2007 Software Desgin Project

Hey guys,

I'm all new to these forums but I thought I might start with this:

In a few weeks we are going to be handed out our 2007 Software Design and Development Project. It can be done in pretty much any language available and can be pretty much anything. It can be an application, plug in or a game, you name it. But I've decided this year I want to do something epic compared to others. I don’t want to take the easy way out and do a simple game that gives me full marks. I want to do something EPIC (in my standards ^^) ANYWAY...

----The Purpose of this is to find out what the magnitude of such projects will be and what advice you might give... Any help will be appreciated ----

The project is carried out from now till this time next year. So that gives me a year to learn a new language, design and develop a game. I was thinking initially a basic classic RPG game (such as that of the early Nintendo game boy Zelda's). But then it occurred to me that I would rather challenge myself and use knowledge of 3D graphics to produce a primitive 3D game (something like the content of a demo). Now i have no idea how long or how difficult it's going to be to produce something along these lines, so any help would be appreciated.

Languages I've looked at so far

C#
C++
KPL 2 (Phrogram)
DarkBASIC
BlitzBASIC

C# and C++ I have concluded will take too long to learn in the time period given.

Any comments?

Thanks.

I began learning C++ and stopped because graphics in that were really hard(for me at least) and i moved on to JAVA and i love this language, getting graphics was simple and to make an RPG it wont be very difficult once you get all the basics down...i am just trying to help the little that i can...im not an expert Java programmer or nething, just my opinion. Good luck...

How much time exactly do you have? How many months? If I understood you correctly, you have 0 programming experience. Which means you have no real computer science experience. You haven't dealt with storing data and manipulating large amounts of it.

So you'll have to learn a) a language b) data structures and algorithms c) and if you're doing graphics either the OpenGL or Direct3D API. Then you'll have to use that knowledge to write real working code. So the question becomes how much time do you have to do all of this?

Also to throw in, consider high level languages like Python and Ruby. Consider something web based, so you'll have to learn PHP, ASP.NET, or even Python again.

Anyway, I can only say this: think small. Take for example, a pong game. How will you store the positions of the ball and the paddles on the screen? If the ball collides with the paddle, how will you know? How do you determine the speed and direction in which the ball collides? The questions will be the same regardless of the language you choose, and it's best to keep those questions to a minimum when starting out.