Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to write a 48-hour game in just 2 years (2013)

fistfulofsquid.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 49 posts

Re: How to write a 48-hour game in just 2 years (2013)

#11

Post by seanp2k2 »

ewjordan wrote: post #7
veddox wrote: post #2

Thank you for sharing this! > Don't build an engine instead of a game Only too true... That's a trap I always fall into. I guess programmers are so hard-wired to abstracting problems they that need solving they end up doing a lot of abstracting and very little solving. (Compulsory xkcd: https://www.xkcd.com/974/ )

This is one of the reasons Unity has become so popular in the industry - from a project management point of view, it makes sure that programmers don't start yak-shaving and building tech that's already been built a thousand times by other people. It certainly has its warts, esp when going into full production, but at least in early development it's really good at making sure you're only building what's unique to your…

Yep; most likely you don't have Romero and Carmack on your team, who can make a great engine and a fun-to-play game, and even they switched to making engines to power multiple games (id Tech engines). Unity and things like it are great if you're serious about actually making a game and bringing it to market. Engines might be fun, but that's not what sells games and gets them into the hands of people who would enjoy them.

Re: How to write a 48-hour game in just 2 years (2013)

#13

Post by rocky1138 »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #11
ewjordan wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the reasons Unity has become so popular in the industry - from a project management point of view, it makes sure that programmers don't start yak-shaving and building tech that's already been built a thousand times by other people. It certainly has its warts, esp when going into full production, but at least in early development it's really good at making sure you're only building what's unique to your…

Yep; most likely you don't have Romero and Carmack on your team, who can make a great engine and a fun-to-play game, and even they switched to making engines to power multiple games (id Tech engines). Unity and things like it are great if you're serious about actually making a game and bringing it to market. Engines might be fun, but that's not what sells games and gets them into the hands of people who would enjoy t…

Even the tools and engines built by them took years to make. In fact, for a good chunk of the development of Quake, everyone was waiting for Carmack and Abrash to finish the engine.

Re: How to write a 48-hour game in just 2 years (2013)

#14

Post by Tempest1981 »

Someone wrote: post #4

"48 hours later my iPhone was displaying a black screen with a white triangle on it. Clearly my limits were being tested." That reminds me of http://rampantgames.com/blog/?p=7745 : "In the main engineering room, there was a whoop and cry of success. Our company financial controller and acting HR lady, Jen, came in to see what incredible things the engineers and artists had come up with. Everyone was staring at a tele…

Or for hardware projects, getting an LED to blink can result in great joy...

Re: How to write a 48-hour game in just 2 years (2013)

#15

Post by tfinniga »

veddox wrote: post #2

Thank you for sharing this! > Don't build an engine instead of a game Only too true... That's a trap I always fall into. I guess programmers are so hard-wired to abstracting problems they that need solving they end up doing a lot of abstracting and very little solving. (Compulsory xkcd: https://www.xkcd.com/974/ )

"Give a man a game engine and he delivers a game. Teach a man to make a game engine and he never delivers anything."

https://twitter.com/sandbaydev/status/403219167236857856

Re: How to write a 48-hour game in just 2 years (2013)

#16

Post by formula1 »

tfinniga wrote: post #15
veddox wrote: post #2

Thank you for sharing this! > Don't build an engine instead of a game Only too true... That's a trap I always fall into. I guess programmers are so hard-wired to abstracting problems they that need solving they end up doing a lot of abstracting and very little solving. (Compulsory xkcd: https://www.xkcd.com/974/ )

"Give a man a game engine and he delivers a game. Teach a man to make a game engine and he never delivers anything." https://twitter.com/sandbaydev/status/403219167236857856

I literally laughed out loud. Thats a good one!

Re: How to write a 48-hour game in just 2 years (2013)

#17

Post by [deleted] »

veddox wrote: post #2

Thank you for sharing this! > Don't build an engine instead of a game Only too true... That's a trap I always fall into. I guess programmers are so hard-wired to abstracting problems they that need solving they end up doing a lot of abstracting and very little solving. (Compulsory xkcd: https://www.xkcd.com/974/ )

[deleted]

Re: How to write a 48-hour game in just 2 years (2013)

#18

Post by mcculley »

veddox wrote: post #2

Thank you for sharing this! > Don't build an engine instead of a game Only too true... That's a trap I always fall into. I guess programmers are so hard-wired to abstracting problems they that need solving they end up doing a lot of abstracting and very little solving. (Compulsory xkcd: https://www.xkcd.com/974/ )

It's an easy trap to fall into. Refactoring something that works into a more elegant abstraction is intellectually satisfying work. One need not worry about ill-defined external requirements and is limited only by one's own creativity and capability. Adding value beneficial and perceptible to a user often requires frustrating interaction with people or organizations who don't even know what they want, much less how to communicate it in a form a programmer can work with. Often there are ugly and non-obvious special cases to be dealt with. Left to their preferences, many programmers will retreat into abstraction building instead of doing the hard work of working with users to add value or dealing with the ugly special cases, rationalizing it as the best use of their time.

Re: How to write a 48-hour game in just 2 years (2013)

#19

Post by engine_jim »

Your experience sounds similar to mine. I used to write games from scratch in C/C++ and I would quit the projects after I wrote most of the engine code (which would take a few months), and had something presentable.

Back then there weren't engines like Unity and Unreal that solve most of the technical problems like rendering, and physics/collision detection. Even with these tools though, I still find it difficult to finish a project quickly because I spend so much time writing infrastructure code. For that reason I never do hackathons.

Post reply on HN