Shonumi

I second SDL. I've been using it for years and it's pretty darn handy for any task I need. I'm currently working on my first full original game with it. SDL is written in C, but you can use it in C++ without any problems. It's got extensions to it that allow the loading of nigh any image format you'd actually want to use in a game, music, sprite rotations, fonts and more. The biggest pluses I find are that it's small, simple, and cross-platform. You can basically write code once and have it compile on Windows, Linux, or OS X without changing anything. SDL is great for 2D work, but I've been working with it and OpenGL for 3D things. It's been the easiest way yet to get into 3D game programming for me without resorting to system specific code. Another alternative is SFML which is pretty good too, so I hear. I have no personal experience with it, and it's written in C++, so it has a more object orientated approach to its API. If you're desperate, I guess there's always Allegro. Dunno all that much about it though.

Your game's looking pretty nice. It has a good foundation so far. I'll have to agree with LH The Hedgehog, your Tropical Forest has too much in common with Leaf Forest Zone from Sonic Advance 2. It's not the level layout, it's due to the fact that it has the same tiling almost. Although I must say, I like the backgrounds for Tropical Forest and especially Freezing Alps. I hope to see more soon.

I started off with a variant of BASIC, BlitzBASIC for gaming. Didn't finish the book that came with it, but a few years later I jumped into C++ with no real problems; I've been using it since 2004. It depends on how strong you are in terms of understanding fundamental concepts of computing. I learned most of what I needed from sites like cprogramming.com and they've got one kick-ass community there to help people at the forums. cplusplus.com I've found to be the most in-depth for references too. I took a class at my university last semester, just to see if my knowledge was up to task, and it was an easy A. Just saying that you can effectively learn C++ on your own time and effort if you apply yourself. It's really not as hard as some people perceive it to be. Currently I'm using C++ and SDL (graphics library) for making small games to get experience. Nothing major so far. A prior language before learning C++ is always nice to establish the fundamentals. If darkBASIC doesn't suit your needs, I'd really go with JavaScript rather than Python or Java. It's a bit more accessible and flexible. The syntax is C like and it'll provide a nice foundation for other languages. It's technically also not an OOP language, but it still makes use of objects.

You should most definitely go with Windows 7. I mean, come on, it has all of those newfangled shiny effects and whatnot. My dad's got it on his laptop and it hasn't had any trouble whatsoever with anything we've thrown at it. All of the software was installed without a hitch. The question for you, predominantly, is 32 bit vs 64 bit. Two factors warrant a 64 bit version of Windows 7. More RAM past 4GB, and faster applications (maybe). 64 bit applications speeds might generally be faster than their 32 bit counterparts, but it's something where your mileage will vary on. One thing of important note is to make sure you've got all of your 64 bit drivers on hand for your hardware, because the 32 bit ones ain't gonna cut it. I don't think this is a major problem with manufacturers, but be aware though.

My first thoughts exactly. It's unusual to animate simple X-Y coordinate translation as frames. Most of the time it's done by programming. It would save you from having to handle 13 additional sprites at the very least. Anyways, good luck with your project. It's not like you're trying to recreate the entire game. One or two levels ought to be doable. Ought to be.

Whatever you do, don't cry. It's no use. Anyways, it really depends on a number of factors, but any liquids near electronics ain't good. Might be serious since it powered down by itself. Seems like something was obviously killed. Personally, I wouldn't touch it again until a technician can look over it and it's had a chance to dry.

1. Yes, been one for a while now. Currently trying to minor in CS. 2. Yes. Lots of it. 3. Same thing as Aero. 4. Yeah. 5. Hells yeah. 6. Probably, dunno the official names for most. Singletons, Prototypes, Interpreters, Iterators, to name a few 7. A flexible API, easy to use because tasks are succinct yet sufficient (I'm thinking more Python-ish) and thorough documentation. The last one is major for me. No matter how strange it is to use something in programming, good docs makes a huge difference in how anybody gets to use it.

Shonumi is my real name. If I were Japanese, that is. Before that, when I was a wee noob, it was Team Shadow V2. It was styled after the Mega Man Battle Network stuffs. My best friend erroneously combined the two nouns and called himself Team Shadow. So of course I one-upped him.

Funny you should mention that, because she does. The Ethereal Queen's Super Nova takes up some 60% of the fighting arena and basically wastes anybody there in 2 seconds, even big bruisers with 90K of HP. But part of the strategy in surviving is having the healer stand far away as possible, resurrect a character, and then continue to fight on. I must have died well near hundred times (no joke, accounting for all party members) when I fought her in her highest level, which also sets her up with about 6.6 million HP. That's a ridiculous amount of HP for any boss in any game, except maybe Disgaea. Besides, there's an item that literally lets you revive your entire party (full health too) so long as someone lives to use it, so it isn't exactly easy to get mopped up. That's all part of the reason I liked the game so much. It's the perfect challenge for RPG freaks like myself. Of course, maybe that hour long battle took so long because I'm no good at the game? Dunno, but it was fun. Even funnier still was that the first time I did try it, I lost in like 5 minutes flat and I did throw the game. Such rage it was.

