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Living Room / Re: 10th Anniversary - long time member check-in thread
« on: March 08, 2015, 01:02 PM »
Hello Jesse and community members. Congratulations on ten years! I have fond memories of my time spent here. I am reminded of it often as I have two N.A.N.Y mugs that I use for pen holders. One at home and one at work. I still work for the US Army on military simulations. I have also written some software that is used where I work. I've recently started building games for them. I have done one so far and starting on a second one now. I'm using Unity and learning as I go. I don't belong to any online communities. I got rid of my Facebook account years ago and I never post any more to Twitter or Goggle Plus. There are no forums I visit regularly. I don't even really surf the Net much any more. I do use the Net every day, but it is mostly as a reference system while coding or troubleshooting. I've also stopped using most programs that I purchased during my time on DC -- all the various utilities and such. I just use programs as I need them to accomplish what I need to do. No more tinkering and tweaking my system. I've also started using a Mac about 50% of my computing time. Needed to make the switch in order to build apps for iOS devices. Outside of my day job, I have been technical editor on some books. Done about eight so far and just started on another. It keeps my busy on the weekends and brings in a few extra bucks to spend on games on Steam. Since my days on DC, I have found a wonderful woman that I live with. I have given up on forums/communities mostly to spend more time with her. We even find some time to play a game of Civilization IV together every now and then. Overall I have slowed down quite a bit. It turns out for most of my adult life I've had Bipolar Disorder II and didn't know it. That means that much of my bursts of energy were due to Mania. So most of my late nights and fits of overly abundant activity were bouts of Mania. Since I am now on medications, I am more "normal" and don't get get so hyper. I'm basically a lot more mellow. I'm glad to see DC is alive and kicking. It has always been a great resource. I'm sure it will continue to be so for many years to come.

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General Software Discussion / Re: A call to all game design afficionados. Framework for making simple games?
« on: February 05, 2012, 01:14 PM »
It still feels to me that these game frameworks are aiming at 'arcade' or 'point and shoot'-type games.
-urlwolf (January 30, 2012, 01:57 AM)

Yep. That's what game frameworks are. They're to do the 2D/3D stuff that you need to build a game. As the stuff besides the 2D/3D stuff is already available with the core libraries.

Apart from dragging and dropping things, writing an answer to a question is the most common behavior. The time pressure component is important, but so is the collaboration (or competition) in real time
-urlwolf (January 30, 2012, 01:57 AM)

So, you don't need a game framework. You are just building a standard application, a.k.a. a business application. Nothing in that description is specific to games and thus would not require a game framework.

So I would contend that you are looking for one of two things. Either a purpose-built application that creates the type of "multimedia" application you want or a visual programming tool like 40Hz linked to avoid building it in a text editor.

That said, I would suggest taking the things you have already built (with the tools you had) and finding the common elements of those designs and then solicit the various universities and such to find students that are willing to create such an application as an open source project. If such a tool would be of aid to people learning a topic, I am sure the universities will be interested.

But, if you are now thinking, "Well, yeah... That is what I am asking for. i.e. an application to build these 'games' quickly. So you are just saying, in order to build it you must build it." Then I would say that in the most basic form you are asking the general question "How do I make custom programs quickly with the least effort and not having to learn some new programming stuff?"  And the answer I would reply with is do exactly what you are doing. Namely just use the stuff you already know how to use to McGyver up some prototypes that are good enough to determine if the project is worth "spending more resources" on. If it is, then hire/find a programmer that can build stuff for you quickly.


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General Software Discussion / Re: A call to all game design afficionados. Framework for making simple games?
« on: January 28, 2012, 12:23 PM »
Of course doing things in html 5 would be great, as they are web-ready directly.
-urlwolf (January 26, 2012, 11:15 AM)

GameMaker:HTML5 will allow you to build them directly in HTML.

I have used GameMaker 7 & 8, but not the HTML5 version. It is what I would actually recommend as my first choice for what you want. It is the easiest to work with if you don't want to program but need to "program" behavior into the game. It has the building blocks that you need to do drag and drop development.

One thing that would probably otherwise be off the radar for most people answering this question is...

Zillions of Games

It is a very simple way to make parlor-type games. Games where you basically just need to build a virtual game board and pieces.

Lots of the other suggestions listed here are great for making games, but they will require you do to programming, which I believe you are trying to avoid.

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Living Room / Re: Elvis Sighting
« on: December 14, 2011, 07:41 AM »
Howdy y'all.

Thought I would get a head start on one of my new year resolutions to write more stuff that contributes to spreading my knowledge and experience to others who are getting started programming. I also hope to reestablish some dormant friendships. And I figured there was no better place to get started than here.

I continue to be busy, overwhelmed actually, with work I want to do, however, one of my projects that I plan on writing about is how I plan to get myself organized once and for all through prioritization, automation, and just plain giving up on some things. I hope to both offer advice and learn from others here at DC.

I'm looking forward to getting reacquainted with you folks over the course of the new year.

And maybe restart the python programming school lessons.  :Thmbsup:

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Living Room / Elvis Sighting
« on: December 12, 2011, 04:57 PM »
 8)


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