GP2X You Want Make Games For Gp2x?

[Digital Awakening]

If you are taking little breaks it's not like you are not sticking with your project as long as you pick it up again before you forget how the code works. That's another big problem with taking breaks, if they are too long it's gonna take a lot of work just to get full understanding of your own code again unless you have done your commenting propperly.

I would also like to point out that I suggest new devs to start small. It's much easier to stick with a small project then a large one.

 

[jlebrech]

Will i still be able to use tinyxml with my current source code.

I'm thinking of renewing game programming now ive settle in my new job.

 

[theoddbot]

I've already got libxml2 and expat working, so tinyxml should work fine also.

 

[yaustar]

If you are taking little breaks it's not like you are not sticking with your project as long as you pick it up again before you forget how the code works. That's another big problem with taking breaks, if they are too long it's gonna take a lot of work just to get full understanding of your own code again unless you have done your commenting propperly.

I would also like to point out that I suggest new devs to start small. It's much easier to stick with a small project then a large one.

​

If you dont remember how the code works after any period of time, I put that down more to poor documentation and poor commenting of code. This is especially important when working in teams as if you write code that is hard to understand by any other member of the team then basically you are screwed.

That said, if you are going to drop a project, at least finish the section you are working on. That way when someone else picks up the project, they wont have half baked coded to decipher.

 

[junker]

hey, what's a good 2d package for game media? i've never touched 2d apps before except for photoshop.

 

[Digital Awakening]

Photoshop is great if you ask me. I use if for all my 2D art as you can both use it for pixel art and to make GUIs and stuff like that. The layer effects are great for GUI art. The best thing is to combine renders from a 3D program (in 32bit so you get perfect transparency) with your 2D creations. Photoshop does a great work when you need to rescale your renders and also is perfect for exporting to various pallets. For example you can have Photoshop convert your art to 256 colors and then save it as a 8bit BMP and most of the time it will still look great. This is perfect for GP32/GP2X development because you want small downloadsizes.

 

[junker]

yeah, thanks for the tip!
reading up on those massive tuts...

 

[shezzor]

I would say Graphics Gale is a more suited paint program for 2d sprite/bitmap work, especially if your dealing with limited palettes. Also has a great animation tool

 

[Digital Awakening]

Photoshop supports regular and custom palettes of up to 256 colors. As far as I know there's no per pixel grid though, that would have been useful. PS have a lot of great tools that will help out 2D game development though. However GG may be better for per pixel art and animation.

 

[yaustar]

Anyone know of a decent freeware pixel artist editor?
The best I can find are:
http://www.opensword.org/Pixen/download.php
http://park18.wakwak.com/~pixia/

 

[trooper]

Ultimate Paint

http://www.afterzed.com/freeware/paintprogsfreeware1.html

Trooper

 

[MiniMoose]

No, no, no, no, no.

No.

Only work on a game for as long as you are enjoying it. If that means you won't be satisified until the game is complete, then by all means complete it. But if you get bored after a while, put it to one side and move onto something else. Maybe you'll come back to it in a few weeks/months/years, maybe you'll never touch it again, but forcing yourself to work on something that you've lost interest in is the quickest way to put you off coding for life.

​

If your goal is to ultimately become a good enough programmer to get a job in the game industry then you need to finish your games. Self-discipline and a keen engineering sense is required to succeed in the game industry.

 

[Digital Awakening]

Well said, thank you

 

[woogal]

An ability to churn out the same old shite is required to succeed in the game industry. I can't think of a more depressing industry to be in these days (unless you're just working for yourself and don't need to make much of a profit to survive).

 

[MiniMoose]

An ability to churn out the same old shite is required to succeed in the game industry. I can't think of a more depressing industry to be in these days (unless you're just working for yourself and don't need to make much of a profit to survive).

​

You're mostly right. The engineering does change as the platforms change and we learn more about maximizing the resources on them. But in general, I agree that the games industry is falling into a rut. The sad thing is that it will only get worse as the budgets go up and the desire to take risks on innovative new games goes down.

Ultimately it is just another cycle in the pattern of consolidation and ellaboration. Unfortunately for us, we're heading into the peak of the consolidation phase. Once engineers and artists get sick enough of making the same stuff, we'll start to transition into the elloboration phase as they spin off new start-ups and try some new things.

 

[Digital Awakening]

The best part about the games industry going the way it's going is that it oppens up for indie developers and that's where GP2X comes in nicely. The only problem I see with GP2X development is that people who own them are too much into emulation that they don't have time for new games or don't want to spend like $5-$10 for a game.

 

[MiniMoose]

The best part about the games industry going the way it's going is that it oppens up for indie developers and that's where GP2X comes in nicely. The only problem I see with GP2X development is that people who own them are too much into emulation that they don't have time for new games or don't want to spend like $5-$10 for a game.

​

I'm planning on testing those waters. I have several game designs that I hope to flesh out and eventually publish as either shareware or demo/payware for around $10-$20.

 

[Digital Awakening]

I have a lot of game ideas that would do wonders on GP2X and I also want to sell them. Depending on the complexity of the games the price may go that high as well but I intend to start small.

 

[yaustar]

It will be interesting to see how many copies can be sold on average. Selling even 500 copies at £5 each will still net £2500 (not inclulding any fees for distribution etc).

 

[Digital Awakening]

Vaustar:
Depending on where you live that's about a month on a regular job, if you are the only dev. In Sweden about half would go to tax. But if I could sell 500 games a month it would be nice. I'm planning to get a job next year, maybe not a full time job though so some extra cash is welcome. 500 games in total would also be great, could pass as a hobby in Sweden thus only about 30% tax, or was it no tax...