Hi Ken,
Well, I for one will whole heartedly agree there is nothing quite like getting your little paws on some source code and playing around with it. Even though I took professional courses on programming that didn't give me any kind of practical experience. I did a fair amount of grabbing existing code and modifying it bit by bit to see what I could do with it myself. That's the only way to gain experience is by doing it.
Cheers! On 3/30/2012 6:58 PM, Ken wrote:
I agree, Jeremy. What I did, since though I knew QBasic I didnt know VB at all, was to simply start modifying an open-source game, Chopper Patrol. Little by little, I modified it, and voila--Enemy Attack was born. Soon after that, I had to start from scratch. I wanted a whole new style of game, a pinball/breakout kind of thing, so I began work on Wrecking Ball. Imagine my joy when I could simply copy over the directX modules, and only had to change the names of the sounds. Then I had to start from scratch again. I discovered another variant of Basic, called Basic4ppc. I wanted to learn that language because games I programmed on it could run on my Pac Mate, and I wanted to make games that would work with the display. I made a game I never published called Infinite Reactions. After that, I made Phrase Madness. Then, I started from scratch again. I went back to VB6 because Basic4PPC can't do 3d audio, and I wanted to make a toy helicopter sim. Well, I had to scour the net for some viable 3d audio code, and once I found it I could simply modify it, change it little by little to what I wanted. Therefore, if one of you gamers wonder whether you can program, get an open-source game and have a look at it. If you understand its elements, you can start changing things about it, and soon you have a whole new game. I also experimented with the GMA engine, and wrote some games with that, but lost my old computer before I could publish them. Its best feature was, for me, the map maker. Since I want more levels for Heli, it's about time I write one of my own. I feel like Im reinventing the wheel, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do I guess, lol.
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