What kind of game should a noob make for his first one?

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

Right now I’m just making tile sets for my first game. I’ve only been working in Java for almost a month now, and I wanted to try to make a game. So I joined this forum, and I wanted to see what you guys thought I should do. If you guys help me out with ideas, I’ll pick the most enticing one, and keep you updated with it’s progress. Thanks guys!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       - Nickropheliac (Nick)
#2

Make a pong game.

#3

Pong is perfect (It’s my first one too). Also SpaceInvaders would be fine.

#4

My first game after moving on from Swing etc was Tic-Tac-Toe :slight_smile:
After that I than proceeded to make clones of games I enjoyed, like Frogger, PacMan and Mario >:D

Suggestion: Make a clone of a game that you like XD Even if you don’t finish it 100% it’s good starting practice to see what you can accomplish :slight_smile:

#5

@TehJavaDev
Not finishing the game is the same as not making one. It only counts if you finish it.

#6

Wouldn’t pixel collision be more complicated, like that of a pong game?

#7

@trollwarrior1

Stop being a troll XD

It counts my friend XD
-Make games, make lots of games >XD

#8

Depends on if you’re actually making progress, or you’re just spending years toying with the same concepts over and over and never actually learning anything new. :smiley:

#9

That would be impossibru, programmers crave new knowledge XD

#10

:smiley:

I would recommend against the popular choice of Pong and go to Space Invaders.
Creating a basic Pong is easy, but making it so that ball actually takes the right angle and speed upon hitting a paddle is vector physics and without it, its super boring.
space invaders is super easy, move left right, shoot, projectile moves up, their projectiles move down - If you dont create those destroyable bunkers, its really super easy, and still fun for… 9 seconds

#11

I disagree. Just think about it. Moving left and right, shooting = Handling input. Projectiles = Collision detection, (very basic) AI and some event system for dying entities.
It’s just perfect for a first project.

#12

Also you can practice animations, drawing cool tweening motions for score indicators etc etc. You would be surprised just how much effort you can put into such a simple game, and it ends up looking super polished.

#13

Its still easier than doing math in pong.

handling inputs you do for pong too, collision detection as well. Also collision detection is not something you program yourself: rect.collide(rect) if true I would just NULL an enemy, for no fun, no animation death
count not null enemies

also space invaders you can do incremential, first the enemies dont even move at all
because the game still kind of works

#14

My first game (since I was teenager, a few decades back) was chess.

#15

Well aren’t you fancy.
Even without the AI thats a hassle. Did it have an AI ? That sounds like a nightmare to me now :smiley:

#16

Um. If you’ve invested time in the tile sets, presumably you won’t want suggestions that don’t use them. But you haven’t told us what they are, so we can’t give you suggestions which do use them. Either way, my recommendation is not to spend much time at all on the graphics until you’ve got the mechanics working.

#17

^ I agree, when I am adding new components to my game, I usually just have a ton of placeholder graphics. Then, when I’m in the mood I go through a “polishing” phase where I draw graphics to match the new functionality I’ve added.

You’ll see the trend in many of project’s screenshots, usually every screenshot you’ll see some obvious placeholders mixed in with completed artwork. (Like a wireframe of a building, for example) I’ve personally found it’s best to hammer out the code first, then polish up the code with graphics later. Mainly because sometimes your idea on how the code should work may change halfway into coding it, and that could effect the graphics you need to draw. So it’s best to draw the graphics after so you don’t end up redrawing things. :smiley:

#18

I didn’t think about writing games for decades, but I always wondered how to write a chess AI. One day I had a brainwave, and started writing games. My chess AI is not too smart, but it can win if you’re not careful.

#19

Thou shall not needeth vectors for left/right/up/down, angle will be involved too :slight_smile:


x += xVelocity;
y += yVelocity;
#20

Space Invaders as many have said is a fine start.
It has many different things you can use for other games, you got movement, both yours by keyboard and enemy by code. You got shooting the same way. If you go basic SI you got your cities which have ‘health’ and different sprites. You got sound. And it is easy to improve of the game, animations, different weapons, powerups, you can make it a sidescroller, etc etc.
Same is true for many of the good old classics, they are simple, but allow for ‘endless’ improvements. My first game was Asteroids, improved it with resource management and stuff, different asteroids, drop different resources, and so on and you could upgrade and buy stuff.