Inspired by a small comment Asparagus trevor made in the construct topic.
Tell us what your first experience with making games or part of games was.
Back in the mid to late 80's and early 90's i didn't have a console. Instead we had a small home computer called an Amstrad cpc. So did most people in britain (although most had commodore 64's Spectrums, Amigas or Atari st's)
Well most 8bit computers came with a built in version of basic. It was entirely possible to write games in as little as 10 lines of code, however they were usually very slow and even the best were not comparable with commercial games.
I did copy a few from books and magazines and save them to cassette. Although i didn't learn a thing, lol.
Later on i realize we had a program on one of our free covertapes called Graphics adventure creator (or GAC). It turned out it was a full program that let you create text adventures with pictures for each screen.
For ages i used it constantly to make little games and eventually i even figured out a way to make crude animation (using a goto command to quickly skip to room after room, and using only lines for the picture so it would draw quicker.)
it was a good effect for opening doors and such however it ate up the memory rather quickly. (there was 64k total and GAC used up more than half already leaving about 28k for me)
i only ever finished one game, which had no objects but was rather sizable (3 parts) and starring some of my mascots
My first game making exp was... TGF I think. I remember stumbling upon some Super Mario World libs and wondered what the hell they did. I looked into it and discovered you could build games with them in TGF/MMF! I was very excited and it kept me busy for a long time! I did eventually realise that just making Mario games over and over was boring though, mainly because I was horrible at programming the games and I also really sucked at editing the graphics for when I wanted a new power-up. Only about three years ago I started making origional games though. Well, I'm slowly getting better at it.
I programmed a game in BASIC (using AMOS) on my beloved Amiga 600. It was a text adventure
I did something similar in 7th grade, which was 1988 in school. Half of my typing course was dedicated to that "latest" thing, computer programming in BASIC. We all had Apple IIe computers and I fell in love with the idea of being able to make my own games, no matter how crappy some were.
Notable first attempts:
An "Adventure text game" knockoff that had your guy type in directions on where to go, like "N", "S", etc. With descriptions of the rooms. To have pauses in the game I had to use dummy FOR..NEXT loops. Of course, for any computer made after 1985 you couldn't really use these anymore because the processing speed was too fast.
An RPG where the graphics were all text characters- the old delete key made this solid white "brick" thing that I used for the castle walls, and people were "O"s. And kids were "o"S. HAHAHA.
A really stupid one where you had to fight 100 red slimes (no joke) and then at the end you had to fight a King red slime. This was all in text, and I didn't even know CLS or HOME yet to clear the screen between each battle. So you basically had this one big mess that kept scrolling for 100 turns.. Best of all, I put in "TYPE 'T' TO CONTINUE". ROFL, What the hell was I thinking the "T" stood for, I'll never know.
A black & white RPG on an old TRS-80 while the other kids played outside all summer. 12" floppies FTW!
Another Apple RPG that used text graphics for the outside and low res color blocks for the monsters. You could choose from a palette of 16 colors (excluding 0, which was black) and had to draw them by inputing lines like:
5 GR
10 HLIN 5,10 AT 22
20 COLOR = 5
30 VLIN 23, 30 AT 10
Oh boy, me and my friend must've spent friggin' HOURS drawing all these blocks on graph paper and inputing them SLOWLY in the code list.
I did learn some useful things to help me later though, like how to make text files to join pieces of a map together into one large map. How to have patience when working on games (important!) How to auto-arrange an inventory that had more than one variable per item. And single and double dimension arrays! I loves them arrays, I does..
Sorry to blab, I haven't thought about this stuff in years and years.
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"Del Duio has received 0 trophies. Click here to see them all."
"To be a true ninja you must first pick the most stealthy of our assorted combat suits. Might I suggest the bright neon orange?"
DXF Games, coming next: Hasslevania 2- This Space for Rent!
DaVince: "Chris: which AMOS? Regular, Easy, Pro, "3D"?" I used Amos Pro, it came free on an Amiga Format coverdisk.
Oh, I also coded two games on those BBC computers they had at school... The first was a ski-ing game, the second was a game in which you were in a boat and had to shoot down UFOs.
First klik game? Shorty's Story, a K+P platformer starring Pacmen characters.
n/a
Peblo Custom ratings must be 50 characters or less
Does anybody remember that show from a long time ago called the Super Mario Brothers show? Captain Lou Albano (a wrestler from way back) played Mario and it was live action combined with some cartoons. Every Friday they had a Zelda one and it was wicked cheesy.. in a good way.
He'd say, "Well, EXCUUUUUUUSE ME! Princess."
Hahaha, that is funny stuff.
--
"Del Duio has received 0 trophies. Click here to see them all."
"To be a true ninja you must first pick the most stealthy of our assorted combat suits. Might I suggest the bright neon orange?"
DXF Games, coming next: Hasslevania 2- This Space for Rent!
Peblo Custom ratings must be 50 characters or less
Registered 05/07/2002
Points 185
29th July, 2007 at 11:59:04 -
Yeah, I have a few on tape.
"Isn't it always amazing how we characterize a person's intelligence by how closely their thinking matches ours?"
~Belgarath
The Shoot em up Construction Kit and AMOS back on me ol' Amiga 600. Not sure which AMOS. It was on a cover disk and needed to be extracted onto 3 other floppies... Then KNP from some computer mag too for some low price. etc etcetecectecefefss
We had a little programming tool on the Spectrum but I just made lines bounce around and stuff. I was about 5 at the time
"I didn't have a computer so my first videogame was made of magnets and cardboard"
No WAY! Me too! I used to take those boxes that checks came in and make a little gameboy looking thing. And I had a hole where you could slide in different backgrounds. And then you moved the character around with a magnet. God I feel sorry for the people I made play them.
