GAFs Amateur Devs Chronicles

G

Gowans

Member
After the news about XNA or the Independent Games Awards a few guys here said they were going to have a go and attempt to make some games. So how about we share our experiences here along the way.


I for one keep intending to put together a indie game, messing around then getting sidetracked by anything so maybe this thread will help.

I'm gonna work on a XNA game, probably got a good few hours I can put into it each week. I was going to put off joining the creators club but procrastination is not my friend so might as well get it done, I already have an idea of the simple base game I am going to make and then I'll go from there.




OP will change as thread grows but heres some useful links so far:

XNA Creators Club: reators.xna.com/
XNA Forums: forums.xna.com/

XNA Game Dev Manager Blog letskilldave.com
XNA Team Blog: blogs.msdn.com/xna/
Reflections: blog.3deurope.com


XNA Resources: xnaresources.com
Ziggyware: ziggyware.com
XNA Tutorial: xnatutorial.com
George Clingerman XNA Dev Blog: geekswithblogs.net/clingermangw/
XNA Development: xnadevelopment.com
The Z Buffer: thezbuffer.com
The Hazy Mind: thehazymind.com
 
Cool idea for a thread, I'm definitely interested in having a discussion about this in GAF.

Basically I started using XNA to make games with the intention of building a portfolio for jobs in the games industry about a month ago. I'm into my second project and have spent about 10 days coding the engine and 5 days making content. Since I don't have a job I probably have the luxury of being able to spend more time on this than most, but it's surprising how quickly you can make something playable in XNA.

I've exclusively been making 2d games.

A fair warning, don't have high expectations of the audio capabilities of XNA, they are frustratingly limited.
 
im installing XNA 2 and Visual Studio Express again now. (i know it can be a bitch on Vista)

I subscribe to the Creators Club through marketplace yeah? so I can test my code on my 360 too?

If anyone has any links to some good resource sites I'll change the op.

Now the big question is how open to be in this thread?

Guess its up to everyone, Im still considering full openess but if I posted the rough idea of my game and it got pinched should I then be bothered? :D
 
I just reinstalled C# Express and XNA 2.0 the other night and am also hoping to get a nifty game going at some point soon. Still brainstorming, but I'm hoping to start on it sometime this week if time allows. This is a great idea for a thread, I think it will allow us all to help one another out with various problems as well as share experiences. I'm anxious to see what everyone comes up with.
 
Gowans007 said:
im installing XNA 2 and Visual Studio Express again now. (i know it can be a bitch on Vista)
Click to expand...
I've not had any troubles on my computer, Vista Home Premium. I would like to be using Visual Studio Express 2008 rather than 2005 though.

I subscribe to the Creators Club through marketplace yeah? so I can test my code on my 360 too?
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Yeah, although I'd recommend aiming for either building a PC game or a 360 game, there are slight differences in the codes. I don't have a 360 and XNA has still been a great tool for me so far.

If anyone has any links to some good resource sites I'll change the op.
Click to expand...
The XNA forum is a great place to ask technical questions.

Now the big question is how open to be in this thread?

Guess its up to everyone, Im still considering full openess but if I posted the rough idea of my game and it got pinched should I then be bothered? :D
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Yeah that's a big question for me too. I'd personally rather keep my game closed, not from people participating in the thread but from the lurkers, yeah I'm looking at you lurker.
 
Gowans007 said:
Guess its up to everyone, Im still considering full openess but if I posted the rough idea of my game and it got pinched should I then be bothered? :D
Click to expand...

Unless you're phenomenally good at communicating you're ideas, I wouldn't be overly concerned, as everybody will interpret your description in their own way. If you see what I mean.
 
Well as its still installing sod it, full disclosure here is my idea for the game I'm going to "try" and put together, maybe it will even help with GAF cleaning the idea up alittle it


Gowans007 said:
Your a object/ship inside the centre a large sphere.

Like a space shooter you move around the space three dimensionally inside of the sphere shooting enemys.

The game is played in a third person mode with a redicule for aiming the lazer/gun.

Enemy's are varied in shape, colour and behaviour (each enemy is fully determined by its own file so more can be added etc.)

The goal of the game is to survive as long as possible by being a ultimate bad ass!

There are no power ups however choices that can be influence the slowing of the games three methods it increases in difficulty.

Sphere shrinks.
Increase in enemy numbers.
Increase in enemy speed.
Click to expand...
 
Gowans007 said:
Well as its still installing sod it, full disclosure here is my idea for the game I'm going to "try" and put together, maybe it will even help with GAF cleaning the idea up alittle it
Click to expand...
I don't know how familiar you are with programming but that looks like a fairly sizable undertaking. I haven't worked in 3d yet but as well as XNA to make the game code, you will also need to use other programs to make models and textures.

