FreeBASIC Community produced game

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coderJeff
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FreeBASIC Community produced game

Post by coderJeff »

A little OT: I always dreamed I would write a great game, it could happen, but probably not.

More probable is I could help someone. For some compo, if there was no rule against an entry completed by multiple programmers, I would help with that. If someone found a compo and would be team leader, I might contribute, and maybe many from the forum.

Would be cool if there was an entry from "FreeBASIC Community". :)

EDIT:

Split this topic from originally: New game competition....

To discuss how it might be possible to have FreeBASIC Community produced game, maybe even for a competition entry.
BasicCoder2
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Re: FreeBASIC Community produced game

Post by BasicCoder2 »

coderJeff wrote:A little OT: I always dreamed I would write a great game, it could happen, but probably not.
What kind of game?
The main problem seems to be simply coming up with a great game idea?
The problem with multiple programmers is there are different levels of expertise.
Also I have yet to see any posters here, who have been working on writing a game, ask for help in the actual coding of the game it was more a case of "what do you think of my efforts and do you have any suggestions?"
Last edited by BasicCoder2 on Aug 25, 2018 18:57, edited 1 time in total.
badidea
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Re: FreeBASIC Community produced game

Post by badidea »

coderJeff wrote:... More probable is I could help someone. For some compo, if there was no rule against an entry completed by multiple programmers, I would help with that. If someone found a compo and would be team leader, I might contribute, and maybe many from the forum...
I'll keep that in mind. I don't have any experience with collaborative coding however.
BasicCoder2 wrote:The main problem seems to be simply coming up with a great game idea?
I don't think that that is the main problem, the idea does not have to be that great, just fun. Take some other game that was cool and give it a twist, or a have a 'brainstorm', write down a lot of different ideas, take the best. Take pen a paper, draw things. Every time you see a game that looks cool, add it to the list of cool ideas. To find something that all contributors judge as 'fun' is probably more difficult.
BasicCoder2 wrote:The problem with multiple programmers is there are different levels of expertise.
Yes, different levels of expertise and different coding styles, not sure how that will work. One person in charge of the code structure / design, others implementing routines? And then there is the boring part: Graphics images and sound samples.
coderJeff
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Re: FreeBASIC Community produced game

Post by coderJeff »

I have many unfinished projects. I think the reason for that is I have a limited amount of free time to work on them. At some point, while working on a project, I don't get that feeling of reward. And I get a greater feeling of reward by starting a new challenge and working on that.

So, the team leader has to be a person that wants to see the project to the finish. Some of the challenges are not programming related.

For a case study, and the only game I have ever helped with: Space Fight AI Tournament Idea. I know it is an old post, but it has the elements of what we are talking about. Mambazo, as team leader, provided the framework for contributions, and with a simple modular design is was easy to add to. Later, 1000101, tried to do a reboot of the concept, and I offered to help and never did. To this day, I still feel bad about that. So if you follow that story, you can kind of see both sides, one worked, the other didn't.

For a game idea (it's not new), something like the SandBox or SandBlocks games. A grid-like cellular automata with "elements" that interact with each other. A couple of experienced programmers likely need to provide the framework. And, with an easy to use API, maybe using fb's OOP features, could be made very modular allowing for community contributions even if of varying experience level. A young programmer I know, knocked out a crude demo in Process/JavaScript in a couple of days over a weekend. I helped him a little to organize his data structures.
paul doe
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Re: FreeBASIC Community produced game

Post by paul doe »

coderJeff wrote:I have many unfinished projects. I think the reason for that is I have a limited amount of free time to work on them. At some point, while working on a project, I don't get that feeling of reward. And I get a greater feeling of reward by starting a new challenge and working on that.
You're not the only one. I also suffer from the same 'problem', and having Asperger syndrome doesn't help much =D
coderJeff wrote:So, the team leader has to be a person that wants to see the project to the finish. Some of the challenges are not programming related.
That's the job of a Project Manager. They rarely code but they hold the entire thing together. I've assumed that responsibility before, I'm good at it, but I definitely don't like it.
coderJeff wrote:For a case study, and the only game I have ever helped with: Space Fight AI Tournament Idea. I know it is an old post, but it has the elements of what we are talking about. Mambazo, as team leader, provided the framework for contributions, and with a simple modular design is was easy to add to. Later, 1000101, tried to do a reboot of the concept, and I offered to help and never did. To this day, I still feel bad about that. So if you follow that story, you can kind of see both sides, one worked, the other didn't.
Don't feel bad at all. These things happen all the time, especially in the context of game development.
coderJeff wrote:... A couple of experienced programmers likely need to provide the framework.
I'm currently working (among other things) on implementing a data-driven, Entity-Component-System framework for FreeBasic, much in the vein of things like Unity. There are, however, significant changes to overcome, such as the barebones nature of FreeBasic (especially in the OOP area), which forces me to implement almost everything from scratch (having suffered a HD crash recently doesn't help either =D). I'm making regular progress, however, so I'll soon be able to put together something to test.
coderJeff wrote:And, with an easy to use API, maybe using fb's OOP features, could be made very modular allowing for community contributions even if of varying experience level. A young programmer I know, knocked out a crude demo in Process/JavaScript in a couple of days over a weekend. I helped him a little to organize his data structures.
Indeed. In the thread that inspired this one, I showed a very simple implementation of a 'framework' for the game loop. The idea is similar: to have all the required boilerplate, data structures, and such, ready to use. Then, you only worry would be to design the code, and iterate that design until you're satisfied with it. Entity-Component-System architectures are very good at this, and you can assemble something very professional looking within a reasonable time frame. If you dig game coding, then ECSs are definitely something you would want to take a look at ;)
dodicat
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Re: FreeBASIC Community produced game

