Which language would you recommend?

[sean_sanchez]

Hey guys,

After reading a couple pages, the depth of your knowledge is immense and impressive. My programming skills are limited. I am self thought and my way of doing things may not exactly be textbook.

I am trying to make a baseball game played with dice. I have an old simple version of the game written in Java. There are no graphics and the game is just run on a command prompt. I have another version that is played online but that is written in really sloppy javascript.

The eventual goal of course is to get a company to pick up the game. I know the more I do, the easier it is for a company to invest their time and money. Is it worth it for me to create some kind of graphics by learning ActionScript? Does it matter if i do it in Java or JS?

[Applewood]

Companies won't be investing either time or money in this, believe me.

Do it in flash and stick some mochi ads on it if you need a financial ending to strive for.

[Mattias Gustavsson]

You should use whatever language you know best - this will increase your chances of finishing it.

And I second what Paul said: no company will invest in it - you need to finish the whole game by yourself

[sean_sanchez]

Thanks. I guess.

[indy]

Java is an excellent choice for indie games nowadays, its fast, portable and pretty powerful and allows for easy cross-platform games. I'd recommend you also pick up one of the hardware acceleration libraries to give it access to things like opengl and openal.

If you plan to do it a 2d do check out the excellent java library called slick found at http://slick.cokeandcode.com or if you want 3d have a look at http://www.jmonkeyengine.com/

[Sybixsus]

Is there some kind of equivalent for MochiAds in Java then?

[indy]

Sorry, didn't mean java as a competitor to flash but as a desktop application, where you download, install and run the game.

But yes you can also embed java as an applet in the browser. I don't think there is anything like MochiAds available for applets yet but then Flash pretty much runs the scene for embedded web games at the moment.

Applets have been pretty unusable in the past due to slow start up time and stability, however the recent overhaul in the latest java version has made massive improvements to applets, which pretty much fixes all the issues applets had. However it'll take time some time for the update to trickle down to all the masses. So expect to start seeing flash like java applets appearing in the coming months and years.

If you do want to go for web based java games as opposed to hardware accelerated desktop games, currently there is the Pulpcore library which is pretty cool and allows you to create cool applets like Milpa. As for MochiAds style ads i'm pretty sure you could display similar ad's using a bit of javascript and then switching over to the applet.

[Andrej Vojtas]

@sean_sanchez

Welcome to the forum!

The flash route with adds income seems reasonable. If you have a finished game, there are many sites that can pick it up. But the competition is also strong.

Actionscript is a programming language used with Flash, it won't help you directly to create graphics.
One way to create 2D graphics without painting: you can checkout the free DAZ|Studio: http://www.daz3d.com/i/software/studio?_m=d
They have also a quite wast collection of hi-res 3d models (not good for in-game use) at low prices. + they sell also poses and animations: http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/-/b...item=1007&_m=d
You can render them in DAZ|Studio, and use the rendered pictures in your game.
Plus there are many other sites selling models in the format uspported by DAZ studio (and Poser: DAZ Studio is the free knock-off of Poser): http://poserpros.daz3d.com/store/vie...p?selitem=5366

Now this may be miles away from your question, but Unity 2.5 is out as of yesterday: http://unity3d.com/
It's NOT meant for 2D. It's a complete 3D engine (visuals, physics, particles, model animation), but it's easy to pick-up, with one of the best editors around, tutorials and community. The indie license is 199$, and you can deploy your game to PC, OS X (Mac), and web (players need to download and install a plug-in first). iPhone too but you need a separate license (399$).

I'm no way associated with Unity, I was just like many others, waiting for it to come to PC to check it out.

[princec]

I always recommend "stick with what you know". If you don't already know... then begone! And learn.

Cas

[Spiegel]

I always recommend "stick with what you know". If you don't already know... then begone! And learn.

Cas

Oh Cas, where were you when I needed that piece of advice a year ago.

Anyway, this is probably the best advice you'll get in this thread.

[Mattias Gustavsson]

One way to create 2D graphics without painting: you can checkout the free DAZ|Studio:

I second that - though I personally prefer Poser over DAZ Studio (though Poser isn't free). For an example, the free little games on my website are all done using Poser and various DAZ models.

[sean_sanchez]

So I can't use Unity unless I have a Mac?

[dbest]

Now you can.
Check out this link: Unity on Windows

[vjvj]

Now you can.
Check out this link: Unity on Windows

Yep, Unity 2.5 supports Windows dev environment now. So that's a very attractive solution.

You can make a game in pretty much anything these days, and as the game gets more simple the less critical language selection becomes. I second the notion of just using what you know. Play around with other languages during your break time.

And don't take any of the 'no one will invest in this' comments personally; they are just trying to be realistic with you so you can make the best possible decisions.

[sean_sanchez]

Used to it. It just gets tiring.

It looks like C# is a preferred language for unity. It seems like the easiest tool to build a game especially for someone like me. Thanks for pointing me in that direction.

[Game Producer]

I always recommend "stick with what you know". If you don't already know... then begone! And learn.

Cas

Good advice.

Since you know javascript you might try something like Unity (I think it can be programmed using JS).

Other recommendations would be:
- Game Maker
- BlitzMax