The biggest revelation about programming
By fobwashed 34 Comments
I recently wrote a post in regards to the biggest disappointment I encountered when I started programming and so I figured, why not speak on the opposite?
To properly set up this revelation, I should take a short step back and give a little back story to why I started trying to make my own legitimate game in the first place. Beyond the reasons that we all share such as having ideas for what would make a "great game", and being the nerd version of the brodude that yells at his tv that the professional athlete on TV is playing piss poor, we feel like we know what's up. We know what's fun, what would be fun, and don't understand why shitty piss poor games get made. Scream at the TV that the AI is stupid or that a level is badly designed. We could SO do it better given half a chance. And along came a game that was easily accessible and gave us that chance.
It wasn't till this easy to use interface on the DS that I really actually made anything that was an actual "game". I plugged away at this thing and made bunch of minigames. Stellar titles such as IMO ATTACKS!
and Lincoln Defense!
I poured into these minigames, animating every character and using every little bit of data that was allotted in both the graphical side and the scripting side alike. But it was so damn limiting. I never had as much space as I wanted and really, how complex can you make a game when the only input control you have is tapping on the screen and if the entirety of the game takes place within say 10 seconds. . .
So fueled by my need to break out beyond these ridiculously limiting bonds, I went whole hog and jumped into C# and XNA. I could have gone an easier route and just used a middleware platform like RPG Maker or Game Maker but I figured at some point, I might hit a wall in those the same way I had with Warioware.
Then came the huge revelation. The wow moment. After gritting my teeth and learning C#, and checking out all the sample game packages and basically getting my bearings, I realized there were no limits. None. Once you break it all down to the core (my big disappointment), it's just lines of code. Just checks and reactions to those checks. Every game that's been made was built using pretty much the same basic building blocks and with those building blocks that I now had the knowledge to control, the possibilities for what I could create were limited only by my ability to use the simple tools I had before me. Where before, I was working within this very strict rule set with very limited checks and actions, I now had at my fingertips to create whatever the hell I wanted to. And the feeling was fanfuckingtastic. Of course, I'm still limited by the art, sounds, and most importantly, time but I had completely removed the shackles as far as what I could do and what would be possible gameplay wise. You rip apart all these AAA titles down to their gameplay mechanics, and it's all things you could put together yourself. With really shitty graphics, and no music or sounds, but it was possible.
It was amazing and it's constantly amazing that any idea I have, I can put into my game. If you watch my video series, you can actually see me progress and grow from trying to get the core engine working to where I'm at now which is in a way, indulging in things I fancy. For instance, in the beginning, I was just trying to get basic collision to work. After that, I tried (and succeeded) in implementing multi level platforming in a sidescrolling, non-single plane, 2D game (Which is something I still haven't really seen in many games to this day).