CrypticSailor

Btw to people who are angry with this, these guys aren't actual developers Its pretty normal at any decent office for employees to have enough freedom to waste some time to keep their sanity. I think it'd make for nice atmosphere to work at an office like that. lol.

been listening to a lot of K-OS lately : ) Not that it is turntablism but its hip hop ish ;P

I think GML would be a great way to get your mind around C. It's how I started and now I'm pretty good with C++. I'm starting to think that Java is better for game development though since there's a lot more organization and standardized packages available. For example, most of C++'s libraries are not too well supported in terms of technical documentation. They don't even have a standard for installing for either Allegro or SFML for Visual Studio 2010 yet so I'm kinda bummed by that

Win 7 feels like XP to me Just a bit more stable actually(Believe me, I used work as a network admin on a network full of XP machines so I can tell you from experience ._.). Vista, as has been said before, was a giant piece of crap. Also, with 4gigs of memory you should be set. My laptop only has 3 and its never had to resort to VMM that I can recall.

It is, but I think that its just because we have our own crazy ideas we want to do. I think SFGHQ providing all of the materials sort of makes it a crutch for teamwork as well. By this I mean, since people have access to all of the engines and graphics, they figure they can do it all. Which of course is true with a *lot* of time, but we're only human and we're not paid for this. I'm sure if there werent some great level designers and artists simply ripping engines though and trying to make a game by programming the rest of the features, I'd be able to find a project to collab on pretty easily (which I really cant now, since my base engines are a lot different from the worlds engine and everyone uses it -__-). One day I will find that lonely artist who doesn't want to bother with MMF though, lol. I guess a partner is also sort of like a girlfriend though; you need to compromise on your views for anything to work.

Hm, that is a really good point OB. Maybe personally, it's been my "big vision"/lack of clear focus that makes things feel too overwhelming to work on. Also, Sparks: maybe collaborating will help? I know off of the top of my head that Hezman is AMAZING at level design(though whether he design for another game or not is a different story. lol). Also stuff that BFZ did was pretty great; and he was cranking those levels out like butter. lol. I guess the point I was making is maybe there's others out there who would specifically want to do that. To add my 2 cents since I hadn't yet, and since this is looking like a "what works/doesnt work" thing, I did find that having a blog helps. It's just an engine but even though I've paused it for schoolwork, for once I have a lot more pressure on myself to pick it up with it just laying there in public : )

Hi all, This has been bugging me lately, but every time I start a fangame and I get even somewhat busy, I find myself pausing my project. So I figured hey, how the hell does everyone else do it? I know that personally it hasn't been much of a social experience outside of this forum and just a few people on AIM, so theres a lot of incentive when anything else comes along to drop things for a while. So I don't know, I figured I'd ask. Maybe I'll learn something. What are your days like and how do you fit fangaming into them? (By the way, this could have went into either general fangame discussion or here, but I placed it here in case we go on a few tangents ;P)

imo, it just has to not hurt my eyes. lol Off topic: Hey Justin, what graphics library are you using for C++? Just wondering since I was considering porting my engine to it and haven't decided between Allegro, SDL, or SFML(even though I haven't been able to get SFML to work with either VC++2010 or NetBeans yet >=/)

Well, to be honest - I don't like the idea of working on fangames for years on end ;P As soon as my engine is done, I either a)get a competent team that can finish it in a time frame that fits a human life and attention span, b)just work that fast, or c)quit. I still wonder why SAGE isn't twice a year since the scope of our games is ultimately so small too but I guess thats just me. I'm sure its not worth any debate. lol : )

meh, August 1st? I am suddenly not finding this too appealing. I guess balancing school/life/this will be a bitch(more than usual, that is). It is masochistically satisfying though ;P

Sometimes we just have to do it for the love of the hobby. It certainly isn't for the fame, lol.

