Pickle posted on Jul 24 2006 at 08:31 AM said:
Ok, Ive been playing around with making my first SDL app.
The goal is a jump'n'run syle game.
What I have so far:
Background Object - Scroll speed can be varied
Simple Tile Engine - Load tile map from file, display and collision detecion with player sprite
Player Sprite - Movable left,right,jump
Enemies - Still in the works, Sprite code is the same across the board, so it should work after a little more time
So the question I have is, what should be working before I release something to the group?
I dont want to post a WIP and get flamed, because its not a real wokring game yet.
First, as others have said, don't release something to the archive until it is substantial enough where a random person downloading it expecting a fun game will have enough to keep them entertained at least for a while.
Releasing it "semi-publically" by making a thread about it here with a link to the file works very well and as long as you explain the state of the game in your thread, it can be done at any level of development. When to do this depends on your goals for such a release:
1) If it's turning out to be hard work and your enthusiasm is flagging because there's no light at the end of the tunnel, you can get re-energized by showing off what you've done so far. In that case, release whenever you like and ask people to be nice. It will be helpful if the program actually does something. If it doesn't, you can often get the same effect by releasing some screenshots even if they are mockups.
2) If you are unsure about certain feature or interface decisions and want feedback about those, make sure to release a version that is far enough along to allow people to make useful comments about those issues.
3) If you want help finding bugs, release something with the functionality in question basically finished. Testers get very frustrated if you ask for bug reports and when they find and report bugs you say "oh, I changed all that around anyway." It makes it hard for them to know what they're looking for.
4) If you are feeling in need of an ego boost (improving your motivation by hearing a few people say how cool your game is), then make sure what you release is cool in some way. It can be devastating to make an egoboost release and then people come back and say the game stinks.
5) If you just want the development process to be "public" in some way, so that fans can follow what's going on in the scene and start looking forward to the eventual full release, be careful (but do it, I love to follow what people are doing). It may be best to do screenshots at first for this, and only release something when what you release is likely to make people want more, instead of wanting LESS!
