Pre-WIP section

General Discussions Suggestions
#1

I sent this idea to Riven a little bit ago, and didn’t get a response, so I’ll post it here :slight_smile:

My suggestion is that a Pre-WIP section should be added to the JGO forums. a Pre-WIP section would be used to document progress (via pictures) of a game before it enters into its WIP stage (which should then provide a playable demo). It would help to organize which projects are done to a point where they can be played, and which are still small in scale, and not yet ready for testing.

If there is fear that the pre-WIP section might not be used, then we could always take the approach that the Game Maker Community uses. As you can see, in their WIP section, there is a stickied thread entitled “Previews of upcoming games”. In this thread, users are allotted one forum post to provide pictures/media and a description of their game. The thread is cleared at the start of every month.

I feel like this would be a useful addition to the JGO forums, as I myself have a couple projects that are not ready for public testing, but I still want a place to document my progress :slight_smile:

Thank you,
Andrew

[EDIT]
My idea was added :slight_smile: Thank you Riven.

#2

Isn’t what you describe precisely what the WIP-section is for? I dont think you need a playable demo to document your progress there, just some screenshot to give an idea of what you are doing.

#3

In addition to a pre-WIP, I think we also need a pre-pre-WIP to document game ideas and get input on them before starting to code them. :smiley:

Seriously though, you don’t need to post on this forum if you want to document your progress. There’s personal blogs such as Wordpress or Tumblr for that. :smiley: Not yet playable is still WIP; for example, Rayvolution’s Retro-Pixel Castles doesn’t have any gameplay, but I’d definitely consider it a WIP over a pre-WIP.

#4

Not much point in having two wip boards, it’ll be hard to categorize which should go where (too subjective) and will just end up being a lot of post moving with little real result. If anything, a “pre-wip” board will only encourage people to post when they don’t even have a demo or proof of contest (more clutter).

#5

What’s “documenting my progress” worth if the posts in the pre-wip thread have a retention time of 30 days?

#6

With a few changes to the idea and a couple of hacks this could be interesting…

#7

WIP rules:

[quote]…as long as it is executable…
[/quote]
So a demo is needed.

#8

I read that as “…as long as it is (eventually) executable…” -> and not e.g. a painting or a balloon. But that interpretation may be wrong :wink:

#9

orange451, you already posted some screen captures, you don’t seem far from a demo, am I completely wrong?

#10

Quite far from a demo :slight_smile:

#11

I think this idea of some kind of pre WIP section wuld be great, but IMHO it shouldn’t be there for games which have allready been started, but more for ideas, which are in planning (no code yet).
The advantages would be:

  • The community can give suggestions for code organnization and libraries which may help
  • The community can add some ideas
  • “Bad” ideas can be sorted out before wasting time by implementing them

This section would primarily help newbies (like me) to get a good start. Because if you start wrong, the project won’t succeed.
Also suggestions about libraries, architectures, systems and whatever can be applied to the project without causing any problems and without the need to refactoring all the code.

#12

http://www.java-gaming.org/topics/wip-publication-reel/33731/view.html (not quite a success)

#13

Which I think is indicative of the lack of actual need for it, but maybe that’s just me…

#14

I’m not disgruntled, just being realistic and saying it’s not a success. People seemed in favor of a feature like it - it might need a tweak - some day.

#15

The “what I did today” thread gets all the traffic and interesting posts.

#16

Maybe because it seems less formal and does not delete stuff over time…

#17

I’d have to side with against the pre-WIP.

To me it just seems unnecessary but I do like the idea of some sort of ‘ideas’ section where people could discuss games they are thinking of making. Could be useful to get some input before the development starts etc but other than that, I think the WIP does its job nicely 8)

#18

For those feeling the need to state and reiterate they are opposed to what turned out unsuccessful: I hope you realize it’s rather redundant to share these sentiments, as its implied in it not being a success… there is no need to drag it out.

#19

I think the WIP-Publication-Reel is not a success, beacuse it is hard to really discuss an idea or a game, if there are many other ideas/other games in 1 and the same thread.
It is a lot easier to have every idea in it’s own thread, you don’t have to “filter” out comments for other ideas.

So in my opinion it would be verry interesting to have an idea section, where you just show the idea, the libraries you want to use, the class hirarchy you want to use, the package organization and so on.
By doing this other, more experienced jgo members can warn you, before you start wrong. For example they can tell you, that you are about to use a library, which is not maintained anymore and instead suggest you to use another one.

#20

Riven, did you know it’s not a success?

;D