The next thing I did was make my own levels in lode runner with the level editor it had.
Then once I got a computer I started making games in powerpoint. You'd have to click different arrows to get through mazes and stuff. Eventually I figured out a way to make like a shooting game. Where you had to click on the enemy really quick or it went to the next screen which was a game over slide. I got to the point of making some pretty complicated games. . . and then I got click and create so that was that. Unfortunately the computer with all those powerpoint games and early click games crashed. I really wish I could look back at them.
*edit. I forgot about the most awesome one lol. In like 3rd grade my grandma had a brother word processor. It was the one color (yellow) thing. But there was some program built in for making grids or spreadsheets or something. And you could draw lines. So I'd make mazes and you'd play as the cursor and have to get through them. Eventually I made sidescrollers where you'd have to push up 3 times and down three times to jump. I remember my dad just holding down to skip through the level and I'd get mad and tell him he had to do it the right way. I was evil.
ava little secret. When I was a little nipper (5 or 6) I used to draw out NES carts of games I wanted to make. And my pops used to bring home these pieces of card that when divided into 4 would be the same size as a Gameboy screen so I'd draw out fake screenshots. I've still got a load of them! I should post them. Perhaps.
That's funny because I used to make little paper arcade games, not Gameboy ones lol. They were made out of the white lined paper, which never held up right, and I'd make this long strip with Frogger at the end that bent up and the other was the joystick to move him around.
I never made anyone else play them though, hahaha that's a good one.
I can't believe how many people did this sort of thing! I thought I was the only one before now. Some memories get repressed for good reasons!
--
"Del Duio has received 0 trophies. Click here to see them all."
"To be a true ninja you must first pick the most stealthy of our assorted combat suits. Might I suggest the bright neon orange?"
DXF Games, coming next: Hasslevania 2- This Space for Rent!
DaVince This fool just HAD to have a custom rating
Registered 04/09/2004
Points 7998
30th July, 2007 at 10:01:57 -
I made entire completely original platform games like that (on paper). Now that I think back of it, they had gameplay elements and enemies that no platformer I know has.
Maybe I should make a real game out of this, also in pen and paper style? That'd be nice.
My first experience was on Commodore 16 just after it's release in 1984. A couple of years later I switched to a MSX2, much more advanced then any Commodore at that time. By the time I was ready to swotch to the next one, I debated getting a MSX2 Turbo R or a PC. I choose for the PC in the end even though the MSX2 Turbo R was much more powerful in those days then any pc you could get. I didn't see a future for the MSX marker anymore.
Just for fun... the MSX 2 Turbo R had an R800 CPU running at 29 MHz and Zilog Z80 CPU running at 7.14 MHz.... with 512Kb Ram, 128Kb VideoRam, A Yamaha YM2413 music chip 9 channels FM or 6 channels FM + 5 drums 15 pre-set instruments, 1 custom.
You read it correct, a DualCore running at 29Mhz, with 512Mb RAM and a gfx gard with 128Kb, while most people at home were still using a 8086/88 and some a 286 running at 12Mhz max.
I used to send loads of game ideas to the Official Playstation Magazine - you get a game if you win, although I never won once (how could they turn down "Swiss Family Robinson: The Game"?).
Other than pen and paper, my first actual game making experience was with KNP - making "University Challenge: The Game", "The Adventures of Noodle Boy" and "Beer Karts" among others.
I used to love drawing out games on paper little platforms levels filled with crazy enemies and objects...
I got TGF when I was 8 or 9. At first I just placed loads of library graphics around a massive frame to form a level and pressed 'run game'. Of course, nothing moved because I hadn't discovered events, yet Still, one step closer to the dream! Those baby steps were fun, even though I didn't really make anything.
"Still, you seem to be talking about your first experience with a home computer, not with creating games."
My first experience with a (home) computer was way before those I listed. The C16 was the first computer I used to create games, programming them. Before I used MMF I programmed (I still do at times). Once day about 10 years ago, I got tired of all the typing and said to myself: "there must be an easier way of creating games. I'm programming the same routines over and over again, there must be something available that has all of these standard routines in it." I started to look around and came across KNP, soon after that CNC/TGF came and them I moved onto MMF. Until the release of MMF I mainly programmed, using TGF for fun, but MMF chanced things a lot. Now I'm using MMF2 much more then I do programming.
With C16 and later MSX my younger brother and I spent hours creating games and spreading them amongst our friends. With the MSX I also did some more serious programming, mainly creating drawing applications and solutions to print your drawings. At that time I develop a technique to print drawings made on the MSX on a dot matrix printer and Philips (the creators of the MSX) later on used the same technique to get the MSX compatible with dot matrix printers, so drawings could be printed.
magnets and cardboard
Mine was a cardboard marble pinball table, complete with rubber bumpers and light bulbs on wriggly spring circuits (I also have a vivid memory of at the age of fourish constructing a robot out of fenceposts, nails, tape, wire, road reflectors and 9-volt batteries. It did not function). I played the thing to its destruction on a vacation... I must've been fairly young, since it was before I started playing with QBasic. Six or seven?
First actual games stuff was modifying the graphics in Microsoft Gorillas.
I just recalled a time when i used to model dizzy games out of plasterciene (play doh)
and would lay it all flat on my kitchen table and actually play the game too lol.
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