help making a game
ive decided to make a game for the speccy but i have no idea where to start. i think i'd like to make a text adventure, i saw the 'build your own' prog on the lists. is this the best one to go for, or should i be looking eslewhere.
im not really looking for someone to hold my hand through it, just a a point in the right direction, whether its to a valuable resource or just some super hand hints on getting started
cheers.
im not really looking for someone to hold my hand through it, just a a point in the right direction, whether its to a valuable resource or just some super hand hints on getting started
cheers.
Post edited by mile on
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I'm actually using INFORM7 as we speak to write an adventure that is targeted at the +3 running ZXZVM so it's possible to use a modern system to do the game and then see it running on old hardware but it won't really be a speccy adventure.
nice one i will have a look for that.
Whichever you choose, start with a very simple adventure first with just a handful of locations and objects. None of them are very good at keeping track of the structure of your game, so you're best off drawing a map of it on paper too.
after looking at the reviews for the 3 of them, it seems paws is the most advanced, i might just go with that as i think it gives you a run through of a small adventure to start off with.
thanks for the advice.
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i am going to start with quill, it seems easy enough for beginners.
cheers i will have a look at that too.
You can't make any text adventures with it though ... well, you can give each room a name ... that's about it really.
Then if you fancy writing the thing yourself from the bottom up in BASIC
try a look at this book
Write you own Adventure
or maybe this one BasicFun
There aren't enough games in Basic
cheers i will have a look at them also.
cheers, thanks for the heads up.
any sort of game, i just thought text adventures would be easier as it's just text. rather not do an editor of an excisting game though.
have made games before for flash but never for the speccy.
recently submitted to the CGC [/shameful plug]
You can also just watch an RZX of the game being played.
Mines just a cheaky entry to the Retro Remakes compo as I want to make sure the speccy is one of the retro platforms represented. If I get time to do my arcade speccy game then the INFORM coded adventure will probably end up in a more suitable place. I picked inform7 because I remember how much of a pain in the arse debugging quill and gac was back in the day.
I just don't want them to start allowing retro platforms and then not get a single entry on them :(
i will forget the text adnventure idea then.
yeah i noticed the cost, id rather not pay that, and i'm certainly not gonig to steal from someone on my face book (so no PM's please)
i will have a look at the arcade creator.
the game isn't for the csscgc or anything like that, i just thought it'd be a laugh, and it'd be in time for my 10,000th post. giving something back so to speak.
Advantages: these games can be run on many platforms, have the best parser, dictionary and grammar rules already built in.
In short these systems give a highly professional result.
However, if you are into the speccy and the main goal is add another speccy "string to your bow", then I think writing a text adventure on the speccy is a most excellent way to begin delving into BASIC.
I don't know how much your BASIC knowledge you already have, mile, but a text adventure is something where you can develop a moderately enjoyable albiet relatively simple game with not too much difficulty.
Limitations for a simple BASIC game would typically be: two word parser - limited vocabulary and sometimes inconsistent responses to the user trying unexpected commands.
However you have 48K of RAM to play with which is quite a lot really, so there is plenty of room for decent action responses and room descriptions.
Good luck if you wish to take it on for the reasons of getting more into the speccy (as a opposed to writing a technically brilliant work of literature!).
I wrote a simple one for Jimmy's Speccy VIC-20 emulator for a laugh a few weeks back and really enjoyed it.
The program structure is really quite simple.
It took 10 hours to make and has 15 rooms and 25 objects. It fit into 6.5K - in fact I am continuing to improve and "polish" the game with perhaps an eventual CGC 2009 entry planned.
So in summary, not such a huge unsurmountable project to take something like this on and always fun if you inject a bit of "humour" into it too.
The current competition has several categories that accept entries on retro machines the coolest of which are "sequels that weren't" and "games that weren't" The first takes a character that never had a sequel perhaps because it was a baddie or incidental character and puts them in a new game and the second is for the sort of stuff you see on Games that Time Forgot.
Both totally suited to a proper retro platform.
The two games I've announced so far are both ports to the Nintendo DS, one of puzzler Anarchy and the other of Spy Hunter.
The interactive fiction is still a secret but it takes a character from an early spectrum title and spins it into whole new idea. So it's not really a remake as it's a whole new game featuring an existing character.
I have to second this. Inform 7 is pretty amazing stuff I was expecting something Lisp like but instead of functional programming it's totally literate and really well put together.
Excellent choice! The Quill is probably the easiest of the bunch to get into and comes with a superbly written manual that explains things without being overbearing. Get yourself a hot cup of coffee, lock yourself in and plug away at the Quill for an hour and you should be on your way in no time!
Bytes:Chuntey - Spectrum tech blog.
just to let you guys know, i have gone down the quill route, i am half way through the example in the manual, and its going well. bit time consuming on my DS's little keyboard, but im enjoying it.
seeing what you mean about writting it all out on paper first. :lol:
yeah i have no experience in basic at all, so it quite handy as im learning stuff
@ aowen i'll have a look at that thing you suggested but if its on the PC i'll have to pass as id prefer to do it all on my DS so i can do it when im at my gf's house.
@arjun - yeah its a great tutorial, really guides you through, lets you make mistakes, and tells you how to rectify them etc.
I agree mile, I also think The Quill or even PAW are excellent choices for this.
how do i make graphics?
how do i get graphics into the code?
how do i make music?
how do i get music into the code?
is there a basic manual for basic somewhere?
should i be reading the machine manuals?
With one of these.
For a Quill-ed adventure game? No idea - I'm pretty sure none of the adventure game writers have built-in support for music. I know PAWS has the ability to hook up your own external code (which will still need some basic machine code knowledge all the same), but I'm not sure if Quill will let you do that without a lot of hacking.
Yes. If you want. They won't be directly relevant to making an adventure game in Quill, but anything to give you more of a background in programming concepts can only be a good thing.
That's not strictly true. Although zxzvm (which implements the Infocom z-machine) was initially only available for the +3, it now also runs under ResiDOS. So any 48K or 128K Speccy with a ResiDOS-compatible storage device can run Infocom & Inform games.
Go check out Mr. Cauldwell's site, he has some info on game making.
thanks, i certainly wont be starting drawing graphics and making music till i know how to write the game mechanics. :)
i am working on a quill game, but i am going to try a platformer also with one of those platformer designers, im just a bit unsure on how to get my own graphics into it, but i guess it will become clear as i progress.
sorry if i sound like i am trying to jump the gun so to speak, i just feel a bit more confident with all the info i need so i don't have to break off to go looking.
i'll prolly move onto paws once i get my head around quill, and then get started on a platformer. :wink:
nice one, ive been on there today having a gander.
While you are at it, please work out the kinks in Vista.