Greetings. Me and two or three other guys are learning C++ in school (I am four chapters ahead of my class and going), and, starting next Tuesday, are going to begin making a game based on the Alien Legacy, the four really good movies made by Fox. I am going to be the Artist as well, and, for this, I believe I should give a few features of the game. -A nice, SNES look to it that will make some remember the days of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Super Metroid (Zelda view, Metroid creepiness mixed with that of the first and second movies). -An assortment of weapons: the Pistol, the Shotgun, the Flamethrower, the Pulse Rifle and the Mini-Gun. -An assortment of tools to help get through the areas, like the Motion Tracker from the second movie (if possible), Motion Bombs, Grenades, and also a Blow Torch from the second movie. -Having to fight Fighter Aliens, Wall Crawlers, Aliens in the shafts, Aliens from under the floor, Dog Aliens from the third movie and Facehuggers (not to mention the Hive Queen). -Armor Upgrades to increase your chances of survival (hehehe....maybe). -As a later upgrade, a POSSIBLE online play ability, depending on how well we can work with DirectDraw, if we can. -Hopefully a simple use of the Arrow keys, shift key, z, x, c and v keys, and space bar, and hopefully nothing more (including the ability to strafe left, right and backwards). Now then, I would like to know, especially from other Alien fanatics, what YOU would like to see in the game (and no acid spitting. I know it was in the fourth movie, but movie 4 was practically a fan-fic. Especially since Dan ''O Brannon, one of the two creators, screenplay writer for Alien, co-story writer for Aliens and co-screenplay writer for Alien 3, had nothing to do with Ressurection). Thank you for reading this post. I will update you people whenever I can on our game, and try using whatever suggestions you can make. School sucks, people suck, family sucks, life sucks, reality sucks... When all else fails, Playstation prevails...

Hmmm... Your going to need an API for graphics programming, you know, right? C++ is just the programming itself.

"I''ve sparred with creatures from the nine hells themselves... I barely plan on breaking a sweat here, today."~Drizzt Do''Urden

Right, I need a little explanation here.
As far as I was aware, Graphics programming is like writing the Graphics Engine, right? Like, writing in pixel by pixel movement and such and everything else. And if it is not, then what the hell is it? It can''t be the graphics illustration. That would be just plain old garbage! I am perfectly capable with MS Paint (not that bad a program once you get to know it better). Besides, I hope to use DirectX with it (preferably version 7. It is better to try and use outdated stuff when making a game as to make sure it works with several systems, though not too outdated).

And, if Graphics Programming is neither what I had thought it was or the latter, then I may be in way over my head.....

School sucks, people suck, family sucks, life sucks, reality sucks...
When all else fails, Playstation prevails...

Graphics programming is all the concepts involved with loading, manipulating, organizing and rendering images onto a screen. If you really wanted to be hard core (and insane) you could create the images pixel by pixel by interfacing directly to the operating system I suppose (at least this is what MesaGL does in linux.)

What would be a smarter thing to do is what you suggested which is to use a graphics API which does most of that hard work for you. All you have to do is learn how to manage a graphics state machine (read up on computer graphics) and call functions.

Of course it is all a little more difficult than this. Just because you can display the images on a screen doesn''t mean you can easily create a system to animate these images and reproduce the effects innumerable amounts of time. I recommend looking around in the Isometric Game forum. There you''ll learn about tile based engines. This is DEFINITELY a tile based game.

Basically the person working on graphics should be responsible for not only using the graphics api''s but also for creating the backend framework to make the addition of new images and animations to the game easy.

RandomTask (working on his own tile based game)

Yes, this is a tile-based game. I so far have the beginnings of a DESIGN (what every programmer must begin with) of a pixel by pixel movement graphics engine (which should have the guy walk the same speed on one computer, like a 780 MHz, as another, like a 1.33 GHz. I just gotta program it.

The things I will have big trouble with is #1 How much does a graphics engine require and #2 finding a Level Editor that can save an image as BMPs (have no idea how to go about solid walls, under objects, and so on).

However, I have a book that helps me no some strategies called Game Design: Secrets of the Sages. Plus, I shall use this site and Message Board constantly.

Thanks for your concern.

School sucks, people suck, family sucks, life sucks, reality sucks...
When all else fails, Playstation prevails...