If you are dreaming of a job in the computer game design industry, the good news is it’s a huge industry and there are loads of jobs available and it pays remarkably well if you should happen to come up with a hot seller. The bad news is that it is very difficult to learn the requisite programming skills that are required. Getting a degree in computer science is a solid beginning, but there’s nothing easy about achieving that either. Of the six friends I had in college that were computer science majors, only one of them has the fortitude to see it through and actually get a degree. It is a grueling major filled with advanced mathematics classes and tedious programming exercises. You really have to be smart, and you really have to be motivated.

If these things sound like something you could handle that a computer game design career may be something you could do. You will definitely need a deep abiding affection for computer games, but that’s pretty obvious isn’t it? My college friend that got his computer science degree is currently working for a well knowing game design company, and absolutely loves it. He will tell you though, that it is nowhere near the fun and games that he first imagined it would be.

Computer games today have absolutely huge amounts of complex code and can take years to complete. In the infancy of the game industry, computer game design teams often consisted of just a few people. Nowadays, a lot of the games have many different production teams all working simultaneously on a project, with each working in their own field of expertise.

For the really skilled programmers, there is no limit to what you can achieve. Experienced programmers with a proven track record under their belts can not only command a large salary but can have a lot of creative input over the direction of the game.

There are some other job in the computer game design industry and programming does not interest you. Generally, programmers are the most sought after, but good graphic artists and writers can be attractive employees to say game design producers. They may not be paid as well, but they most certainly still make an excellent living in the ever burgeoning industry of computer game design.

Morgan Hamilton offers expert advice and great tips regarding all aspects concerning games. Get the information you are seeking now by visiting Computer Game Design

Good Book: MUD Game Programming (Game Development)

1. Work on the class designs first before deciding on the precise sequence of operations. Many programmers fancy themselves as doing object-oriented programming, but in reality, they use structured programming with some external object-oriented trappings. Ideally, one should first select a set of software objects that provide a logical abstraction of the software, then work on the sequence of operations. (This is by no means an absolute rule though, as the process of developing this sequence often reveals ways in which the object design can be refined.)

2. Think in terms of design patterns. Design patterns allow someone to draw on years of problem-solving experience within the computer science community. Instead of reinventing the wheel, why not just pick one off the shelf?

3. Use ‘const’ objects and ‘const’ functions whenever possible. If you know that an object’s data is never supposed to be modified, then declare the object to be ‘const’. This will prevent you—or worse, a naïve colleague–from accidentally modifying its state later on. Of course, one should also declare the appropriate member functions to be ‘const’ as well, to properly enforce this rule.

4. Avoid using public ‘get’ and ‘set’ member functions. Getters and setters are not inherently bad; however, they are often a sign of poor software abstraction. ‘Get’ and ‘set’ functions implicitly force the user to think in terms of the object’s internal data (i.e. whatever these functions are getting or setting), and such details should ideally be hidden from the object’s user. Getters and setters have their place, but please use them sparingly.

5. Avoid double indirection. C programmers are forced to work with pointers, and so they are used to having pointers to pointers throughout their code. This can often lead to confusing code, due to the all-too-familiar problems of NULL references and pointer arithmetic. In contrast, C++ programmers are under no such constraints, due to the built-in support for variable references in C++; that is, one can always use references to pointers instead, which makes the code much easier to understand. (Hint: If a C++ programmer uses double indirection, that’s a clear sign that he’s still thinking like an inexperienced C hack!)

About the author:

V. B. Velasco Jr., Ph.D. has worked as an electrical and software engineer for more than a decade. He currently works for a biotech firm that provides cryopreserved PBMCs, ELISPOT analyzers and ELISPOT expertise.

Good Book: C++ How to Program (5th Edition) (How to Program)

Why Learn C++?

C++ may at first seem like a boring, confusing programming language that you can only program command prompt applications with. Well, that is what it is like in the [b]begining[/b]. And you are going to need to learn the basics like this with any programming language. As you get better and progress in your C++ skills, you will begin to learn that you can start making some cool applications easier than you thought you could. The main reason to learn C++ though, is that it teaches all the basics of programming and you will learn concepts that will be used in other types of programming. Many other programming languages are like C++ or use C++. For example, PHP, a powerful web development language uses almost the same syntaxes as C++. DirectX, a common game development graphics library primarily uses C++.

Setting up C++

Ill assume that most people are not going to want to spend the money for a compiler, thats fine, there are many great free compilers. I use Dev-C++ because it has some nice features and is fast, and best of all, its FREE!

http://www.bloodshed.net/dev/devcpp.html

You can download it here.Download it and install it, this step is pretty easy. During instillation, select all the deafult values during instillation.

Create a New Project:
Go to the top menu: File -> New -> Source File, or just press Ctrl+N

You should now have a text document. Then, write the following text in the document:

#include

using namespace std;

int main() {cout<<”Hello World!”;

cin.get(); }

I would suggest typing it instead of copying it, you will get alot more out of actually typing it rather than copying it, because you get used to the syntaxes and development.Run the Application:
Now that you have your first C++ Application, [b]Press F9 [/b] to compile and run it. If you did everything right, it should open a command prompt like application and say ‘Hello World’ or whatever you told it to say. If it doesnt, look over the code and make sure everything is correct.

Code Analysis

#include
Tells the compiler that we are going to be using the iostream library, which includes information on things we will be using in the code.

using namespace std;
Saves time by telling the compiler that we are going to be using the ‘std::’ functions, which stands for ‘standard’.

int main()
Starts the main function, this is were the heart of the program is. I will get into what functions are later on.

{ Starts the main function.

cout<<”Hello World!”;[/code] Writes "Hello World!" to the screen. cout stands for 'console output.'

cin.get();[/code] Gets a variable from the user, we wont really be using this, but it is what will keep our application from being closed really quick.

} Closes our main function.

Analysis:
Now that we have made a simple C++ Application, we will start getting into more advanced topics so you can start making useful applications.

Chris Silop - http://www.syschat.com Computer Forum

Good Book:

Bundle of Algorithms in C++, Parts 1-5: Fundamentals, Data Structures, Sorting, Searching, and Graph Algorithms (3rd Edition)

Programming Help for Beginners

We write programs to instruct computers. When programming using a high level programming language like C++ or Java, we are using a syntax that is somewhat closer to human languages. However, we use these programs as inputs to either compilers or interpreters to be converted to computer understandable binary format. For this reason, as far as the program code adheres to the syntax of the used programming languages, the compilers and interpreters never bother about the layout or visual formatting of the program code. However, as human programmers, we ourselves need to bother about the aesthetics of the program code.

What is a Coding Standard?

A coding standard is a set of guidelines, rules and regulations on how to write code. Usually a coding standard includes guide lines on how to name variables, how to indent the code, how to place parenthesis and keywords etc. The idea is to be consistent in programming so that, in case of multiple people working on the same code, it becomes easier for one to understand what others have done. Even for individual programmers, and especially for beginners, it becomes very important to adhere to a standard when writing the code. The idea is, when we look at our own code after some time, if we have followed a coding standard, it takes less time to understand or remember what we meant when we wrote some piece of code.

Coding Standards Make a Difference

Look at the following example:

int volume(int i, int j, int k) {

int vol;

vol = i * j * k;

return vol;

}

Looking at this code at a glance, it takes some time for one to understand that this function calculates the volume. However if we adhere to a naming convention for variables and method names, we could make the code more readable.

Here are few sample conventions:

use meaningful variable names
use verbs in method names
use nouns for variables
use 4 spaces to indent

int calculateVolume(int height, int width, int length) {

int volume = 0;

volume = height * width * length;

return volume;

}

It takes more time to type this code, however this saves far more time. This code is far more readable than its original version. With a little bit of effort, we could make the code much more understandable.

The Benefits

It is not only the readability that we get through a coding standard in programming. Writing more secure code could also be encouraged through a coding convention. As an example, in C++ we could say that each pointer variable must be initialized to NULL.

char* myName = NULL;

This ensures that we would not corrupt memory while using this pointer variable.

Code readability is just one of the aspects of maintainability. Coding standards help a great deal with program maintainability, our ability to change programs with ease. Consistency imposed through a coding standard is a key factor to achieve success in maintaining prorams.

Defining Your Own Coding Standard

A programmer can define his or her own coding convention and adhere to that in writing programms. However there are many coding conventions available on the Internet. Those who program in Java should have a look into http://java.sun.com/docs/codeconv/html/CodeConvTOC.doc.html – Code Conventions for the Java Programming Language by Sun.

