Category: Accessible Games
Ok, so lets talk in hypotheticals here for a sec. I know there are dozens of accessible games out there, some better than others. However, what if I wanted to design my own?
I'm wondering if it is difficult, where I can learn about it, what is required, any information you can give me. I've thaught about this for a while, but never really gotten the urge to do it. Now I'm wondering what it entails. Can anyone give me any advice?
Well, since this is sort of a tech question; you might be better off posting on the geek board. There will be someone on there that can help you.
Hey I would try going to www.audiogamemaker.com? at least that's what I think the web site is.
Nope, stay away from the Audio Game Maker. It's a piece of crap. You can perhaps make an explorable environment but there'll be no actual game creation. I spent months working with the thing after it came out two summers ago, and let's just say the folks who made the program seriously misrepresented it. THey said it would be able to create practically any style of game you can imagine, albeit without the ability to save in any way. Well for one thing the manual is far from up to date and therefore of no help whatsoever, and secondly there are a lot of bugs that would make any actual games you might create all but unplayable. And god forbid you should have a problem that a fellow user couldn't help you with, because the developers themselves, college students who just wanted to get the assignment done as soon as possible, pretty much shrugged off your questions. Just because the program was free that meant its users' concerns weren't important enough to warrant a response.
I'd check into either Visual Basic or C# (Pronounced C Sharp) from Microsoft. I don't usually recommend a lot of Microsoft products, but these are farely easy languages to learn with a little effort. Visual Basic is reportedly easier to get into if your not of a programming background. Also, with MS you can get an Express version of either language and when you register it you get a book for free that will teach you how to program in that language. :) Oh, and the express versions are all free...Anymore questions, feel free to ask. I do Web and Windows programming, and I'm always glad to assist someone getting started. :)
I was actually going to major in computer programming so that I could learn to develop audio games but then when I got back into college three years ago I rediscovered just how abominable my math skills are. Needless to say I ended up switching majors rather quickly since I've never met anyone who could explain the concepts in a way that made sense to me.
I'm just starting out in Quickbasic (4.5) and once I've learned the essentials, I intend on making a fun little game. The more I learn the better games and programs I can create. There are tons of possibilities out there. This language, to my knowledge, won't enable you to create a purely audio game but you can include really nice sound in your games if you know how. There are also more advanced systems but I'm not going into it professionally and they're way too complicated for someone who's just starting out in programming. I'm also not good in maths, which is another reason why I chose this language. It's very user-friendly and understandable. A very quick beginners tutorial with two lessons can be found at
http://www.qbasicstation.com/index.php?c=t_beg
They also have a discussion forum for help if you need it as well as some games. There's a complete manual at
http://www.petesqbsite.com/sections/tutorials/tutorials/qbtut.htm
If you're really interested, I could send you the files for the program since the ones online are compressed in a weird format and not all the files are in them. At least, that's how it was with one of the downloads that I tried. Good luck.
You know? The more I think of it the more I think I'm wrong about not being able to create audio games with Quickbasic. I bet you could. It just might wind up being a large game or might require alot of code. Maybe the true geeks on here can help me with this one.