4) Star Ocean: The Last Hope (360). The latest SO game with the worst plot. I can't take a game seriously where the main character is named Edge Maverick. Despite that, the graphics were top notch and music was pretty kickin' thanks to the prolific Motoi Sakuraba. The reason I enjoyed it so much was the final dungeon. You'll spend 3-4 hours making your way through with no save points and then fight the game's hardest boss, which the battle itself can take up to an hour on higher game difficulties. If you lose the battle, you gotta start all over again, minus 4-5 hours of your life. Intense. 3) Kingdom Hearts 357/2 Days (DS). A decent 3D Adventure/RPG on the DS. Square Enix really outdid themselves in the graphics department on this one. Granted it's as good as the PSX way back when, on the DS screen it looks pretty good. Lots of missions makes me feel like I got my money's worth too. 2) Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (DS). I just got this for my B-day last month, so I'm still playing it. I wanted this game solely for Fawful's dialog. 1) Knights In The Knightmare (DS). Probably one of the most overlooked games for the DS this year. The gameplay is simply mind blowing when you see what Atlus did. It's like battle chess but in real time. Graphics are amazing for 2D effects and the sprites are varied. The music is very memorable too. Plus, for some reason, it's one of the games out there that I find it easier to play with the stylus in your left hand as opposed to the right. Eh, didn't make 5. I only typically get RPGs anyway. All the other games I played weren't from '09.

Hmm, I'd like to "ask permission" just to see what would happen. I'm kinda curious as to the actual response I'd get (or lack thereof?). Nice article though. Anyway, I'd only imagine that they would take legal action against you if it was worth their time and money. In such a case, your fangame would potentially have to be comparable or even better to the products of the game company e.g. the likes of Chrono Resurrection. But given the general nature of fangaming, that can be long shot by any means. Unlike the RIAA, however, game companies don't like to piss off the people that love what they make/distribute, which may be why I can't find many examples of them suing fangames.

I don't know why a lot of people seemed surprised by this move. It's primarily for the older spectrum of gamers. With the Wii, they probably discovered that this aging market loves to play games, in some way or form, and I see this as a continuation of that strategy but on the handheld platform. I know a lot of older friends of mine that won't touch a DS or DSi because they'd rather play on something where they don't have to squint so much. Plus, you have to realize, a rather large portion of Japan's population is getting old (it's a problem if some of you haven't heard, read about it), seems like a logical move to cater to them and the rest of the global community (baby boomers with a DS?). The consideration is at least thoughtful (not profitable, probably) because everyone's eyesight's gonna fail to a degree eventually. As for me, meh. If this new DS doesn't pump up the specs and guarantee a lower quality-to-crap game ratio, it shouldn't even matter to anyone who looks to the DS as their main source of portable gaming. My original DS is doing alright, so this looks like a passable opportunity for me.

This all seems like a great undertaking Blue Frenzy, and it's nice to see someone building an engine with a "real" programming language. Looks like this could be going places real soon. Hope this would allow for cross-platform compatibility too. However there is the matter of one issue. void main()? ... No. No. And no. void main() is just blasphemy in the name of all that is good! Other than that, I can't wait to try this myself. It should do just dandy for me. I know lots of C++, so it won't be much trouble at all to use. I just can't stand C-style strings. Anyway, looks good, keep up the work.

So wait, it was filmed in Italian, dubbed in English, and the site offers a subtitle file for the movie... in Italian. Hmm... curiouser and curiouser. I actually wouldn't mind to watch it in Italian. I'm very intolerant of dubs as opposed to subs. I'm still gonna watch it, once my school work winds down.

Hmmm... Being involved with the fan-gaming community, I know that sometimes the quality isn't really up to par on some projects, so I'm kind of skeptical even more of fan-made movies. But still this looks pretty good and I love MGS. This will make for a good movie to watch Saturday night. I'll let you know my other comments later. Seems promising though.

Sweet dude, an Advance Wars like game. I love that series, and I've always wondered what it would be like if someone made a game themselves about it or similar to it. I'm looking forward to the development of this. Glad to see some cross-platform goodness going on too. I get tired of running games under WINE, and the native application you made works just fine under my Slackware 13 installation. The static binary files that you make with C++ and SDL should work on almost any Linux distro, regardless of which desktop (KDE, GNOME, xfce) they're running and whether or not SDL is installed, so it's really great for distributing games across Linux. No .dll files to deal with like in Windows. The only thing that I should note is that some distros won't let you simply double click the static binary file and run it, the window pops up for a second and then the application disappears. In this case it would need to be run from the terminal, something in the vein "./executable_file_name &" where the ampersand tells the OS to continue running the program in the background. I get this a lot with SDL game dev. Anyways, good work man. I can't wait to see what the next update is going to be like. Keep it up.