XNA has a great tutorial in it based around a basic 2d space shooter (but with 3d assets) "Space War". Perhaps you should consider making this as an expansion to that.
 
Like the idea of the sphere shrinking. How about it constantly shrinks unless you're getting kills/points/chains?
Would be easier to score points when the sphere is small but harder to survive & the other way round when it's large. Aim of the game could be to get the biggest or smallest sphere.

PS.

Reading again my previous post seems kind of patronising, wasn't supposed to be.
 
The Friendly Monster said:
I don't know how familiar you are with programming but that looks like a fairly sizable undertaking. I haven't worked in 3d yet but as well as XNA to make the game code, you will also need to use other programs to make models and textures.

XNA has a great tutorial in it based around a basic 2d space shooter (but with 3d assets) "Space War". Perhaps you should consider making this as an expansion to that.
Click to expand...

As long as he's going for just weird shapes, instead of trying to do ships, even the 3D modeling wouldn't be that hard, since primitives are pretty easy to model. Do a pythagorean shooter with dodecahedrons and various other polygons, and the model creation won't kill you.

Oh, if you want help, Gowans, just assign me something to do.
 
besada said:
As long as he's going for just weird shapes, instead of trying to do ships, even the 3D modeling wouldn't be that hard, since primitives are pretty easy to model. Do a pythagorean shooter with dodecahedrons and various other polygons, and the model creation won't kill you.

Oh, if you want help, Gowans, just assign me something to do.
Click to expand...
Yeah that's a good idea, 3d-euclidean-geometry wars?
 
besada said:
Oh, if you want help, Gowans, just assign me something to do.
Click to expand...

Im gona guess the assignment will be make the game work ;)

Yeah maybe chains will stop the sphere shrinking, something else to slow the rate of enemy increase and another to slow down their difficulty/speed. SHould be a decently big undertaking.

As for the enemies Im expecting them to be different coloured cubes at the start just to get it working before it looks nice.


All installed, just gonna download all the tutorials and sample files to mess around with again. Theres a 3D space cam one that will be full knicked for this ;)

Also where the hell do I sign up to be a creators club member?
 
well as this is just the begining of the project for me, audio could be great its so early doors now tho, but just but in if anyone wants to thats the point of this thread I guess.

Besada defo come aboard and join me in this project partner.

Also while Im gona be titting around experimenting and finding me feet how about we really draw out this game idea to a full game.

Wish we had an example of a game design plan for XNA, anyone?
 
Last year I made a small Pong clone controlled via Wii remote. It was just a prototype coded in a few days, though.
 
monchi-kun said:
any programmers looking to partner with a designer on a music game project? i do art as well and music as well.
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I really must stress that XNA as is does not have strong audio capabilities, they are fine for adding effects to a game but limited if you are looking for good effects and control. The compression options are also awful.
 
12 month membership bought, hopefully that will kick me up the arse to spend aleast a few hours a week on this.

Now to connect to 360 and mess around with these samples..

edit: God damn it every project or sample code I start is corrupt!!! might be from having an old install gona have to fully uninstal and install, delete folders again GAH!!!!
 
I have to have a substantial graduation project for my high school, so I am thinking about making a small game. I am a sophomore right now, so I am a plenty ways away from it but I plan to start soon. I am currently learning VB(you have to take that first before you go on to Comp. Sci. in my school) and then I plan to either learn C# on my own or in school.
 
I made a thread earlier looking for people to try out my game, but this is probably a better place to post this.

I'm looking for about 5 people to give me some feedback on my XNA demo I've been making.

You must have

- an interest in action/puzzle/physics games.
- half an hour or so to spend playing my game and writing a bit of feedback to send me.
- a PC with screen resolution >= 1280*720 (will either need to have or need to install the .NET Framework 2.0 Redistributable, directX 9.0c latest updates and XNA redistributable 2.0).

Thanks a lot, PM me or post here if you are interested.
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snack said:
I have to have a substantial graduation project for my high school, so I am thinking about making a small game. I am a sophomore right now, so I am a plenty ways away from it but I plan to start soon. I am currently learning VB(you have to take that first before you go on to Comp. Sci. in my school) and then I plan to either learn C# on my own or in school.
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You don't need too much coding knowledge to start making games. Once you understand the basic variables, methods, program flow and a little object oriented programming, as well as a few XNA specific items, you are ready to go.
 
after a full clean install of all the XNA stuff finally got it talking to my 360.

Finding such an odd pleasure in messing with the sample files then playing around on the 360 , its a start :D
 
I'm curious to see if anyone manages to make anything... I've been really put off by the amount of times I've heard of XNA (starting with its announcement in '04, it's release in '06, and the latest thing last week in '08). It just seems to me that more should've been done by now...