For C++ coding standards, I would recommend that you have a look into http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/webdev/AppB.Cpp_Coding_Standards.htm – C++ Coding Standards from BBC.

http://oopweb.com/CPP/Documents/CPPHOWTO/Volume/C++Programming-HOWTO-14.html – C++ Programming HOWTO has some C++ Coding Conventions and also a bunch of links that lead to several coding standards that you can pick from.

John Dirk

Programming Consultant

http://www.programminghelp4u.com/
Programming ( Assignment / Project ) Help

Good Book: C++ Coding Standards: 101 Rules, Guidelines, and Best Practices (C++ In-Depth Series)

I’ve always loved video games, ever since I first played them on a friend’s computer in the afternoon after elementary school. There’s something almost magical about the fact that we can move images around and interact with virtual worlds, a living fantasy presented for us to interact with however we please. I’ve also always wanted to make games myself but, until recently, didn’t have the technical knowledge to do so. Now, I’m a second year software engineering student, so if I weren’t able to code a game without too many dramas there’d be something drastically wrong. But what about the common person: the person for whom the term ‘memory leak’ conjures up images of their grandfather, ‘pipeline’ is where the water flows, and ‘blitting’ is unheard of? Well, everyone can get in on the game creation process, and you don’t even need to learn ‘real’ programming to do so.

So where do games start? With an idea. Games, like all fiction, require an idea to be successful. Sure, in the same way you can just sit down and write a story without foresight, you can jump on in and slap a game together. However, unless you get ridiculously lucky, the best works are usually the ones that have been well thought out beforehand.

There are two methods of planning a project. You can start from a known technological standpoint and build your project on top of that or you can just go for the design, add as many features and ideas as you like, and then remove the ones that you can’t use when you’ve decided on the technology you’re going to implement the game with. In general, the second type is probably the best one to go with when designing games. When you’re first starting out however, the first option will save you many headaches.

So, for a first game you’re going to want a pretty simple idea. Don’t get me wrong, crazy-go-nuts game ideas are fantastic, and there should be more of them out there, but you’re not going to be able to create a real world simulator with fifty billion virtual people all interacting real time with your actions having a butterfly effect on the future of the virtual universe when it’s just your first game. Really. Many people try it; none that I know of have succeeded. Imitation is the best way to start out. Simple games such as ‘Space Invaders’, ‘Tetris’, ‘Pacman’ or even ‘Pong’ are great places to start. All are largely simple to create but have some inherent challenges. ‘Pacman’ for example, requires path finding for the ghosts. I recommend that you start even simpler than that for your very first attempt. ‘Space Invaders’ is a nice point to jump in. You can make a simple, complete game without much effort and it’s almost infinitely extensible.

If you’re stuck for an idea, pick a genre that you enjoy. Do you love adventure games such as ‘Monkey Island’, ‘Grim Fandango’, ‘Space Quest’, ‘King’s Quest’ etc.? Design one of those. Are you into fighting games like ‘Street Fighter’, ‘Tekken’, ‘Soul Calibur’, ‘Mortal Kombat’ and so on? Come up with an idea for that. Do you like first person shooters such as ‘Quake’, ‘Half Life’ or ‘Doom’? I don’t recommend it as a first project, but you can always give it a go. Feel free to be as generic as you like, this is a learning experience after all.

Now that you have your idea it’s time to flesh it out. Don’t worry about the technology or the fact that you may not know how to actually implement a game just yet, just grab yourself some paper and a pencil and go crazy with ideas. Describe the main characters, game play, goals, interactions, story, and key mappings, anything you can think of. Make sure you have enough detail so that someone can read through the notes and play through the game in their head with relative accuracy. Changing game design during the coding process is almost always a bad idea. Once it’s set, it should remain set until the tweaking phase (I’ll go into this more later) or you’re likely to enter ‘development hell’, where the project goes on and on; more and more work is done with less and less outcome.

