Expert Advice On 'Simple' Game Please?

Tim_A

Hi all,

Can I get some expert advice on my simple game concept please... being new to all this I can work out the elements individually, but can't seem to tie them together??

The image attached shows the basic principal... an actor (green) spawns every X seconds and travels up the screen in a straight line.

If you click the 'L' button when the green actor is inbetween the horizontal lines (or presumably over an invisible actor?), the green actor changes direction and travels to the left to a predetermined X/Y location.

If you mis-time the button press then the actor just carried on a collides with the red wall.

The opposite happens if you hit the 'R' button, sending the green actor to the right.

Could I please get some advice on the basic principal which is essentially a timing-based game?

Thanks in advance

Tim

JDuaneJ

Not real sure what you're asking help with here. What is the motivation for the Left and Right directions? Whats the point of the design? Goal? Is this to music? etc etc etc.

Are you asking how you would program this up?

tatiang

Here's a demo.

Tim_A

WOW thank you so much... that's the basics of the game exactly as I hoped. I'm confident I can tinker with it and add my game states, scoring, level-ups and spawn-rates etc.

Look forward to submitting a new game soon!

Cheers

Tim

Armelline

@uptimistik said:
Don't forget to pay tatiang from the future sales of the game! Lolll

If that was really a thing he could probably live off his earnings the amount of help he's given on these forums

tatiang

Thanks for saying so, @Armelline.

Glad you liked the demo, @Tim_A

JDuaneJ

Argh. How do you expect anyone to learn how to make great games if you just do the work for them without explaining any of it? @Tim_A missed a huge opportunity to learn some great game design techniques.

tatiang

@JDuaneJ I hear you and as a teacher I can appreciate what you're saying. I wrestle with that question every single time I post an answer, a suggestion, or a demo.

Sometimes, though, it's helpful to see an efficient way to do something and to be able to then modify and customize it for your own purposes. I may have helped to bypass the frustration and challenges of doing all of this by yourself but I wouldn't assume that no learning is taking place from examining and working with the demo.

JDuaneJ

@tatiang I agree with you, and you were great at helping out with an actual project file for him to tinker with. I took it as an expert dev figuring it easier to just do the work for him so as not to invest too much time away from other things. The best part of game design is actually thinking and building something yourself that actually works. Right? And that knowledge you have to actually build that demo for him, he could have learned and used later on to help someone else. Now that it's done, he may remember what was done, but he will always (for awhile at least) have to go back and look at your demo. Give a man a fish or teach a man to fish.

I just think it would have been better to, if anything, just tell him what you would do and have him actually build it himself. No offense to you personally.

tatiang

No offense taken. I think saving time is part of it, especially with the new formatting on the forums. I have a little less patience for typing everything out. But like I said, I weigh that every time I post something. I suspected that my demo might be 25% of his gameplay. Maybe he wanted additional spawning obstacles or a scoreboard or multie levels or Game Center integration, etc. And of course it's also possible that I just gave him 95% of his game. Anyway, I'll take to heart what you said.

Braydon_SFX

@tatiang said:
No offense taken. I think saving time is part of it, especially with the new formatting on the forums. I have a little less patience for typing everything out. But like I said, I weigh that every time I post something. I suspected that my demo might be 25% of his gameplay. Maybe he wanted additional spawning obstacles or a scoreboard or multie levels or Game Center integration, etc. And of course it's also possible that I just gave him 95% of his game. Anyway, I'll take to heart what you said.

I agree. Personally, I think it was the free demos that really helped me, someone who had never touched any code or logic, to get the hang of how GameSalad works. When I first joined, I remember thinking how weird the tool looked, wondering what each behavior did and the like. The free demos not only gave me mechanics, but also showed me how to use code in GameSalad. What Rules do and how to use them, for instance. After seeing the visual aspect of how things work, it made much more sense when looking at an answer to one of my game mechanic questions. If I had read that post before actually downloading those demos and tinkering with the behaviors, I really wouldn't have been able to figure it out. The order of how I was to implement the code made much more sense after looking at the experts code and seeing how their minds worked. I know what you're saying @JDuaneJ‌, and I agree with you too! However, in my opinion, I think the demos and project files really help the beginners understand the fundamentals.

JDuaneJ

@Braydon_SFX oh I'm not against demos or project files at all, I use them as well. But in the case of actual game design and implementation, I believe firmly that help should be driven by communication and not the handoff of a file...unless that file is followed by a description of why the choses code was used. Also, in this case, my original post was in the spirit of encouraging game design and finding out what his intent for the post was. If his intent was to have someone do the work for him, he would have said so. Hence in my first post the last question I asked was "Are you asking how you would code this up?"

Tim_A

I can understand this viewpoint... but from my personal experience this is the best way for me to learn. I've now rebuilt my game from scratch using the techniques outlined in the demo and am confident that I can apply them on future projects without needing to refer back to the demo.

Rather than just re-skin the demo, I can de-construct it and figure out exactly how the desired effect was achieved.

I think a lot of the problems beginners have is simply getting into the mindset of a developer, and by tinkering with demos like the one provided, you can understand the required approach and hopefully realise that using GameSalad isn't that daunting

I for one am very grateful to @tatiang

quantumsheep

@Tim_A said:
I can understand this viewpoint... but from my personal experience this is the best way for me to learn. I've now rebuilt my game from scratch using the techniques outlined in the demo and am confident that I can apply them on future projects without needing to refer back to the demo.

Rather than just re-skin the demo, I can de-construct it and figure out exactly how the desired effect was achieved.

I think a lot of the problems beginners have is simply getting into the mindset of a developer, and by tinkering with demos like the one provided, you can understand the required approach and hopefully realise that using GameSalad isn't that daunting

I for one am very grateful to tatiang

Nicely put. Welcome to the forums

The_Gamesalad_Guru

I myself see the pros and cons of templates. For some they are a learning tool for others a shortcut. It's a tough call. Some of my best gamesalad discoveries came from flat out not knowing and other not knowing as well. Then setting out to know why something is by testing and building barebones test projects. This is how I figured out multitouch before anyone else really had. I use that and my other experiences like it to work out multiplayer which currently has little documentation. So I guess it come down to the individual. If one wants to pioneer stuff then going it alone is important to mature to that place. If one just wants to make a game then the former is irrelevant.

JDuaneJ

I'm just a stickler for curating a young designers mind. When I think about it, this thread could have been filled with awesome design discussions about how @Tim_A could have done this game. Now it's filled with opinions about how one should learn. lol Oh well carry on my wayward son.