Actually, the advertising could be quite nice if done right.
You could create ads that would display with all your snippets of code.
It would be a good incentive to contribute, also causing ‘the more you contribute, the more exposure you get’ automatically.
@heisenbergman: There will always be people that just stick with spoon-feeding. Most people ignore them. A site like this would not cause any trouble as the n00bs can be ignored as usual. A lack of a geedback system would be good too.
But overall, the time spent creating such a site could be used to just create a multi-authored blog where people can just post snippets of pseudo-code (think Ludum Dare website but with code snippets). Also has the advantage of being cross-language. Has everything you specified except that there is no actual project that works are based on. You can just implement whatever is in the pseudo code you like into whatever project.
And IMHO, that is the best solution.
Hmmm… This is an interesting idea. However, to have it devolve into any type of game would be… wishful thinking. Actually, thinking about it, there is a place where you can actually search up open source code snippets (that isn’t Google).
I mean, there is a lot of open source code available. However, each coding style is different in its own way and let’s face it, we all have our own ways of implementing things. If you do plan to do this, make it easy to find the code snippets you are looking for and have very good documentation for it. The standards to keep the project organized needs to be very strict, or you’ll have a tangled mess that n00bs wouldn’t want to touch. You also might want to consider making it fully open source as well, though that is a given given the nature of this project.
Good idea, but you really have to be careful that it doesn’t get messy.
maybe i should clear this up since everyone thinks you cant make a game out of this
the idea is the same as using example project from random blogs you look at the code learn from it and use what you like
the template would just be something people can jump right into and start creating new example projects
they wouldn’t be building ontop of other example projects to create a whole game
the only person building a game is the person looking at the projects learning from each one
so theres two people the contributor and the user
the contributor makes example projects (not full blown games) just simple projects that show case a specific feature that can be implemented into a game for example lets say a character that jumps and on double tap/hold of the jump button he flys with a jet pack
then the user would take a look at this project and see how its being done and if the user likes this feature they can use this in their own project not by copy and paste but by writing the code to work with their own project
now before someone else jumps up and says “Most people won’t care for 1 more feature and could simply do it themselves, if bothered to do it at all.” like HeroesGraveDev said in another post
lets take a look at why a project like this would even be worth starting
i know that most examples i mentioned are simple so imagine its for something more complex, for example life like physics and damage for a racing game (its just an example i know this might be difficult to even be shared and used properly)
for the sake of the example lets pretend this is something that can be shared as easy as a .jar, you throw it into your project and bam you got physics now follow the documentation for how to setup your cars and your well on your way to making AAA games (i know its way more complex then that but this is just an example)
ok so how do we get to this point we start small and simple, share code that is easy enough for anyone to write and use eventually when the idea picks up momentum and lots of people are using this system we move to more complex projects,starting with 2d games then 2.5d games then 3d games each time we move up we bring in a new game engine or framework starting with libgdx
-why should we start with libgdx? because its free, you can build for multiple platforms, you can make 2d and 3d games (if im not mistaken), no royalties for distributing
-so what happens if everyone contributes to this sharing project? you start to attract alot of noobs (its not a bad thing) they eventually learn and get better, they begin to spread the word about libgdx and sharing project, libgdx then starts to get more contributors, libgdx gets better and better, everyone continues to share code but at some point it will begin to slow down, thats when we open the doors to other game engines and the cycle would continue
(eventually you get the walmart effect like in southpark and all the mom and pop shops/game engines get shut down… jk jk only thing that would probably be affected by this would be stores like the unity asset store and maybe bloggers who sell small projects)
i forgot to mention the advertising part, people would be able to say/see stuff in the description of each project like who made it and links to blogs/ tutorial websites, their games or whatever they want to share. not only will this be a way to give them credit but also a way for them to create exposure for whatever they want to share
