Does anyone here develop their own games?

[apocalypso]

I was just reading about Wii Ware and it got me thinking back to my Amiga days and Amos, as well as all those text adventures I programmed in BASIC. Does anyone here develop games? No particular reason for asking, just curious!

[Steve Evil]

Not sure about homebrew developers, but there are quite a few games developers on here, one guy on the Race Driver thread, Scorp pulls games apart to develop cheats for them, plus quite a few other lurkers that prefer to keep their occupations anonymous.

[scorp]

I'm a developer yeah

Anything in particular you want to know ?

[Codefaster]

Hello

We're always impressed by the lengths people will go to for cheating/modding purposes.

I can't remember the details, but a while ago there was a data extracting tool written for one of our games that was actually better than the one we used in the studio

Edited by Codefaster on Tuesday 13th May 12:54

[scorp]

Codefaster said:

Hello

We're always impressed by the lengths people will go to for cheating/modding purposes.

I can't remember the details, but a while ago there was a data extracting tool written for one of our games that was actually better than the one we used in the studio

We used to sell our ps1 card device to a number of studios because it had better debugging functions than the sony (sn-systems) toolkits

[apocalypso]

scorp said:

I'm a developer yeah

Anything in particular you want to know ?

I was just wondering really whether amateur developers are going to get the chance to distribute their games in a way which hasn't been available for quite a few years. I remember readers' games being given away with Amiga Format back in the early 90s, and I'd be interested to know whether xbox live/wii ware (which I admit I know very little about) will give people a similar opportunity? Obviously games can get distributed over the internet, but it's not really the kind of flash/browser based games I'm thinking about, but more professional looking products created by people who can't get a foothold in the industry.

[Mattygooner]

apocalypso said:

scorp said:

I'm a developer yeah

Anything in particular you want to know ?

I was just wondering really whether amateur developers are going to get the chance to distribute their games in a way which hasn't been available for quite a few years. I remember readers' games being given away with Amiga Format back in the early 90s, and I'd be interested to know whether xbox live/wii ware (which I admit I know very little about) will give people a similar opportunity? Obviously games can get distributed over the internet, but it's not really the kind of flash/browser based games I'm thinking about, but more professional looking products created by people who can't get a foothold in the industry.

There are a few, a gentleman named Stefano or Kunos, developed a racing sim on his own some year back called NetKar. The next generation that he has just made is called NetKar Pro which was paid for product downloaded over the net and is very good, so good on the physics side that BRD have gone in to partnership with him to develope hardware for professionals. A guy recently has done the same with a motorbike simulator which you can down load a demo below and the full game can be unlocked.

www.gp-bikes.com

There are a few around, mainly snapped up in to the main stream, the guys resonsible for the GT mod for World Sports Car were snapped up and made the Sim racer GTR1.

[scorp]

apocalypso said:

scorp said:

I'm a developer yeah

Anything in particular you want to know ?

I was just wondering really whether amateur developers are going to get the chance to distribute their games in a way which hasn't been available for quite a few years. I remember readers' games being given away with Amiga Format back in the early 90s, and I'd be interested to know whether xbox live/wii ware (which I admit I know very little about) will give people a similar opportunity? Obviously games can get distributed over the internet, but it's not really the kind of flash/browser based games I'm thinking about, but more professional looking products created by people who can't get a foothold in the industry.

There is XNA on the 360 which is a C# based developer system, it involves a subscription fee and from my point of view doesnt get you much exposure (how many games has anyone seen on live coming from XNA ?).

One thing you could explore is "home-brew" stuff. but this can sometimes be very difficult, and it covers more practical problems of getting stuff running on the machine of your choice, distribution and getting it seen are still down to you. Also it has legal gray areas (pertaining to reverse engineering of other software usually).

If your wanting to woo a game developer with your skills the easiest path would be to knock something up for windows DirectX or OpenGL.

I must say i feel lucky to have been born in the late 70's, i had access to many 8bit/16bit computers as a kid which helped me learn most of what i know. Kids today have no such opportunities.

Didn't iD software (Doom/Quake/etc) start up by distributing shareware demos on BBSs ? (Although i don't expect many people to be able to emulate these guys success).

Edited by scorp on Tuesday 13th May 15:40

[apocalypso]

scorp said:

I must say i feel lucky to have been born in the late 70's, i had access to many 8bit/16bit computers as a kid which helped me learn most of what i know. Kids today have no such opportunities.

Edited by scorp on Tuesday 13th May 15:40

That was what got me thinking about it - I did try programming on 16 bit machines, and I had no aptitude for it! But if I had had the talent then I would have had a realistic chance of creating and distributing a decent game. Now, with games being such big business I don't think the opportunities are there any more.

[scorp]

apocalypso said:

scorp said:

I must say i feel lucky to have been born in the late 70's, i had access to many 8bit/16bit computers as a kid which helped me learn most of what i know. Kids today have no such opportunities.

Edited by scorp on Tuesday 13th May 15:40

That was what got me thinking about it - I did try programming on 16 bit machines, and I had no aptitude for it! But if I had had the talent then I would have had a realistic chance of creating and distributing a decent game. Now, with games being such big business I don't think the opportunities are there any more.

Serious 8/16bit development is hard especially by todays standards, i would say things have gotten easier since then (although less fun).

Thing is games are so big these days they requires large teams with each person filling a small role. Gone are the jack-of-all-trades back bedroom programmer types who create a game from start to finish, artwork, sound and code. There are a few of us still around, we just do niche stuff

There's nothing to stop you knocking up a space invaders clone or even a quake clone in DirectX/OpenGL if you have the patience and interest for it.

Edited by scorp on Tuesday 13th May 16:12

[RB Will]

I'm sure there used to be a package on the playstation 1 (think it was a black version, Yaroze or something) where you could create your own games. They used to put the finished games on the demo discs with playstation magazine.

[scorp]

RB Will said:

I'm sure there used to be a package on the playstation 1 (think it was a black version, Yaroze or something) where you could create your own games. They used to put the finished games on the demo discs with playstation magazine.

Yeah I remember that, they were dark green if i remember, and had a cut down version of Sony libraries so you could do 2d stuff (no 3d support).

[Codefaster]

RB Will said:

I'm sure there used to be a package on the playstation 1 (think it was a black version, Yaroze or something) where you could create your own games. They used to put the finished games on the demo discs with playstation magazine.

Yep - there is at least one person in our studio that got onto a coverdisc via Net Yaroze. How about the Sam Coupe? Was anyone involved in that scene? Even more exclusive

[scorp]

Codefaster said:

Yep - there is at least one person in our studio that got onto a coverdisc via Net Yaroze. How about the Sam Coupe? Was anyone involved in that scene? Even more exclusive

Involved quite a bit in the amiga 'scene' myself

[franv8]

Fascinating topic - especially comparison of the old vs the new.

[Hobes]

There are still some good games made by one person. It depends how bothered by graphics you are. ADOM ( www.adom.de ) is fantastic and I have put more hours into that than most commercial games. It is a rogue-like game so the graphics are entirely ASCII characters but if you perservere its worth it.

The Avernum series ( http://www.avernum.com/ ) is also very good.

A recent one I have discovered is Unreal World which is one of the most original games I've ever played although again, it takes a while to get into it. It is basically a survival game with no real objective but if you're into Ray Mears or Bear Grylls you might like it

( http://www.jmp.fi/~smaarane/urw.html )

Edited by Hobes on Wednesday 14th May 13:51

[apocalypso]

scorp said:

Serious 8/16bit development is hard especially by todays standards, i would say things have gotten easier since then (although less fun).

Thing is games are so big these days they requires large teams with each person filling a small role. Gone are the jack-of-all-trades back bedroom programmer types who create a game from start to finish, artwork, sound and code. There are a few of us still around, we just do niche stuff

There's nothing to stop you knocking up a space invaders clone or even a quake clone in DirectX/OpenGL if you have the patience and interest for it.

I've always been fascinated by game development (and programming in general) but I've never really have the attention to detail skills, or the patience, to do it. But having just got back into gaming after a few years out, and being a bit older and a bit more patient, I'm starting to get an itch to do it again! Also I've nearly finished Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and every time I read a book with a strong programming story element (the last one was J-Pod) this mood comes over me. Knocking up a space invaders clone definitely appeals to me right now.

Also having read a few of the replies I'm beginning to see that the various scenes have always been around, but not having taken an interest since I was in my early teens I've just not noticed. So shame on me for being so blinkered!

What kind of games do you develop Scorp? I like the idea that there are still a few old school auteurs out there!

[apocalypso]

Hobes said:

There are still some good games made by one person. It depends how bothered by graphics you are. ADOM ( www.adom.de ) is fantastic and I have put more hours into that than most commercial games. It is a rogue-like game so the grahpics are entirely ASCII characters but if you perservere its worth it.

The Averum series ( http://www.avernum.com/ ) is also very good.

A recent one I have discovered is Unreal World which is one of the most original games I've ever played although again it takes a while to get into it. It is basically a survival game with no real objective but if you're into Ray Mears or Bear Grylls you might like it

( http://www.jmp.fi/~smaarane/urw.html )

Thanks - going to check them out at the weekend!

[scorp]

Hobes said:

There are still some good games made by one person. It depends how bothered by graphics you are. ADOM ( www.adom.de ) is fantastic and I have put more hours into that than most commercial games. It is a rogue-like game so the graphics are entirely ASCII characters but if you perservere its worth it.

Technically not true, games today are written with the support of libraries, something you didn't see in the old-days (16bit era and before) were things were written quite literally from the ground up.

[scorp]

apocalypso said:

What kind of games do you develop Scorp? I like the idea that there are still a few old school auteurs out there!

I do mainly cheat devices these days (one begins with G and another begins with X) aswell as library/reverse engineered code (usually creating libraries for undocumented hardware like graphics and sound hardware). Before that i worked as a 2d/3d graphics programmer mainly.