What better way to get kids hooked on free software and GNU/Linux than with Disney's latest popstar? I mean really what pre-teen gives a damn about Richard Stallman? Give them Hannah Montana! My sister absolutely hates this girl. I should dual boot this on the family computer sometime soon.

This device has me interested. Of course I could by somebody's cheap, used PSP and then gear it towards emulation, but this here toy is already setup for that. Convenience is a feature in my case. Plus, I'm with shadowgoten, this oughta be used strictly for emulation. 4GB is a lot for roms and such. Looks cool; I'm gonna ask for this for my birthday, or Chirstmas, whichever one, they're both kinda close.

What's this? Linux support?! I <3 this game already. I'm curious to know what you're using to make it too. C++, Python or something of the like? There's not much to say right now, but that loop was impressive. Of course I understand that the level is quite barren, but either the game's screen resolution is a bit too large, or the game objects themselves are too small. Just fix up the proportions a bit. Sonic Xtreme Fan Games tend to come and go, but I hope you decide to take it somewhere, because I can't recall someone ever doing it all the way through. Yours has some good potential behind it. Good luck and I hope you get us a demo soon. I just installed Slackware Linux 13.0 on my laptop, a native demo sans WINE would be wicked.

I remember Command Mission X. I used to mod a Mega Man forum, there was quite a bit of controversy about it. Mostly childish hardcore fan beliefs about what makes a good Mega Man game, but I thought it was good and merited a look-see into it. I just got un-addicted to Disgaea DS. Played it so much in a few sittings I cramped my right hand until it was useless for a day or two. Good thing about being ambidextrous is that I used the stylus with my left hand instead. Currently though, I'm played Knights In The Nightmare on the DS. Atlus makes hit or miss RPGs *cough*Luminous Arc*cough* but this one is amazing. Look up a video of the gameplay and you'll see just how intense and strategic the game can be. I'm sure this one will be over looked, but it really is worth the money. Plus, the game comes with the OST on a CD. More games should follow that lead. Strangely, I find myself played Halo (the 1st one) a lot. Brings back the memories of wasted Saturdays and Mountain Dew. All these years later I can still feel like a bad-ass soloing Legendary mode. Can't really stop loving that game though. Ever.

Ah, I see. That logic is resoundingly flawless. I guess then we should proceed in this fashion until he comes back.

Wait, am I missing something here? How do the quality of the DS Sonic Rush games have anything to do with Sonic CD sprite resolutions, or much less anything with Taxman's possible iPhone port? I'm just curious is all.

Chill dude. You're being perceived as "lame" because you seem to keep pestering the creators to present something they haven't even finished enough. When they feel like what they've got is worth showing off they'll let us know. It's not as if they're hiding something from us. I'd say you're becoming more impatient than uninterested in the project. Fangames don't have schedules, so something gets done whenever it gets done. Just check back on this project after a while and see if something comes up. But in all seriousness, it's spelled "losing" not "loosing".

As far as 2D Sonic Fangames go, you wouldn't normally want to use C++ unless you really want to be doing a lot of the engine work from pure scratch, right down to getting frames of a sprite just to animate. Simply because no one's done a lot of work in C++ concerning a decent engine, you'd be putting a lot of the work on yourself. This may or may not be your fancy. With 3D Sonic Fangames, definitely, you'll want the features of an OOP language, and C++ is powerful (depending on your use of course) in this regard. Also, heed this, C++ directly doesn't have a lick of code that outright deals with graphics, at least nothing that's in the standard headers. In addition to C++, you'll have to learn a graphics API, like Allegro or my favorite, SDL. In fact, if you want to do anything aside from console programming, you're going to have to get yourself an API, sit down with the documentation, and learn yourself a thing or two about how that works and how you're going to incorporate this into your C++ code. Despite all that, in general, I think you should learn C++. GML's syntax is more or less similar in nature (so I've heard) to C++. From my experience, learning C++ made every other language to come just a practice in changing the style of my code, and the nuances of the language's operations. A lot of languages are like C or C++ in syntax, and once you've learned the concepts of things like arrays, recursion, and all that jazz, moving to another language isn't as much of a transition as one would think. And besides, C++ ain't even all that bad or hard as most people try to make it, at least not the basics. I started learning nigh 4 years ago when I was a sophomore in high school, on my own, from web tutorials. It's really just getting a programming mindset and getting yourself willing to learn how things work with the code. It never hurts to even just wet your feet with a little "Hello World" business.

Damn dude, that sucks. My condolences for your unfortunate circumstances, especially not being at SAGE this year. I have this game on my list, twice. No need to apologize to us, the blame is on that hacker. I'll still be eagerly waiting for a demo.