Lesson learned from the past.... Maybe

Video games have been around for at least 30 years, and yet we still know little of the art of creating a good one. Sure we know features that help, but there is no formula for a good game. The "road" to this current point in the history of video games has been a rather difficult one, with the Great Video game Crash in the 80's, and video games under constant attack since Columbine.

We have gone through multiple controller designs. From complex with consoles like: Colecovision, Intelvision, and Jaguar; to simple with the Atari 2600, NES, and Wii. But which one is better? In my opinion it all mater on the type of gamer you are. If you are a "hard core" gamer then you would be more likely suited to a complex controller. If you are a "casual gamer" you would be more suited to something simple. But is there such thing as a overly complex controller? I would say yes. I think that modern controllers like the ones on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 are pushing it because I have found myself looking down at the controller a few times to figure out were the buttons are, and in my opinion a controller should not be even a worry of a gamer. It should just be "natural".

Now one of the aspects of gaming that is always changing is the complexity of the games resources such as: graphics and sounds. Now while this in and of itself is not a bad thing, I becomes bad when people think that a game must have great recourses. My case in point is the game Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. (I know this game is old but it works well in this situation and I don't like the game too much) The main selling point of the game was it was in full 3d and you could "Ride the rides!" Now if you bought the game only because of that you wouldn't be disappointed, but the game play is nothing near as great as the first two games. Another example is the humble game of Pac-Man. It is one of the most beloved games of all time, but it isn't a graphics "power house". And yet people love this game because its game play is so damn addicting. It seams as though a lot of modern games only care about great resources and nothing else. I say screw that, give me great game play over great resources.

Now the moral of this story is that perhaps there are a few lessons that could be learned from our gaming past. I mean why make the same stupid mistakes that some other guy made!

Motivation and Planning are Key

You may ask "What is the hardest part of game development?" The truth is that staying motivated is almost alway the hardest part. And without motivation you are sure to quit. But then you may ask "How do I keep motivation in a large project?" My answer is to PLAN!

Before you even think about writing a line of code you should make a design document that is detailed enough that you don't get lost, but not so detailed that there isn't any room for improvement. Some examples of design documents are: Al Lowe's(the creator of such wonderful games like Leisure Suit Larry and Torin's Passage) at http://www.allowe.com/gamedesign/index.htm and LusikkaMage's video on the topic at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDl52roY_w.

You may say to your self "I still don't see why I need a design document". Well think of it this way; if you don't have planning you will most likely build most of your game and then want to put in a really cool element, but you realize that you have to rewrite half your code to make it work. This will more than likely cause you to become less motivated.

So you want more proof? Well just recently I was working on a project with two of my buddies on a pong game. Sound simple right. WRONG! From the get go we made some concept art of what we thought the game should look like, but we didn't make a design doc on what we wanted. So when it came time to add in cool stuff like power-ups and menus we were at a loss and didn't know what to do. Also one of our guys was working on a graphics engine for the game which didn't get done in time to implement. So all these factors set us up for failure. We lost motivation to work and quit.

The moral of this story is that If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Indexes are key!

Have you ever been programming had run into problem of not remembering what a function name is, it's parameters, or what is does? One good way to fix this problem is to have books or online indexes of functions and general programming practices. I own 2 books on C and C++ programming, a iPhone app that has references to various C functions, and book mark tab in my web browser full of C and C++ oriented web sites.

Some good online sites are:

Specific Function help:

SDL: http://sdl.beuc.net/sdl.wiki/FrontPage

General: http://www.cppreference.com/wiki/start

General: http://www.cplusplus.com/

C and C++ tutorials:

Text:

SDL:http://lazyfoo.net/SDL_tutorials/index.php

General:http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial.html#ctutorial

General:http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/

Video:

General:http://www.youtube.com/user/antiRTFM?blend=2&ob=1

General/OpenGL/Win32:http://www.youtube.com/user/xoaxdotnet#p/p (make sure you check the play list)

SDL/Allegro:http://www.youtube.com/user/LusikkaMage

If all else fails you can always Google your function or problem and usually find an answer.

Who am I and why should your read my blog.

Hello world!

My name is Chris C. and I am a freshman in high school, and probably the nerdiest student there. In my free time I program computer games using C++ and SDL. I enjoy science fiction and a good retro game.

But all that is beside the main point. You want to know why you should listen to me in the sea of all these prick teens who think they are better than every one else. Honestly I don't know why you should listen to me, but I can tell you what I will talk about in this blog. I plan to talk about subjects about programing (obviously), gaming, creation of games, and anything else related to nerd culture.

You can follow me on YouTube.