OT - Kind of

chewy027 · #1 November 29th, 2001, 04:34 PM

This is a question for all you computer programers out there. How hard would it be to program a game of SE4's magnitude?, and how much experience would be needed to do something like that?

Suicide Junkie · #2 November 29th, 2001, 09:02 PM

I'd say "very" and "lots".

Aaron started (AFAIK) with SE I, way way back in the dim history of computers (anybody know the year?). Each iteration added experience, and hard work, and lots of time.

ZeroAdunn · #3 November 29th, 2001, 09:03 PM

Depends on what sort of resources you had, if you had a team, it wouldn't be to hard (still hard but it wouldn't be as hard as) if you only had one guy working on it, very hard. It can also depend on the equipment, there are various programs that help ease programming. And of course your programming skills.

All in all though, from the sheer complexity of the program I would say it is pretty probably hard.

chewy027 · #4 November 29th, 2001, 09:27 PM

so where would you start i mean what type of language would you use and such

Atrocities · #5 November 29th, 2001, 10:05 PM

One thing about game development if you have ever disected a game is that a game is nothing more than basic images that move. Much like a movie. I took BOTF apart, and found that 90% of the game was graphics. The rest was the program that used the graphics and interacted with the player.

I would love to posess the knowledge needed to program games. Man I have a few that I would love to see made that currently are not on the market.

Alpha Kodiak · #6 November 29th, 2001, 10:21 PM

The hard part isn't the programming. The hard part is to come up with a complete, consistent game design including all of the rules, combat system, movement system, AI behaviour, etc.

Once you have the complete game design, you can begin the software design. I would recommend an object oriented approach to the design as it would simplify the implementation later. It is important to get the software design to model the game design completely. Pay attention especially to the data structures that you are going to use to model the game. Don't start coding until the design is complete.

As far as language is concerned, it is purely what you are used to. I would use C++ because that is what I use the most. It is not necessarily the easiest, mind you, just what I am comfortable with. Delphi would work, and even (cough... choke...) VB could be used. You want a language that can support objects and understands Windows dialogs, etc. (I am assuming you want it to run on Windows, rather than Linux, Mac, DOS or other operating system.)

The most important thing that most people overlook when approaching something like this is that the design is the important part. If you have a good design, implementation is much easier.
(Not trivial by any means, but easier.)

Baron Munchausen · #7 November 29th, 2001, 10:36 PM

quote:
Originally posted by chewy027:
This is a question for all you computer programers out there. How hard would it be to program a game of SE4's magnitude?, and how much experience would be needed to do something like that?

More time and experience than one person can possess.

Even now SE IV is a long way from finished. There were LOTS of features described in the early text files from the game that are now gone. Planetary cloaks, planetary engines, warp gates, "monster" troops, etc. He's so busy fixing bugs that he doesn't have time to follow through on all the plans. If he could find an AI programmer maybe he could resume work on the main game.

chewy027 · #8 November 29th, 2001, 10:56 PM

so alpha ur saying that any language could possible be used...ok... now about game design do you mean like ideas and such or rule sets for the program to follow

Alpha Kodiak · #9 November 30th, 2001, 02:59 AM

quote:
Originally posted by chewy027:
so alpha ur saying that any language could possible be used...ok... now about game design do you mean like ideas and such or rule sets for the program to follow

Think of it as a game first, before thinking of it as a computer game. If you and a friend were to sit down and play it as a board game, how would it work? What would the rules be? How would you move, fight, etc.? What about economics, research, population control? The computer can allow the rules and computations to be more complex and in depth than a playable board game, but there still need to be consistent rules.

Will · #10 November 30th, 2001, 03:53 AM

I'm going to ditto a lot of the other comments here. I'm not exactly an "experienced" programmer (about two years on-and-off as a hobby), but I do know that if you don't know any details about your program, you won't be able to write it. Programming is not really something where you can just "wing it", especially if you're doing object-oriented programming. Object-oriented was made like that on purpose, forcing programmers to plan what they're going to do.

I would recommend learning C++, mainly because the only Languages I know much about are C++, Java, and VB. C++ is just plain more powerful than VB, and it's "sexier"

. Java... well, on a list that compared programming Languages to automobiles, IIRC, C++ was a turbo-charged Ferrari, VB was the clunker you ditched as soon as you got $2,500 to get a decent used car, and Java was an All-Terrain, Very Slow Vehicle. Plus you could get help in lots of places in learning C++.

After you spend about a year learning and practicing C++ (including how to do graphics, basic AI, standard game loop, etc.), come back to your game idea, and develop it. A lot. Make all the rules, as stated by Alpha Kodiak. Find a friend that doesn't know about your plans for the game (would be nice if the friend knew how to program, and even nicer if the friend is a she and you give me her number...

. If they ask for more details about how something works, you don't have enough details in that area, so keep developing.

Once you've developed all the rules, in the case of object-oriented Languages, plan out your classes. You'll be very glad at this point that you developed throroughly. If you didn't, planning your classes will be difficult, and if planning your classes is difficult, you didn't develop enough. Find more friends to look at your ideas. Find strangers to look at your ideas. Find anyone.

Once you've developed the rules and planned your classes, you begin programming. If you have anyone helping you, it is really nice to have well planned classes, because you can divvy up programming the classes, and make things much easier. Since each class has it's internals mapped out pretty good, you can be reasonably sure that everything will click together with minimal work in the end.

Now with all that, you can see that making a game of SE4's magnitude is really quite difficult. I'm really amazed that Aaron made SE4 on his own, albeit with a large idea factory made up of fans of SE3. Even if all this seems discouraging, I urge you to look into it. Even if the game itself doesn't make it to something close to a working computer game, you will learn a lot of skills that are very valuable in the world today. And you just might come up with a better game idea, and since you've already gone through the process once, the second time around will be much easier (I'm sure Aaron could verify this, or any of the programmers of the other games Shrapnel publishes).

Good luck