Jithin Rao

Hey, me back to bloggin after a short break. I am gonna continue with the game development for beginners. Well thats so called start of the pre production part where you have to sit down and think of a game concept. It not a easy task to start off with a concept, we can start off with a small one, its much better to complete one game rather than screwin and puttin up an unfinshed big game as your portfolio.

So lets starting thinking of a good game with a good scope of programming.

1. Chess, yeah it has a good scope of programming as the AI programming can be really tricky .

2. Rubix Cube is a really good one, well the scope can be another tricky algorithm for finding the moves to get all the colors in a respective sides of the cube.

3. A simple brick game can do a lot !!! <provided if you have a tricky and impressive game design>

Guys your suggestions on a small game design can be really helpful for beginners. I think this decision can take time to fix in as I want a simple game with good scope for a beginner to understand about game development and its stream. Anyways guys do leave comments on wht kind of game can be a starter for beginners, so that i can try to bring out somthing thats useful for the game programming beginners.

Cheers!

Here’s a an article on Gamasutra regarding DirectX 11, new renderer from the Giant Microsoft!

DirectX 11

Best of LUCK – DX11!

Beginners are not preferred to jump to Game Service Programming, its better to start as Game Programmer as it will enhance your knowledge on what all services do you require and how. Even if you have been doing a good level of DirectX/OpenGL programming, the knowledge of how best you can provide a service can be understood only when you work on such a service providing unit. So beginners I such you to start with a Game Development rather than just mess up with a couple of DirectX codes and write a messy middleware which is harder to use.

This is suggestion only for the beginners. Yeah DirectX knowledge can help you a lot when you start writing your game on a middleware, which can give the clear idea of how your game mechanics talk with the various sections of the game. As far as experienced people are concerned, come on man.. they have the experience they know what and how can it be done .

So coming to the Game Development Scene, now now… Can anyone start coding like that off? OH Boy start like you are gonna have a messy time. It’s always better that a beginner can start off with a small game as a demo for any interview. The key factor that a programmer should always look on to it plan ‘what to do’ and ‘how to do’ before doing it, and for that its necessary we can handle our time effectively. Time Management is the word!

1. Think of a Game Concept.

2. Plan what to code, think of the Game System Rules.

3. Plan how to do code, Class Relationship Diagram.

4. CODE IT!

Now lets have a look at each step closely.

Think of a Concept :

Mmm, to show your power of programming to your interview panel you don’t need to get a 9/10 rating game concept. Take a basic game like chess, oo.. are you saying that chess is boring? Man.. programmers starting from large can mess up, but programmers who start very low and then advance it on higher can come out with flyin colors!

Plan What To Code :

Here it’s more on set what all you need to code! And that can be the game requirements and rules, which in short known as the Game System. And this phase is actually you forsee what needs to be done hence preferably you need a tool to help you out in this. Actually I do have a tool here to help me out in this. The tool is a Mind Mapper. Well Mind Mapper is not only a tool for this specific reason, actually it can be used anywhere you feel like you will keep on having a lot of ideas to put in right order and in a flow chart. Mostly it can be used as a part of the project management, task management, call it anyway you want but it can of really good use. Here a freeware one : FreeMind.

As the tool’s name say Mind Mapper, it actually helps you map your ideas in you in an efficient way so that it can be used further with you making more and more feature rich. Well, there are a lot of Commercial Mind Mapping Tools, you can purchase them if you really like the advanced features they support. Trust me, I just love it because I actually can keep a note of what all I need to do and whats done!

Plan How To Code :

Planning on how to code, this is a place where many of them skip. But i strongly suggest that you start this habit of plannin your code before your start. Actually it safes a lot of time in thinking when start off on the fly with coding. So its always better to spend time especially for the code architecture with a Class Relatioship Diagram then while coding you just have to follow it – much easier rit? Well, you will know that it is when you start doing it so.

CODE IT :

The time has come now that you know what to and how to do you can start working on it!

PS : I didn’t mention about the art assets / sound assets if needed for your game. Its better at each phase you jot down these too. Once you have a fair code done with temporary and replaceble assets in code, you can always replace them with new ones.

Keep your features really small and simple, for starter you can take the KISS methodology (Keep It Simple Stupid)!!!

Well, that makes me erge to write a game on my own now, mm… may be I should do it. I will keep the blog updated on it, keep reading!

Ah you can have a site for more detailed reading of various parts and its working : Sloperama Productions

Even if there are a lot of resources, only thru real time work that anyone of you can be successful. So what are you waiting for?

CHEERS!