Good luck guys.
 
Ok well after playin around last night look slike I found some XNA code to use as a base (A space war 3d deathmatch example), still need to run through all the tutorials to get some understanding but fleshing out how the game works.

Guess I'll put in a couple more titing around hours tonight before I think about getting on with the basic code. Will neeed to think the best ways to put together for its development too.

Anyone any input on fleshing out the game plan? Still wondering how to ramp (and slow the increase) of the difficulty using the three rules so it wil be balanced, guess that can be done later tho but never hurts to get it all down now.


Also testing The Friendly Mosters basic game out has been great, fun, chalenging and simple.
 
Gowans007 said:
Anyone any input on fleshing out the game plan? Still wondering how to ramp (and slow the increase) of the difficulty using the three rules so it wil be balanced, guess that can be done later tho but never hurts to get it all down now.
Click to expand...
I recommend leaving balancing issues until late on, if you have it balanced perfectly before adding all the features you've just wasted your time. Just leave the hooks in there to do it easily, giving variables simple names to understand.

e.g. rather than having

if(Keyboard.IsKeyDown(Keys.Up) && speed < 2f)
{
speed = speed + 0.1f;
}

you want

if(Keyboard.IsKeyDown(Keys.Up) && speed < maxSpeed)
{
speed = speed + forwardAcceleration;
}

this helps you understand your own code better and makes it easier to make subtle changes later.
 
Sega1991 said:
I know lots of guys who make Sonic fan games in Multimedia Fusion and I dabble from time to time myself.

Does that count? ;P
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If you want to talk about some of the issues you, give advice to people and/or show some of the stuff you've done, why not? I'm sure some people must be interested in doing stuff like this.
 
I've been slowly (very slowly) ramping up progress on a 2D megaman-esque game (boss rush for simplicity's sake, only bosses). I'll probably really start up beyond making some preliminary art shit/prototyping in a week or two. Here's hoping I stick with it.
 
I'm in. I've dabbled with the basics of XNA for quite a while...
My goal is to create a basic 2D platfomer/puzzle game with a level editor. From scratch, of course. I don't want to just copy from the sample code they've provided, in part because I want to throughly understand every aspect of my program. The purpose of crafting it is to learn.

From there, I'd love to learn some 3D stuff and work more with bringing an interesting idea to life.

It would be nice to have a GAF community to consult with. I'm in favor of this thread.
 
Teknopathetic said:
I've been slowly (very slowly) ramping up progress on a 2D megaman-esque game (boss rush for simplicity's sake, only bosses). I'll probably really start up beyond making some preliminary art shit/prototyping in a week or two. Here's hoping I stick with it.
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Are you using XNA?
 
I made the first part of a level of a character game starring all the Spiderman characters in the "Marvel Super Hero Squad" form. I used XNA, Anime Studio and Macromedia Fireworks and I had Spiderman jumping from building to building and dying when he missed a jump. Then I got bored and stopped. Then I made a word search game for the DS using PALib which was supposed to be part of a larger activity center game with Mad Libs and Crosswords and iSpy's etc... I got the word search working, and then I got bored so I stopped.

All this amateur coding made me realize that I really don't like low level coding like that. I'm more of a designer. So I decided that I would write instead. So I wrote a book about a man struggling to come to grips with an experience in his life and dealing with the anger he has towards the world. Now I'm writing another book about a future world where there are two species of humans, genetically enhanced beings and us and how they live together and how different they are. I figure that if I can get published, it will lend me to other avenues, which would lead me to pitching three of my game stories to someone. The first two books I'm writing can't be made into games and there's two other book ideas I have that can't be made into games, but three other book ideas I have started out as game ideas and I even have a full script on one of them.

So maybe that will lead me back into games, but who knows? Maybe I'll meet up with someone with XNA development experience and pitch them my ideas and then that will lead me into game design. Or maybe I'm always just a game player rather than a game creator. I can live with that.
 
i'm leading a small team doing an indie game (still in pre-production), but we're using an in-house engine so XNA is not really a possibility.
 
Not XNA. My coding ability is primarily limited to web languages. I am using Game Maker 7 and writing a game in GML.

Genre: Puzzle Platformer, maybe
It uses a Knyt-esque platforming engine I wrote, and one of the primary mechanics in the game is something similar to the potion in Super Mario Bros 2/Doki Doki Panic that transports you to the dark version of that same map.

I've mostly finished the engine, so now I just need to build the world. I can handle art assets, but music is not my forte. Are there any good free digital music composing programs (they'll likely be in MIDI form, and I'm okay with that).
 
