Hi all, I thought I''d put up a post to introduce myself and say hello... I''m Caroline and I''m from the UK. I''m far too old to be into games programming but I have been a game fanatic for 20 years and a C++ programmer for about 3 years (with a break of 3 years also) and I have finally realised that I won''t be happy unless I am programming games for a living. Next year I am going Uni to do a Computer Science degree as a mature student. I may never be able to break into the industry but I certainly never will if I don''t try so I am going for it anyway. I''ve been coding C++ for the Windows platform but only using MFC - I have never really delved under the covers of Win32. There is so much to learn to even write the simplest DirectX game that I have decided to take a very different (and possibly quite useless!) approach to starting out... .. I''m writing games for the Commodore 64!! I got hit by the retro bug last year and haven''t been able to put it down since. Win32 and DirectX can seem a bit scary but there''s nothing scary about the 64 and as its such a tiny, simple machine in comparison to todays computers, it means that I can get a game written (to completion) in just days rather than months. Even though the code wont be relevant, it will allow me to complete a project, see how a game goes together, do what I was never able to do when I was 11 years old, and above all - have a load of retro fun! I''ve been rambling on long enough, l8er all Caroline M.

Nice idea, I''ve been thinking recently about trying to get hold of an old Atari ST and playing with some down and dirty 68000 assembler, stuff I tried to do when I was 12 but didn''t understand at all hehe. Not quite as retro as the C64 but should be fun.

DirectX is easier than you think, and Win32 is easy too...
You should get into programming Win32 and then move to DirectX.

I really don''t recommend making games with MFC( I HATE MFC ).
Good Luck.

KaMiKaZe

Welcome, I hope your attitude is rewarded!



(My projects and ramblings...)

Heh, good luck getting that basic to do anything nice; assembler is the only way to go on that thing. I recently downloaded a C64 emulator and ugh, that thing gave me a headache just looking at it!

But if you get tired of that I highly recommend a game lib like Allegro which wraps DircetX and adds a bunch of extra functionality.

Congrats on your new found clarity of purpose and have fun!

Wow. If you''re writing games purely for your own enjoyment, then a C64 will be fine - more power to you.

The problem is, no-one really uses assembler any more; as compilers get better, they get begin to surpass the best ASM guru''s optimization skills.

You already have C++ experience. Win32 isn''t as hard as you may think; and in any case, there''s nothing that says you have to use it. For example, you could use SDL to handle setting everything up for you, or the aforementioned Allegro.

Also, DirectX isn''t the only option you''ve got for graphics. For a newbie looking at 2D, I''d recommend OpenGL as being faster to get into (although slightly toothless when you get to advanced stuff).

Oh, and FMOD for the sound.

Superpig
- saving pigs from untimely fates, and when he''s not doing that, runs The Binary Refinery.

I just finished writing a version of snake in Basic. It runs slow as hell but I''ve got a few compilers for the C64 so I''ll see if they will work with it. I do actually intend to learn assembly on it too - not because I think I''ll ever need it but just to get over my fear of it. Plus, it can be handy to be able to at least look through assembly language and know what you''re looking at for when debugging in VC++ and you step in too far!

I did consider a library such as SDL but as I actually DO intend to get into the games industry eventually I''d rather learn the nuts and bolts of DirectX as that will open up a lot more doors for me than just a library. I look through all the games jobs posted every week and I keep track of all the tools and technologies that they are looking for. I track it over time so I can see how trends change. DirectX is asked for a lot, but I rarely see 3rd party libraries sought after.

Caroline M.

Welcome to GameDev.net

Happy Posting!!

PS: Are you a woman?

My compiler generates one error message: "does not compile."

hi caroline, thanx for mailing me those exercises.

and good luck with the c64 games

Can I recount my first experience with Win32?

It was in VC++, I was doing a tutorial that taught the basics of displaying a window on the screen. When you compiled it, it came up with a blank window. That was it. I spent hours trying to decipher the calls it made to libraries I couldn''t see and what the constants were doing. I gave up.

Not so long ago, however, I made quite a few signicant jumps in Visual Basic (of all languages). I tend to do a lot of experimentation with VB and many of the "here''s how to do so and so" examples you download from the internet use API calls. Eventually I started using API calls from VB''s API viewer. Then, one day, when I returned to my book on DirectX (long given up and doomed to the infernal depths of my bookcase) it suddenly made sense! And that stupid tutorial made sense too!!! I was sooo happpy...

Anyway here I am starting a game in DirectX. It''s not that hard, really. I have some C++ experience and I have a book on the basics, just simple things like drawing pictures onto the screen, buffering and playing WAVs.

Have you considered programming those neat graphics calculators? I do that, I have made a pretty cool Matrix thingy but that''s irrelevant.

Anyway GOOD LUCK AND MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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"If the universe became a place without chaos then doubtless it would do something unexpected."