How I sourced the art and music for my games

[Grey Alien]

Some of you may find this blog entry useful. Please comment if so.

http://greyaliengames.wordpress.com/2006/12/14/how-i-sourced-the-art-and-music-for-my-games/

[voxel]

Love the part about being a "finisher" - so true - because nobody wants to work on a project that isn't going anywhere (read: unfinished).

[CabalDoug]

Agree with the above poster. It's probably harder for people to find sources for art and music when you have nothing to show, not even a prototype. 98% of what's out there now will never be finished so when you show that you can see a project through to completion, I'm sure the offers come pouring in. :)

[Grey Alien]

I basically made some very small finished games like a Tetris clone and a silly little arcade game to get in practice (this is after years after never finishing anything as a hobbyist). Then I made Xmas Bonus but doing most of it myself (or getting in free/cheap stuff). This at least showed I could make a commercial game (even if it wasn't top notch portals stuff in terms of graphics), and so it was easier to get team members.

I recommend that noobs don't go and make a MMORPG of course, but just make tiny little games to get in practice and learn the ropes. This may take a year or more of course (assuming some previous programming experience) and then you could start on a bigger project and maybe start to put together a team who'll all work for royalties - but make sure they are finishers too!

[LilGames]

Can you edit your link and add "http://" to the beginning ?

[Grey Alien]

oops sorry, should have checked that. Thanks for the heads up.

[Promaginy]

It makes so much sense. This is the essense of boot-strapping. That is exactly what I have preached to my partners. They originally were working on a AAA title but never had their demo picked up. To finish that project is beyond their means now. In a way they have little to show for it outside of concept and engine work.

[Uhfgood]

Actually this is similar to me, only i'm not really a success. By that I mean I don't have income coming in from my games. I made a tetris clone, a little puzzle game that involved falling blocks (that wasn't tetris :-) and a cross between space invaders and missile command although it didn't do either very well. I got work for finishing the games. Other than that i've not done anything big. You've at least made some money.

[Grey Alien]

You've at least made some money.pah, anyway ..... But hey its just the start then for you, you've finished some things, got some jobs, now keep going build it up. It won't happen overnight, all business take time, mine has been 2 years so far (on top of 21 years of hobby game programming and 9 years pro business software development), and it's only just beginning to unfold nicely.

In a way they have little to show for it outside of concept and engine work.Yeah that's the thing, on the Blitz Forums there are loads of lovely pictures in the Gallery and lots of nice tech demos, but nothing much finished. That's the key, getting something done. Then someone (who's never done anything) will slag it off -ho hum.

[Uhfgood]

By the way I own blitz3d -- and i've not actually finished anything with it. I probably won't get blitzmax, because it would be yet another thing i've paid money for and done nothing with. But you have any tips on building your own framework? I'm still considering building a 2d framework in blitz3d :-)

Keith

ps, your blog posts are pretty good/informative, i'll watch it in the future.

[Grey Alien]

Hi Keith. I haven't updated my blog enough to be honest but aim to a bit more, so yeah keep an eye on it. Sign up to my newsletter on my website if you like too.

Anyway, framework, well it was a lot easier in BMax as it's OOP so I made loads of Types(Classes) and build on those. You can't make Types with methods in B3D so you'll have to just make types and then lots of functions that work on those types (not ideal, but it's what I had to do in Blitz Plus for Xmas and Easter Bonus). Anyway, I'd made a screen type with some basic generic handling like Load, Start, Logic, Draw, and Kill. Then when you make you own special screen yu can call these default handling routines and then do your own code afterwards. Also you need a sprite type, counter types (for animations), button types (based on sprite) and menu types (collections of buttons). Then you need some way to handle loading and storeing graphics and music and accessing them quickly with your sprite types. I made sound and image banks types for this. Also you'll need to get a decent delta time or fixed rate logic core which decides how many times to call logic before draw is called. Also I made my Screen type be able to fade from one screen to another in an automated way that the framework handles for you. My top level type is called TGame of course. It keeps track of which screen you are on, handles generic key presses, minimise, full-screen windowed, playing sounds (in arrays of channels), volume/detail and other options etc. Anyway this is a basic guide, my framework does a bit too much to post about. Tell you what, go to http://www.greyaliengames.com/framework/faq.html and check out the big list of features. Duplicate that and you should e well on your way.

Hope this helps.