Slavik81 said:
That was an awesome game, Friendly Monster. Hard as hell, though.
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Yeah it needs a lot of padding towards the easy end. Thanks for helping, I'll probably upload the game to this thread tomorrow for anyone to get their greasy mitts on.
 
My small team is looking into it just now.

We're finishing off work on a stable release of Archo (block shifting puzzle game) and then starting on a Tower-Building kinda sim.

You can download the latest version of Archo at www.curiositylabs.co.uk - I think it'd make a decent XNA title, though it's something we still have to look into.

I do all the graphics for the games.
 
Ok here goes.

The game is called Jolt. It is still early in development, no menus or audio yet, and around half the levels of the final game. The idea is to get the ball into the green goal avoiding the red pits.

Controls:

Space Bar: move the pistons
Left Ctrl: reset the ball
-, +: switch level

to change the size and resolution of the window press Left Shift + either 1, 2 or 3 (above the letters) for 1280*720, 960*540, 640*360 respectively.

To run this you need:

The .NET Framework 2.0 Redistributable.

The XNA Framework Redistributable 2.0. Note: This is NOT the entire XNA program, just a 2mb file to let you play XNA games.

The latest DirectX 9.0c files.

To play the game just extract the files to a folder and run Jolt.exe.

http://rapidshare.com/files/95680243/Jolt_0_1.zip.html
http://download.yousendit.com/57F5E2D8224EA8DB

Changes in Jolt 0.1

- added fail, goal and reset animations.
- variable window sizes
- minor alterations to levels after correspondence with Slavik81


Thanks a lot for taking a look, feedback would be welcome here, via pm or email to my gmail account (gcoope).

Giles (a.k.a. The Friendly Monster).

edit: changed links to remove a bit of a debug code that was still in there, very professional
 
Friendly monster, I'll give it a shot tonight.

I've done a pong game before in C++, I think it's time to move up, this time, Tetris ;).

I think I'll try it using XNA, since I'm learning ASP .net for work.

After that I'm going to work on my top down rhythm racing game.
 
electricpirate said:
Friendly monster, I'll give it a shot tonight.

I've done a pong game before in C++, I think it's time to move up, this time, Tetris ;).

I think I'll try it using XNA, since I'm learning ASP .net for work.

After that I'm going to work on my top down rhythm racing game.
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Cool, thanks a lot. My first project was a simple rhythm game (I need to get back and finish it after this one), I did find the XNA audio to be pretty poor though as I keep saying. Good luck with Tetris, I think it's a bit trickier to make than it looks actually!
 
cleared Sunday (after Mothers day duties) to mess around and try and get start on putting the basic game together.

Looked at the code I could nick from the XNA starter kits, great referances but I want to make a peice of code for each enemy to hold there object, texture, sound, explosion and behaviour etc.. so think the best idea to learn and get this right will be start from scratch.

Hey m0d, well if your looking for some further at expression in 3D I may turn on the m0d-signal ;)
 
wow. what a cool thread. I've been so unmotivated to do this on my own after work, but I know I need to. Had been thinking of learning XNA, maybe this will be encourage me to get on that path again.

Anyone have any screenshots from any XNA games/demos they've created before? That'd be fun to see :D
 
I've been (slowly) working on a couple of ideas myself the past month or so... work's gonna be even slower now that I found an internship, but I still want to finish them.

Also, someone please make Pongtris a reality
 
Well, I'm working on a game (a shmup), but it's not XNA. (But this thread is not limited to that right?)

I'm using Ogre for graphics (it's the most well designed and documented open source C++ library I've ever used) and Lua for game logic/enemy/level/bullet scripting. I'll probably use FMOD or something for sound when it comes to that.

What takes up the bulk of my time currently is content creation, not coding.
 
I'll join the fun, even though my game doesn't use XNA, either. :)

I'm currently working on an indie game as well, doing the story, scripting and level design. It's a top down shooter in the tradition of Chaos Engine or Loaded. We're using OTEE Unity, a very nice and user friendly engine. I hope we'll be able to release a playable prototype soon, but we're only two guys, so it'll probably take a while.
 
Durante said:
Well, I'm working on a game (a shmup), but it's not XNA. (But this thread is not limited to that right?)

I'm using Ogre for graphics (it's the most well designed and documented open source C++ library I've ever used) and Lua for game logic/enemy/level/bullet scripting. I'll probably use FMOD or something for sound when it comes to that.

What takes up the bulk of my time currently is content creation, not coding.
Click to expand...
I developed a 3D game demo (bin/src) using C++/OpenGL a year or two back and used FMOD for the sound. It was fairly easy to implement and worked well.
 
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