Post by dodicat »

coderJeff wrote:A little OT: I always dreamed I would write a great game, it could happen, but probably not.

More probable is I could help someone. For some compo, if there was no rule against an entry completed by multiple programmers, I would help with that. If someone found a compo and would be team leader, I might contribute, and maybe many from the forum.

...
...
Please excuse my sagacity, but what is a compo?
fxm
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Re: FreeBASIC Community produced game

Post by fxm »

component?
Roland Chastain
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Re: FreeBASIC Community produced game

Post by Roland Chastain »

Competition. :)
BasicCoder2
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Re: FreeBASIC Community produced game

Post by BasicCoder2 »

coderJeff wrote:For a case study, and the only game I have ever helped with: Space Fight AI Tournament Idea.
http://mambazo.langfordtavern.com/zips/NanoShips_AI.zip
Returns "site can't be reached" error.
Yes it is an old post. I usually avoid even looking at old code as one of the issues I have found with the older FB code, including my own old FB code, is it doesn't compile with the latest FB compiler so it has to be rewritten to use in any current project.
My interest in writing a simple retro computer game was just as programming challenge as I don't actually play computer games.
Some of the challenges are not programming related.
Graphics!! It would have to be simple graphically.
badidea
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Re: FreeBASIC Community produced game

Post by badidea »

BasicCoder2 wrote:
Some of the challenges are not programming related.
Graphics!! It would have to be simple graphically.
I don't thing that that is what coderJeff means. Next to human <-> computer interaction, an additional component is added: human <-> human interaction. This can sometimes often be complex as well.
badidea
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Re: FreeBASIC Community produced game

Post by badidea »

coderJeff wrote:For a game idea (it's not new), something like the SandBox or SandBlocks games. A grid-like cellular automata with "elements" that interact with each other.
What is that "Minecraft Robotwars", something like the game "Spore" or a "Self-building Simcity without borders"?
BasicCoder2
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Re: FreeBASIC Community produced game

Post by BasicCoder2 »

@coderJeff,
It is also unclear to me what your suggesting?
The only cellular "game" I know of is Conway's Game of Life.
MrSwiss
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Re: FreeBASIC Community produced game

Post by MrSwiss »

"cellular" = cell based, aka: tile, sprite or whatever you prefer, to call it.

E.g. PacMan (or similar games) ...
BasicCoder2
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Re: FreeBASIC Community produced game

Post by BasicCoder2 »

Have done lots of tile/sprite based game demos but again it is coming up with an original idea.
Last edited by BasicCoder2 on Aug 26, 2018 3:39, edited 1 time in total.
coderJeff
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Re: FreeBASIC Community produced game

Post by coderJeff »

paul doe wrote:In the thread that inspired this one, I showed a very simple implementation of a 'framework' for the game loop.
Yeah, saw that, professional, quality looks good. That thread still on my TODO list, it's a little down on the list at the moment.

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Roland Chastain wrote:Competition. :)
yes, that is what I thinking.

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badidea wrote:
coderJeff wrote:For a game idea (it's not new), something like the SandBox or SandBlocks games.
What is that ...?
Sorry, the actual name of the game is "The Sandbox". Have to search for it with quotes. It's avaiable on steam and google play. Main game play screen graphics are just pixels.

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badidea wrote: an additional component is added: human <-> human interaction. This can sometimes often be complex as well.
Yes, exactly that. Working out disagreements while still moving towards the finish line.

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BasicCoder2 wrote:Returns "site can't be reached" error.
I found an old copy of Nanohost on my hardrive. It looks like the ver 0.45 Eric started modify, maybe. I only have bits and pieces from the 0.42 version, so it is difficult to copmare. Looks like I made a few changes to it in 2015 to get it to compile with -lang fblite. It was originally written for fbc 0.15b, I think.

For what it is worth, here is the source and a few screen shots.

Compile: fbc nanohost.bas -lang fblite
Source: nano45.zip (125k) | Images (PNG format < 25k): 1 Title | 2 Selection | 3 Fight
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