or something.

Nope. It's a paintbrush with luminous paint. And it doesn't just light up the room, you have to fling gobs of luminous paint all around to reveal platforms in an otherwise dark room. And it's not just a ball at a time, each gob also trails lesser speckles that also help out.

I know this isn't ground-breaking or anything, but it's certainly a refreshing surprise from what you expect from games these days. It's something you wonder about, where the answer is clearly, "well, why not?"

I went from interested to impressed in a matter of minutes. I thought I was just going to download it to see what it was like, but now I'm curious what other great ideas will come out of no where.

Re: A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game

#30

Post by enthdegree »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #26
Torn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No idea; a quick Google tells me there were some compatibility issues http://community.clickteam.com/threads/34059-MMF-1-5-to-MMF2...

Heh. I work on Gang Garrison 2, a game still actively developed which is also reliant on a dead game creation tool (Game Maker 8.0), so this is sadly familiar.

Do you know what happened to the project to redo GG2 in Python?
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