The GameDev Lounge 00000011

[Kold-Virus]

C# is pretty cool, Puggs. I've dabbed into Java, Ruby, VisualBasic and some C. C# is the most fun I've ever had programming.

[TheShyGuy]

@Tabuu
You can use C#+XNA (not in development anymore), or CX#+Monogame (still in dev. More of a port of XNA), or C#+any openGL or DirectX wrapper (SharpDX or SlimDX), etc.  I've never used Vulkan, so I can't give info on it.

Xna is veeery easy to use so I imagine Monogame to be easy too. I've used XNA for the last few years but now I'm using Unity because the editor is so useful and saves aloot of time You don't have to make your own game editor, or atleast it's easier to make one within Unity. You also don't have to create your own save/loading system for most content.

[Kold-Virus]

Well, I did program a more advanced save/load feature for my commercial game which has exception handling and 3 savefiles. I will port it to Feud with just one savefile.

Don't get me wrong: I LOVE Unity. It's fun, it's easier and it's pretty damn badass. It's the absolute best game maker suite I've ever used. I came to Unity from RPG Maker VX Ace, and just to tell you, I dumped Ace altogether. I hated its Marshal.load/dump save system anyway, just kept spitting Null values back out, resulting in errors galore.

I just don't like the idea of being forced to fork over for a Unity Pro license if I make over 100k (I doubt Sorcia alone would make that) in a year. I'm all alone, I make my games with zero outside help.

[TheShyGuy]

It's not just a save/load for "Player Save File", it's a save/load system for any custom content file types (excludes loading images, for example).

[iyenal]

C# is very, very different from C/C++

C and C++ is higher level than C#.
The problem of Java on Windows is that it have to be runned with the JRE (Java virtual machine), it's therefore much slow than other "native" languages (VisualBasic, C...).
And XNA Framework don't have many possibilities.

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I just don't like the idea of being forced to fork over for a Unity Pro license if I make over 100k (I doubt Sorcia alone would make that) in a year. I'm all alone, I make my games with zero outside help.

Nothing can be free, anything is business. Especially in computing world.

[TheShyGuy]

Uhh C and C++ are lower level than C#. And the virtual machine shouldn't be much of a problem given he's not making complicated games that require high performance and many optimizations. Also, what do you mean that XNA doesn't have many possibilities? Can you clarify? XNA is pretty much a C# wrapper over DirectX9.

[Kold-Virus]

I'm well aware nothing can be free. But $125 a month? Someone's pulling my leg. Had I been like Nintendo, churning out blockbuster-after-blockbuster cause almost everything they make sells like hot cakes, than income wouldn't be a problem. The price of everything "professional" makes me fee like I am taken advantage of financially. I'm just one dude.

@TheShyGuy: I believe that Java would choke on Feud. And possibly on my other one since they are HD / Fullscreen games with fairly high-poly models in some areas with a lot going on. That's just my opinion, though. I mean sure, I'm not making those high-budget shooters or Mario games, given.

All I wanna do is make my indie games.

[iyenal]

Uhh C and C++ are lower level than C#. And the virtual machine shouldn't be much of a problem given he's not making complicated games that require high performance and many optimizations. XNA is pretty much a C# wrapper over DirectX9.

For level, sorry I have mistaken low and high, sure that a language based on an another is of a lower level.
XNA is now deprecated, no anymore support for optimizations, rendering using newer versions of DirectX 9 and new UI of Windows; and security.

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I'm well aware nothing can be free. But $125 a month? Someone's pulling my leg. Had I been like Nintendo, churning out blockbuster-after-blockbuster cause almost everything they make sells like hot cakes, than income wouldn't be a problem. The price of everything "professional" makes me fee like I am taken advantage of financially. I'm just one dude.

I feel the same way; but in computing industry, you aren't an human, you are an user. "If it is free you are the product"

[Gors]

I have zero knowledge of music theory

I play the notes by ear until I get the right one that's in my mind.

this is me btw

o-o you had me fooled, you're music is pro quality gors! lol 

i feel flattered~

[DarkGrievous7145]

couldn't sleep last night, gave-up at five AM, then coded this, after learning the annoying-ass way by which to even do it:

http://crystalien-redux.com/unrelated/ET...yData.html

it is SO tempting to use the 'forbidden black magic' method...
there'd only be one intermediate format, and it's insanely easy to work with.

opening a file then reading its contents as a binary data stream should NOT take several functions unless one is using a lower level language or something. Add to list of reasons JS is not only annoying to work with, but unnecessarily so.

Anyways, this randomly loads one of two binary files, randomly, checks their headers for the 'valid' one, confirms to the user whether a valid file has been loaded, then dumps the contents as ascii and hex.

It's not done. Even though this is just a test, I want to actually use the data i encoded. Should be easy, but I'm strapped for time atm. Whether or not I'll fix a fatal flaw in the format, IDK... as it stands, the trailing meta-data actually will be parsed as part of the palette data the files contain, because i forgot to include a byte or block to define the length of the data. OOPS. I'm likely just gonna make the parser have a hard-coded limit, this is only a test, after all. This would be why I refrain from coding at odd hours.

Anyways, thoughts?

[DarkGrievous7145]

updated, same URL

it can now load three different files, as my friend/the owner of the CAC redux site suggested testing the full range of byte values to make sure it works ok

it actually only parses the encoded 24-bit RGB palette data, since this is a demo that only supports a single file type (and only one compatible file exists), demonstrating reading the header is kinda pointless.

the encoded palette, if optimization was seriously were to be considered actually should be 3-bit RGB ... lol
(but that's so few colors that storing a palette file for it is kinda pointless, anyways)

anyways, experiment/demo finished.

now the question is if/how to add a BinaryAsset or BinaryData asset type to my game lib's asset manager. dynamic XHR sucked when i did text...because of scope restrictions. if i have to now create a dynamic filereader, i'm gonna be pissed...

(also, i'm when-able-and-willing porting my library to haxe at this time. but that's all on my laptop)

[puggsoy]

Random coding question: do you prefer tabs or spaces as your indents?

Personally I prefer tabs (set to 4 spaces), it keeps things consistent and means they can't accidentally be shorter or something. If I want to use spaces for some reason (e.g. indenting a multi-line statement) then I can just do it explicitly.

[miyabi95_]

tabs master race. fortunately when i search for example code on the web about 85% of the time i come across something that's properly spaced-out and therefore easy to read.

[Kold-Virus]

Tabs for sure!

I've been working on my original / commercial game. I'll just post these here. Nothing's final except my protagonist's model. Textures still WIP and grass textures are placeholders. The map is a sandbox.

[attachment=6888]
[attachment=6889]
[attachment=6890]

[SKELTON S. SKELETON]

okay so like question

is there anyone who A) has a week or two to spare and B) wants to make a quick little shootemup. if not i'm gonna try out pico-8 again because im really interested in it as a platform and its different from what ive worked in before