At the end of this period of your game creation, you should have the following:

- A written outline of the game’s characters and possibly a sketch or two (be they space ships, yellow circles, cars or the prince of the dark kingdom of Falgour, you need to know who or what the player will be and who they will compete against)

- A written outline of the story (if there is one, this isn’t too vital for ‘Space Invaders’ or ‘Tetris’, but for ‘Uber Quest: An Adventure of Awesomeness’ it’s a really good idea)

- A description of game play, written or storyboarded. Storyboards are visual representations of ideas. Draw your characters in actions, with arrows showing the flow of action and short written descriptions detailing the events occurring in your image (because some of us aren’t fantastic artists and our images can be a little… open to interpretation…)

Now that you have a fleshed out idea, it’s time to work out how this will all get put together. If you’ve gotten to this point and are worried that you’re going to have to spend years learning complex programming languages in order to implement your idea, fear not! Others have already done the hard yards for you. There are many RAD (Rapid Application Development) Tools available for game creation, a number of which are available for free online. Some of them still require you to learn a ‘scripting language’ (a simplified programming language made for a specific task) but in general this isn’t too complicated or involved. I’ve compiled a brief list of some of these I have found at the end of the article. The free ones are listed first, organized by game genre.

Well, that should be enough to get you started in the creation of your game. The most important thing to remember once you’ve gotten this far is that you need to complete your game. Many people start a project and then lose interest and it fails, or they keep moving on to one new project after another without finishing anything. Start small, build a working (if simple) game that is, above all else, complete. When you get to this stage you will always have a huge number of things that you wish to change, fix etc. but you’ll get a great feeling from knowing that it is, in its way, finished.

From this point, you can start the tweaking phase. Play your game a few times and ask others to do the same. Take note of what isn’t fun or could be better and change things here. At this stage, it is more important than ever to keep backups of previous versions so that if a change doesn’t work you can go back and try something different without losing any of your work. It is at this point that you can add all new features, improve graphics and sounds, whatever you please, safe in the knowledge that you’re working on a solid foundation.

When you’re happy with your game, why not share it with the world? There are many cheap or free places out there for you to host your files on and then you can jump on link lists and forums and let everyone know about your creation. Well, I hope that this has been a helpful introduction into the art of creating games. It’s a great deal of fun, and can open whole new avenues of creative expression for you to explore. Jump in and have fun!

Links:

General Game Creation:
(Tools that allow easy creation of many different game types)
Game Maker: http://www.gamemaker.nl
MegaZeux: http://megazeux.sourceforge.net/

Adventure Games:
(Games such as Monkey Island, King’s Quest, Space Quest etc.)
Adventure Game Studio: http://www.bigbluecup.com
AGAST: http://www.allitis.com/agast/
3D Adventure Studio: http://3das.noeska.com/
ADRIFT (for text adventures): http://www.adrift.org.uk/

Role Playing Games (RPGs):
(Games such as Final Fantasy, Breath of Fire, Diablo)
OHRPG: http://www.hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce/
RPG Toolit: http://www.toolkitzone.com/

Fighting Games:
(Games such as Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Soul Calibur etc.)
KOF91: http://sourceforge.net/projects/kof91/
MUGEN (unfortunately the site is largely in French): http://www.streetmugen.com/mugen-us.html

Side-Scrolling Games:
(Games such as the 2D Mario Games, Sonic the Hedgehog, Double Dragon etc.)
The Scrolling Game Development Kit: http://gamedev.sourceforge.net/

There are many others available as well. One particularly useful site for finding game creation tools is: http://www.ambrosine.com/resource.html

Also of note, although not freeware, are the excellent game creation tools available by Clickteam at: http://www.clickteam.com/English/
Klik and Play and The Games Factory in particular are the programs to have a look at and download the free demos of.

If you really want to do things right and program the game yourself, there are some excellent programming resources available at the following locations:

Java Game Programming:
http://fivedots.coe.psu.ac.th/~ad/jg/
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1262.asp
http://javaboutique.internet.com/tutorials/Java_Game_Programming/

Visual Basic Game Programming:
http://markbutler.8m.com/vb-tutorial.htm

C++ Game Programming:
http://www3.telus.net/alexander_russell/course_dx/introduction_dx.htm
http://www.rit.edu/~jpw9607/tutorial.htm

General Information:
http://www.gamedev.net/
http://www.gamasutra.com/

Daniel Punch
M6.Net
http://www.m6.net
Daniel Punch is a university student learning how to make a living through having fun.

Good Book: C++ How to Program (5th Edition) (How to Program)