theres also the idea of having an advertising network that sends your game to the exact target audience. (rpg games to rpg players etc etc) this would probably come in later on since theres things that need to be worked out like how do you avoid advertising a bunch of half star, low rating games to people because that would kill the system instantly(people wouldn’t use the system if all they see is lame games) it needs to be regulated by players for players, like a rating system. highly rated games get advertised. if you allow people to pay to advertise their game, then they might just choke the system because they want their game to be there forever people would get tired of seeing the same game and the system stops working. i know you could just give a time limit but they’ll keep coming back and if you reject them then you lose money either way you lose something but only if your goal is to make money. so what if the system is automated, free and regulated by the public now you have games being advertised to their specific target audience, and the audience only sees the best of the best … games would be pushed out through newsletters, social networking, youtube etc etc …
-how long would games be up there? until new games push the old ones down the list but they would still be up there forever for everyone to see …
-the purpose of this would have been to use it as an incentive to get people to share code in return for getting their games advertised to the target audience, this could only work if balanced correctly using a paid system and also a free system, people submit code, they get a free ride, others can pay, if they want, for the same system …both paid and free ads of games would be shown side by side… revenue would be used to pay the team maintaining the system… there is another way to keep it free without paid ads, using a volunteer system might work better if volunteers get their games in the ad network as a reward for volunteering and the system should be self sustaining just add some strict rules,time limits, violators will be banned,etc etc, instead of a paid section it would just be a “games by volunteers” section or whatever you want to call it. people my be more compelled to support their projects because they know that without them this whole system wouldn’t be possible…in case anyone thinks volunteers might be a security risk there needs to be someone of a higher rank to approve of everything before it gets submitted/changed etc etc
-so how do we keep everything from getting messy? as far as code being shared well lets look at the Ohloh code website, btw thanks for sharing it, a few things to note were that
they have tons of different programming languages and users, you need to search for keywords in the code its self, and the code is stored in different locations
ok so we can keep the code organized by using a system like that but also add a few more things like a description, screenshots or video of the projects in action (if possible), a rating system. maybe some more features later on
i know when i started this thread it was about small example projects and avoiding big ones but that just wouldn’t last long enough to be helpful for anyone maybe it would have helped a few people but eventually people would just forget about it … if you extend the range from small snippets to full blown projects and add all the game engines then everybody can have access to code they can use in their projects and when their done with their games they can spread the word with the ad network and the entire system is free
overall that should be everything thats needed to get something like this to work.
only thing missing is the supporters,contributors and volunteers… if theres enough people that want to see something like this happen then it will
[quote=“hellrazer21,post:23,topic:41927”]
The first one says that you don’t copy-and-paste the code, but rather, you write it yourself to work with your own project.
The second one says that you can just throw something - like a jar - into your project and then you instantly have that feature.
[quote=“hellrazer21,post:23,topic:41927”]
I’m confused… I thought the site would only host snippets/“templates” of code and not actual games… did I understand wrong? ???
okay now I’m really confused… -_- I thought we were talking about hellrazer’s proposed site that is different from JGO… or was he proposing his idea be done here on JGO? ???
you did understand it right but after i tried to come up with a way for this to be useful to more people and everyone to contribute, the whole thing needs to be bigger
the idea of making it only for small snippets and templates would work better as a prototype of the system … everyone who likes the idea of a large scale system would need to see that a small scale version would work flawlessly. then the project would grow on its own as more people join in. if we just limit it to small projects the system wouldn’t last very long. people would just use it and forget about it when their done.
technically speaking the smaller projects would still be there, you just need to use the filters and you would see small projects and yet there will still be larger projects for people who are looking for them
LibGDX supports porting to the standard windows/mac/linux as well as html5, android, and ios. The latter 3 would require custom code to convert without libgdx.
If you wanted to develop in ios w/out libgdx, well I don’t know of any options but switching to objective-c.
If you wanted to develop android without libgdx, your code would only work on android, not on pc (not without modifications)
You get the idea.
theres plenty of options out there for iOS like unity 3d and corona mobile and UDK same goes for andriod but thats not really something to worry about
what we should try and figure out is, if there was a central hub for people to share code like github and google code but with a strict focus on games. would people actually use it ?
lets not get lost in the details for a second and lets pretend the system already exist and theres lots of code being shared. how many of you would be interested in using a system like this?
Would be very difficult to grade the ‘value’ of each individual code snippet - for example it’s a lot harder to write a model loader than an image loader.
and most of java is free :point:
