Beginner's advice?

[cinaed666]

Hi, I don't have my pandora yet, but I've been daydreaming about some game ideas I have, and I'd like some advice.


I'm not new to programming, in fact I know some C++ (Have done some NDS homebrew), Python, and some BASIC variants, but I am pretty new to game design and game programming. (the graphical aspect.)


Are there any Libs that are beginner friendly that work on the pandora? (Any of the Languages I mentioned) I'd like to do some 2.5D-ish RPG in the style of the old fallout games.


I mean, I don't want to re-invent the wheel, if there are some good sources available...

 

[Tempel]

First, to clarify, when you say 2.5D in the style of classic Fallout, you're referring to the oblique/isometric perspective it has, right? That is, all game assets and drawing are 2D, but the character moves through a 3D world. This is in contrast to games like LittleBigPlanet or Trine (also sometimes called 2.5D) that have 2D sidescrolling gameplay, but everything is created with 3D models.


With that clear, I do all my work in Python. It's pretty easy to get Python games running on the Pandora, since no compiling is involved and Pygame is included by default. However, these have been reported to be pretty slow if you're not careful (I don't yet have my Pandora, so I haven't tested directly). If you already know Python fairly well, Pygame should be easy to pick up, but make sure to test performance as you go.


If you want to specifically target Pandora, you might want to consider Penjin, which specifically targets it. But I don't know much about Penjin, so hopefully PokeParadox will come in to edify.

 

[foxblock]

In general I would go for C++ and SDL or OpenGLES if you want to make a game for the Pandora.


Python is available, but reports show that even simple games are running fairly slow.


Then, of course, you can also write your own software renderer


I used Penjin for all of my projects (2D) and found it quite nice to work with. Like every engine it obviously has it strong points, but also flaws and drawbacks.


It has quite a list of features (Sprites, Animations, Text, Achievements, Music/Sound, Particles, Utility library, etc.), is easy to get into (in my eyes - I got started with C++ programming using Penjin, so it cannot be that hard), framerate dependant (which some consider a drawback, I don't - again it has advantages and disadvantages over a time-based approach), supports multiple devices (Windows, Linux, GP2x, DINGOO, Pandora) and render targets (SDL, OpenGLES) with little to no changes to the code. Well and most of all it works on the Pandora out of the box and is in active development.


Here are some more infos: http://code.google.com/p/penjin/


If you go 2D (aka 2.5D = isometric, not like LBP or SSB) you can also write your own "engine" with SDL, SDL_image and SDL_mixer pretty quickly, that way you get only the features you need, have a closer connection to the code and in general are more flexible.


Then there is Irrlicht, OGRE (dunno how well those run) and the WakeBreaker project by community member topor, which is a C++ and OpenGLES library to quickly build your own 3D project (which you can even build on the Pandora) - he probably is able to tell you more about it.


And some more (including a nice 2D library by Cpasjuste, which sadly has not seen any more updates recently).


foxblock out

 

[bzar]

I'm beginning to sound like a broken toy, but since it applies here as well: using Qt and its GraphicsView framework is also a possibility. I did my game competition entry (Wars: Commando, see sig.) for the pandora with it and it performs kinda nicely, at least better than pygame (because the game logic is in C++ rather than python. the actual draw calls etc are probably around as fast) as long as you enable a few flags in the beginning (see either Panorama or Commando main window class constructor for these. Also awesome tools for asynchronous animations and (IMO) the best utility library around. If you try this I suggest doing the timing in SDL though. QTimers are not always as reliably accurate as I'd like. Here's (that's a small OpenGL-on-Qt test I did) an example of that in the main function.


Anyway, for each their own. I certainly won't hold it against anyone for using straight SDL, Penjin, pygame or anything . Try different tools and find what suits your project (and you).


EDIT: Also last I heard, Irrlicht isn't running too fast. Too bad since I learned it with pandora in mind. Well, maybe at some point

 

[cinaed666]

I think I'm gonna freshen up my C++ (it's been a while...) and check out Qt and the graphicsview lib I was recommended. thanks everyone!