Starting From Scratch ... HELP!!

Hi,

My name is Louise willcott and i tell you my age only reluctantly because i know people SERIOUSLY underestimate me and to be fair it really pisses me off! I am 12 and before you judge me by this and decide not to help because I'm too young and i wont understand PLEASE give me a chance, if you have herd of C5-3D Engine i taught myself how to use it and designed a simple 3D game....

Basically i love RPGs like Runescape etc.. And i want to make one ... simple as that...i dont want it to be massive and to make me millions but just something to show my friends and to be proud of. i know nothing about how to make a game and i don't care how long it will take me... And i know it wont happen overnight


Please help.....PWEESE! =]




Lou
-x-


Rock On

Joke posts are better suited for the outhouse. The game development forum is a legitimate forum for serious questions.

Unless, it isn't. Then I suggest you work on a) not using smilies, b) learning how to capitalize and punctuate, and c) learning to proofread your English.

Thats A Great Help Thanks

Spoodle, there are a few things you should know about this forum and a few other technical forums on the net. First, these people are, for the most part, intolerant of anything that isnt right to the point. So while I might understand your smilies and posting style as reflective of your age and perhaps a general 'carefree' and funloving tone, others will not. This represents a VERY serious topic and they dont want it to be made light of in any way.

That being said, welcome to DevShed. When posting, you will have much more success if you are specific about what it is you want to know. Your original post does not provide enough information to give you any kind of meaningful answer. For example, all I know is what your name and age is, that you want to make a game, and that it doesnt need to be big or make money.

What anyone here needs to know in order to provide you with advice are things such as, what experience you've had with programming (telling me you've used a 'C5-3D Engine' isnt enough), what languages you've tried, what kind of game you want to make (i know you stated Runescape, but not all of us know what that is) .. etc. Practical information.

Hope that helps.

There are a few things you need to learn. These things take years!

First, get a very good grasp of logic. Learn to think logically. Learn to never be frustrated. Keep your cool. This step is the most important. The truth is that this comes much easier in around two years - at 12, I was only able to do simpler stuff (html, not even web programming). At 13 you get a decent grasp on something simple and forgiving (like javascript). Then you can start doing serious things in around a year. I too hated being judged on my age (I still hate it because I occasionally still am), but often there's a good reason for it, and it's not just people being snobby.

Then, learn a good language and learn how to use graphics well. The client part of the program will be very graphic-based and you want to keep the file sizes down. I recommend languages like C++, Java, etc. This takes a few years to do well (by well, I mean well enough to make something impressive. To make a game like runescape takes decades of experience).

Then, go for server dev. Learn everything you can about how to make, refine, run, and use a server. Your first attempts will be pitiful and probably won't work but then you get in the zone and it starts clicking. This is where you need a lot of security experience. This, too, will take a while.

Then you can finally piece things together.

"How do I know when I'm ready to piece it all together?", you ask. Well, it's simple - when you no longer need to go on a forum and ask anything more than very specific questions when you run into a wall, you have the knowledge and experience to start making things.

Last bit: I'm only learning, just like you. I'm only making my server right now - I haven't even touched upon refining, running, and using. I haven't even touched upon security.

Okay, more game-oriented:

First, make something work really well in single-player mode. Less bugs to work out once you add servers.

Second, make a good client<->server app that has nothing to do with games. Makes stuff easier.

Third, learn to work with databases well. Unless your game either A) is non-persistent, or B) writes to flat files (bad, usually!) you want a database. You'll end up with client<->server<->database. Don't do anything game related until you learn the db well - try something that uses dbs a lot like a payroll system or something.

Fourth, keep in mind that more people try to crack into games than they do into banks. When you release something, you're going to keep getting hit over and over again. Don't get discouraged, just patch the hole and keep going. A good idea would be to get some huge lists of known proxies and block them all, because most people that try to f*ck with you go through a known spammer proxy. Along with this advice is this: Treat every single packet sent as if it is malicious. Check it for every possible sign of tampering, check its contents against what should be true. For example, if you have a packet saying 'User gimp has moved from (10, 11) to (13, 12), passing through (11, 11), (12, 11), (12, 12), (13, 12)', you want to check that gimp was at (10, 11), that *he* requested to be moved to (13, 12), and that all those coordinates are ones gimp can pass through. You get the picture: Don't trust people.

For these kind of questions look in the Game Development Resources sticky, because that is what you're after.
Personally i like http://nehe.gamedev.net/. I used it when i already had 1 year of C++ at school, at the time it was the perfect introduction to openGL for me, just the right degree of difficulty.
Furthermore i like http://www.gamedev.net/ (see section resources for beginners).

If you do a few days of reading and after that, if you have some specific questions about some topic you read. This forum is the place to go (or the forums on their sites of course).