This is the exact reason why I have a few people I occasionally rant to on AIM about progress on these things(also keeps me from posting something incomplete and my sanity). You know who you are <3

That is actually not completely true. GM has more flexibility(not considering GML), even without an event editor if you learn the built in functions that are given to you(which would take the same time as it would to learn MMF, maybe less considering that it is object oriented and for somebody entirely new to things is actually easier to pick up). The reason some people think GM is difficult is because they were using click products for a while(like myself, 8+ years), so its hard to get used to not working with the event editor. Besides, the engines in GM being provided as templates are very quickly becoming more advanced. If you're completely uninterested in ever learning how to program though, learn MMF and import the entire worlds engine then just go straight to level editing(and hey, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that either but you're going to be doing yourself a disservice when you try to edit it and find out that you have to learn how to work with that and other people's code too. Suddenly your project ends up taking months just to complete creating basic features either way in this case). If you ever want to get good at programming and don't want to use a crutch though, then jump into GM and check out some of the engines sources. I'd recommend reading GMs documentation though and the forums are extremely helpful at yoyo games if you ever need help. Either way, creating games takes time and theres no real way to cut corners there

late to be noticing this post, but this whole thing reminds me of when I finally got fed up enough with MMF to learn C/C++(and then somehow GM instead) -- I was trying to make simple collision boxes that could spawn their own instances and found that it either slowed the shit out of it or wouldn't work as Clickteam "designed". This had been a problem for me since KNP and TGF... lol. I reported it but they've only made marginal improvements. I think it would be possible to create a DLL to assist with that sort of stuff, but you might be better off moving to a language or different tool for game creation than trying to deal with MMF tagging values to objects to relate them to each other : /(Yeaaarss of experience talking here).

I think nowadays, Game Maker is your best bet. It has *excellent* documentation. Actually, the documentation for it is better than any book I've been forced to read for a Comp Science language(currently ASM ugghh). If you want to make an RPG though, go for RPG maker. Be advised: if you want your game to be anything like the original games, you're going to have to be verrryyy passionate(or you can go super hardcore and turn to hacking in ASM/or utilities at Sonic Retro or something). It took me a few years of practice in Clickteam/GM and even now I figure out that I can do things better if I try again. Then again if your aim isn't to learn to create a game engine, then you can use one set up for you and familiarize yourself with it enough to edit it) But its a fun hobby and it actually gives you some practical skills for other things(like if you ever end up in the desert working as an IT, photoshop random shit... lol), anyway welcome

Pretty sweet looking BG Also I notice that you use GM7; are you using Dami's engine? If not, then I have a potential new one you can use if interested(although unfortunately I moved it to GM8 last month) ;D

I like Aytac Aksu, even though he never visited SFGHQ. As a person, he seemed pretty uptight, but his games were pretty solid for their time(I mean, in terms of fangames at least). Also, Manic before he went Manic. And there was a guy named Mike who had the icon of a gopher who was pretty awesome. Oh yeah, and I miss Jex, GD and Neokkun(before we lost contact due to MMORPGs) too. I also miss my petty battles with Blaze(you hear that buddy? ). I definitely don't miss some of the "1337"ism of the #SRB2 channel. Showoffboy was a pretty talented and humble guy too. I probably considered Rob Jomo a demigod for making probably the best fangame ever using Allegro/C at the time and yet it being completely original. I think I could go on, lol *memories*

Dude that's really awesome. I understand how you feel with the whole humility thing and not expecting to complete/or a big project but if you've done all of that 3D art by yourself and somehow made it playable/explorable, then you deserve a fu*king cookie(in the most non-sarcastic way possible).

Looking pretty awesome OB, can't wait for SAGE Also the Gamegear one is interesting, because its'... GameGear Also, since this is a screens thread check that out. Beautiful right? hahah. jk.

yep. I guarantee somebody is pasting away as we speak

That sounds really professional o_o

Thanks for the support and comments I'm a little busier than I expected to be, but I'm gonna try to update the blog at least twice a week with significant progress until SAGE.

I agree w/OB. Besides, if its good we can use all the good stuff we can get! lol(Just speaking from previous experience of sifting through a bunch of stuff to find anything worth playing/seeing). I think it'll be interesting to see what sort of things are being made now that the Sonic Worlds system has been popularized and all. Aside from that it looks like theres some interesting 3D projects, which is a change from the last time I was here I completely didn't even know when SAGE happened last year(in another country on deployment), but I'm hoping this year I can at least show a GM engine I've been working on : ) Not very presentable at the moment but I just want it to the point where it has enough features to facilitate the development of a full game w/o much adjustment outside of stage gimmicks.

I think it's pretty cool ;P The first one doesn't look bad either(I actually like it, looks different). As to whoever said the shoes had to match the gloves, that really makes no sense. It's not limited by a palette and it could completely be made of a different material if the creator intended. As for your second sprite, like another said(sorry I'm too tired to check all of the comments atm ;P), you should separate the last quills. Perhaps just add in a darker shade to do that which you use seldomly in the sprite as not to make future animations a pain in the ass. $.02

I was seriously wondering that myself.