Game Developing in general (Not OUYA)

[Steven W. Hunt]

An open thread to discuss development of non-OUYA titles, sharing experiences, letting others know of your developing background, pimping your newest endeavor, et cetera.

Forgive me if there's something else like this already. Search didn't yield anything but then again I have the worst luck with BBS search engines. A hand-check didn't reveal anything, either, and I didn't want to go too far back and risk necroposting.

My primary tool is Game Maker. I've used it for PC and Android development before (and now OUYA, of course).
I've been working on some Atari 2600 homebrew stuff, but it's a lot harder than I realized.
I've also been dabbling with OpenBOR for a Dreamcast project, but that's kind of a back-burner thing.

[Hydrus]

My first shot at making videogames was with the PSP a few years back. I believe I had the Pro CFW installed on it and an lua player. I spent a few months doing research about the language and started with Hello World. I kept learning about the language by experimenting with the code and adding to the Hello World. I changed the colors, the position where the text was displayed, etc. That's the best way to learn any language, by hands-on experience. No book can beat that.

After that I searched online for an existing basic tile engine and started working on my own game. I added my own images, modified the values in the engine, added some variables, some sounds that I made with Beaterator (PSP title) and so on. At the end what I had looked very different than the basic tile engine that I had from when I first started. Unfortunately my PSP got bricked during the time I was developing the homebrew, and I've switched to so many operating systems and storage devices now that the files are most likely lost. I haven't checked in my other crappy netbook to see if it is still there, but otherwise I'm giving it as dead.

To this day I still have the idea written on paper in a binder that I have, and I actually keep getting more ideas. I'll probably use up my summer trying to build it up again, but in another language. Maybe Java or C++, since those languages are commonly used for videogames nowaday's. I know both, so it shouldn't be very difficult. No doubts that I'll have to do some research, though.

[Magnesus]

I was making games since I remember - first on Amiga, as a child. My first game was a memory game as I remember, I lost the disc with it though. Later while studying programming I made sure all my projects were game related, which turn out to be a good decision because now it's my job. I am somewhat not fully happy that I have to make simple, fun games for phones and tablets instead of more complex ones for PC/consoles, but it allows me to do what I love while having quite a good income from it.

Right now I try to make every second game just for my own fun - The Lost Heroes for OUYA was first of such games, it was a partial failure, because it was too complex and I made many mistakes while making it. It cost me time and money but didn't get much in return. Now I am working on some simpler games, but intend to finish and fix The Lost Heroes soon and I have plans (very far going - with graphics already ordered etc.) for another platformer and for a quasi-RPG game. I would love to see them also on OUYA and will try to support this platform in the future, we'll see how it will go.

As a gamer I love 2D over 3D. My favourite game right now is Rayman Origins (and maybe Legends, but I find it a bit worse, the graphics in both games is simply stunning though).

[Steven W. Hunt]

That's a good point about books. Those things are balls for actually telling you what you need.

I own a PSP and would have loved to get "in" on development for it while it was still alive. Sony must've pretty much killed it by this point because whenever there's a new initiative (cross-buy, GameMaker support) it's always PS3, PS4, and Vita only.

[Hydrus]

The PSP scene is dying, if not dead already. The handheld is not being used much outside of Japan and the hackers/homebrewers are dropping out. The 3DS scene is starting to rise up along with the Vita scene. The 3DS is making much more progress though, in terms of homebrews and whatnot. Hopefully that'll go somewhere, I'd love to mess around with homebrews on that.

The official way of making games on those platforms is too hard and expensive, I prefer breaking the norms and going the homebrew route.

[MegaManV]

I've been using Clickteam products since I was 7, so of course my current hook up is Fusion 2.5. All my spritework however is done in the original The Games Factory, since stuff can be imported to the higher programs and I don't care for Fusion 2.5's graphic editor. As for sound, I use FLStudio for chiptune but I haven't really had the heart to use it lately, because I'm a sucky composer >_< u.

Right now I'm really sick of sitting around for months on end not doing anything aside from the occasional storyboard or art piece for my Ouya project so......being inspired by "Mr. aGameAWeek"- I'm about to embark on a quest to see how quality games I can crank out within the following days. These games will be most likely be PC exclusives, however I'm not sure where to start...... : /

[Jayenkai]

I'm using a language called Monkey-X, which is a "Basic, but updated" language. Lovely syntax, awesome capabilities, and most importantly, compiles to lots of stuffs, so I can quite literally write a game, test it thoroughly in HTML5, then click the "compile for OUYA" button and have the same-ish experience on there, or iOS, or Windows, or whatever.

I spent a long long time working on a general purpose reusable framework, first, though. You'll notice that all my games have identikit frontends, option screens, and highscore tables, amongst other things. My framework also takes a lot of the grunt work out of controls, too. In general, if I add a simple Dpad control scheme, it also works happily with the left thumbstick, or a pc's cursor keys, or WASD, or an onscreen swirly pad for those with touchscreens or playing with a mouse..
In essence, I need only write "the game" bit of AGameAWeek, and that's really enabled me to make leaps and bounds in quality, in recent years. I think, when people hear "in a week", they do tend to think "must be rubbish then".. Since I'm focussing on just the game bit, and getting to spend an entire week doing it, I tend to be able to make them a little juicer than most devs could scramble together, when they're also worrying about the entire frontend, and compatibilities, and other such stuff.
Building my "framework" wasn't easy, and there were loads of complications along the way, but trust me when I say that it was very much worth it. 42 games and counting, all from that one framework??! Job done!!

[Steven W. Hunt]

Non-OUYA game pimping time