How did you go about making this?

[RibbonBlue]

I am really interesting in making games smaller but similar to this, how did you go about making this?
Iv'e been studying C++ for about 2 months, and am yet to come learn on how to create a GUI. It has been mostly mathematical stuff.Should I study C++ on my own? is there something that explains how to make a GUI?

BTW ur game rocks!!!

[Instar]

You can use any programming language you want to make just about anything, really.
Doing graphics is a lot harder. If you want to do plain vanilla Windows GUIs, then I'd reccomend learning Win32 programming, or WinForms on .NET. If you want to do games, get ready for a steep learning curve. OpenGL and DirectX are what you want to study (probably just DirectX, it is far better).

[RibbonBlue]

So I need to learn OpenGl and DirectX to do 2d graphics like this?

[Hiro_Antagonist]

This game was made using DirectX and C# (.NET).

C# is a much easier language to learn and code in that C++, but it does come with some problems. However, if you're just starting out with coding, C# is a great language to learn... There are a huge number of C# jobs out there (at least around Seattle), and it is slowly becoming more and more viable for games.

We also use DirectX -- Specifically Direct3D for our graphics. I know this sounds strange, since it's only a 2D game, but Direct3D gives us access to more advanced graphics tricks like fluid scaling, rotation, alpha blending, etc. These graphics tricks are all very important for looking polished in this day and age.

To give you an idea of the order of magnitude of this project, I've been working on it full time for a year and a half, and I've had part-time attention from 4 other people for things like graphics, UI design, sound, and additional development. I would recommend starting on a very small and modest project that you don't plan on selling. This will give you a chance to learn, make custom API's for your coding style, and get an idea of what it would take for a larger project.

I hope that helps, and best of luck!

-Hiro_Antagonist

[RibbonBlue]

I was thinking randomly, could you have sold this game on your own?
Do something like:
Purchaser uses paypal to pay you X cash.
Keycode is sent to purchaser
purchaser types in keycode at your website which then allows him to download your game.
Keycode is removed from the list of keycodes that can be used to download games, and the list from which a keycode is given to the purchaser.

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Well sure, it's possible for me to have sold it on my own. In fact, lots of independant game developers do that. There are a hundred different ways to handle registration for this, and frankly, paypal is far from the best solution.

However, the vast majority of developers that try to sell games themselves (without working with a publisher or distributor) aren't successful. Working with Shrapnel offers me a huge number of benefits, and drastically improves the chances that this project will be a success for me and that I will be able to afford to work on more in the future.

-Hiro_Antagonist

[RibbonBlue]

Cool. Right now my goal is to create a 2player checkers or chess in c++ but playable through tcp/ip?
So for this I would need to learn
More C++
Directx
Would I have to learn anything aswell to make the game playable through a lobby/tcp ip?
Will learning more of C++ and DirectX explain how to tie in the graphics with the game to create a gui?

[Hiro_Antagonist]

With all due respect, there are much better places to be asking these questions than here. Your questions would be very fitting at http://www.gamedev.net/.

-Hiro_Antagonist

[rayme]

My biggest problem with C# and Direct3D is that they're not portable to any non-Microsoft platforms. We've got WinXP, Win2003, linux, and MacOSX in my house, and I'm always interested in making things cross-platform.

That's not everyone's cup of tea, of course. =)

[Psitticine]

Except for Win2003, that's the same mix we have here!

[reverend]

If you want cross-platform games, you should either try SDL and C++ (illwinter used this for dominions IIRC) or, if you prefer C#, have a look at MONO (www.mono-project.com) which gives you C# and runs on pretty much every system using the MONO runtime.

[Ed Kolis]

Java anyone? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
http://java.sun.com
Very similar to C#, and cross-platform compatibility is built-in! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Hiro_Antagonist]

FWIW, we've tenatively decided to build our future games on the PopCap Framework, which is now open-source. (http://developer.popcap.com/).

This means we'll still be bound to PCs for the forseeable future (though an eventual Mac port of the framework isn't out of the question), but on the upside, our future games will be faster, smaller, and will run on more machines than Land of Legends.

-Hiro_Antagonist