Hi, I'm trying to get into console game development and thought about starting with something simple, or something one (programmer) can do alone without a team. Since everyone today is starting with a Tetris (Though, best game ever :-) ) clone I thought I'm not going into that direction :-) What I wanted to ask is, if anyone of you has an idea what simple (well, simple in terms of being keept simple but not necessarilly easy to solve) puzzle game I could realize? What puzzles do/did you enjoy solving/playing? Cheers, ZMaster

Tic-Tac-Toe is another good beginner's puzzle game, but are you sure you really want to start out with puzzles? The RPG is a fairly simple genre to implement. What is your target language/api for this project? A text-based RPG using C++ Win32/ConsoleApp is very easy to break in to.

Well, console was meant to be the gaming system, not the Win32 console, sorry for that :-)
Target platform ist Sega's Dreamcast, C++ is programming language.
I'm already experienced in Win32 and OpenGL programming and I have several years of C++ experience, so technically it's no problem.
Why I wanted to do a puzzle game is because it's not so time consuming to create a game that is fun with only one person working on it.
The problem with RPGs is that they really need content to make fun: Good dialogs, nice graphics and well balanced items and enemies are required...

You could make something like Dr. Mario, Columns, or Tetris Attack with very few resources. All of which are already proven fun to play...I mean test [wink]

I was just recently brainstorming a puzzle game with a layout similar to columns where you would click certain blocks to rotate different colored blocks into groups of so many of the same color, which would then clear those blocks. Obviously the semantics aren't completely thought out yet, but it's certainly something you could build with.

Maybe you want to get a look at "yohoho-Puzszle pirates" So far, I have found out thata there is about 20 different puzzles in this one, and I guess it's deeper than that... Moreover, it's quite enjoyable, a MMORPG where you have to play, to play along...

A Lumines clone for the Dreamcast?

Lemmings?

Quote:

Original post by WeirdoFu A Lumines clone for the Dreamcast?

That game looks great to me, though I didn't understand how it actually works. Is it just available for the PSP or are there PC/Online versions available, so that I can try it out?

Here's a simple idea for you. Though in reality I'm not sure how fun the game would be.

Its a take on the classic game break out. Or any other ball/brick blasting genre.

However instead of breaking blocks you have a series of rows of blocks shaped similar to tetris. When the ball hits one of the blocks, the block rotates. The key is to clear out an entire line by rotating the blocks with the bouncing ball to form a solid line.

Quote:

Original post by ZMaster Quote: Original post by WeirdoFu A Lumines clone for the Dreamcast? That game looks great to me, though I didn't understand how it actually works. Is it just available for the PSP or are there PC/Online versions available, so that I can try it out?

Here's something similar written in JAVA.
http://www.ninjasoftware.com/

Its available for a 5 minute demo, but I really like the way it shows high scores. Oh, I say 5 minute demo as in every game only lasts 5 minutes, but you can play it as many times as you want.