Who's up for a group challenge?

The Partridge Family were neither partridges nor a family. Discuss.
albinopapa
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Re: Who's up for a group challenge?

Post by albinopapa » May 30th, 2020, 5:11 am

Yeah, my outlook was " this is completely voluntary, so I can't just tell people what to do". If I had a project idea of my own, then maybe I would feel a little different, but this was suppose to be just a group of people throwing out ideas, then implementing those ideas that were agreed upon.

In one of the other projects I tried working on as a collab, the other person wanted descriptive variable names, comments and well documented git commits. I'm perfectly fine with the descriptive variable names as that mostly eliminates the need for comments ( which is what I told him ) and as far as the commits I didn't have a problem either since it's easier than looking through a diff, though there is that as well. The thing that got me is one day we had an argument about a variable name I had used. It wasn't very descriptive as I didn't know what else to call it. He suggested a name equally as ambiguous, so I told him to finish the project on his own if he's going to knit-pick.

Another person I tried working with lacked any sort of confidence in his abilities and he just disappeared, kind of like I did.

Another project had me as a solo programmer trying to create a pretty ambitious game. The art assets were taken care of, but considering the main mechanic for the game was network play and I have pretty much no experience with networking progress was pretty slow as I had to learn as I went. Well, progress was not fast enough for the guy and he lost interest in that project and suggested working on a different code base ( Final Fantasy 11 if I recall ). The code is pre-C++11 so there are a few hacks here and there that got me confused and side-tracked. Needless to say, I had to bow out because it was way over my head.

The last team project I tried being a part of, fell a part pretty quick. Instead of having tasks, the idea was to have each person basically make a version of the game and vote on which to keep. Well, one of us three is pretty knowledgeable with C++ and programming in general so I found it kind of pointless to even participate as this guy knocked his version out in a couple of hours. I think that kind of deterred me and the other guy from continuing with the project.

I'd love to start up another group game, though, this time I think I'd like to have a pretty good plan in place before attempting it again.

As far as helping on open source projects, this one is a tough one for me. It's been awhile since I've made the attempt and I've learned a lot since that last time so maybe I'll try again.
If you think paging some data from disk into RAM is slow, try paging it into a simian cerebrum over a pair of optical nerves. - gameprogrammingpatterns.com

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krautersuppe
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Re: Who's up for a group challenge?

Post by krautersuppe » May 31st, 2020, 6:22 am

This project is not dead as long as I have not kicked the bucket. Do not privatize it.

Philosophical ramblings about leadership, experience, skill or whatever aren't worth jack shit.
The proof of pudding is in the eating. Very first page must contain a current release that works even if it is just spaceships or enemy sprites standing still on the screen. Title is catchy but what keeps the public interested is seeing some results.

When I read this thread for the first time I saw some fancy words of details, that is why I decided to join in later when I have more understanding about what everything mentioned means. That is of course somewhat ridiculous since one can produce myriad of games just by watching first few tutorials.

Since most of traffic is on the discord channel, there should be a thread or channel dedicated to this. Of course with linked, working release. Goal is quite ambitious - community members have only produced very few side-scrollers over the years, all the rest is frozen arcade.

I will work on this and try to organize it after 2 releases I have planned, the one is close by, but the other might take half a year.
DSU
Discord: dsu1, GitHub: https://github.com/DSpUz

albinopapa
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Location: Oklahoma, United States

Re: Who's up for a group challenge?

Post by albinopapa » May 31st, 2020, 7:34 am

Quite the passion there bud, what are you getting at? You trying to resurrect this thing as a solo mission or a group?

Yeah, I've read stuff suggesting that the core of the application should be completed before asking for help on the project.

I understand that this shouldn't be all the difficult given what the game was suppose to be for 1-3 persons. That wasn't the issue really, the goal of this particular project was to get experience as a programmer, a game programmer and working together. My goal was never about the game itself.

I guess if I'm being honest about it, I probably just wanted some friends with similar interests. None of the people around me know anything about programming nor have any interest in learning or hearing about my experiences. The forum has been my refuge and the group game was going to be a way for me to make friends. I'm shy and awkward, so the discord channel is kind of a bit much for me to handle.

I'm curious to know what your plans are with this mess.
If you think paging some data from disk into RAM is slow, try paging it into a simian cerebrum over a pair of optical nerves. - gameprogrammingpatterns.com

albinopapa
Posts: 4373
Joined: February 28th, 2013, 3:23 am
Location: Oklahoma, United States

Re: Who's up for a group challenge?

Post by albinopapa » July 16th, 2020, 9:37 pm

So, krautersuppe has decided to help bring this project back to life with some interesting ideas about gameplay. The only downside for me is I'm having a hell of a time coming up with ideas of my own for enemy behaviors. If anyone would like to offer up their imagination it would be a great help.

We've decided that having a set path for the enemies wasn't entertaining enough.

A few of the ideas that he has come up with as far as game play is
limiting ammunition,
overheating of weapons,
limiting of fuel,
using oxygen reserves when fuel is expired, then limiting oxygen reserves,
with all this, I've managed SO FAR to convince him to keep the shields and to use them to destroy enemy ships when you run out of ammo since the shields will regenerate.

Basically, the behaviors of the enemies and bosses need to take into account that they can't be too intelligent since there is limited ammo and fuel.
Bullet hell type enemies and bosses again might be a bad idea for the same reasons.
As you kill enemies you gain points.
Your points will be your currency for purchasing more fuel, ammo and upgrades to weapons and even your ship.

I think as far as coding goes, everything seems to be simple enough so far, and Kraut has found an artist for assets.

I just don't have ideas for behaviors.

Anyway, again, any ideas would be awesome.
If you think paging some data from disk into RAM is slow, try paging it into a simian cerebrum over a pair of optical nerves. - gameprogrammingpatterns.com

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krautersuppe
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Location: Istanbul

Re: Who's up for a group challenge?

Post by krautersuppe » July 17th, 2020, 11:04 am

albinopapa wrote:
July 16th, 2020, 9:37 pm
Basically, the behaviors of the enemies and bosses need to take into account that they can't be too intelligent since there is limited ammo and fuel.
False.
The goal of the game is for it to be challenging and requiring memorization and planning. So enemies-at the very least in higher levels- can definitely have intelligent behaviour.
DSU
Discord: dsu1, GitHub: https://github.com/DSpUz

albinopapa
Posts: 4373
Joined: February 28th, 2013, 3:23 am
Location: Oklahoma, United States

Re: Who's up for a group challenge?

Post by albinopapa » July 17th, 2020, 9:01 pm

I think with the limitations you have come up with, the game will be challenging enough and am considering only enabling those features for a "Punish me daddy" difficulty setting LOL.
If you think paging some data from disk into RAM is slow, try paging it into a simian cerebrum over a pair of optical nerves. - gameprogrammingpatterns.com

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