Learn the basics of Windows graphics programming as you build a lightweight game. Between the use of software patterns and the graphics techniques, you’ll polish your fundamental programming skills while having a bit of fun.
Building a Small Game Using Windows Graphics Programming
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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This is quite nice for people wanting to learn some c#!
I think this article and the one below demonstrate what is of value to the average user of the respective operating systems. It is, of course, a sweeping generalization, but sometimes they are called for. I would like to see some articles on how to write games for Linux on OSNEWS, or maybe an end to the cease-less whining about how bored everyone is of playing the proprietary TuxRacer or Mandrake’s clone of Bubble Bobble.
Articles on programming cross platform games would be alot more beneficial, than these $Operating_System centric articles.
By the way you can find alot of OSS games as well as some commercial ones at happypenguin.org, and read the *whole* ‘Proramming Linux Games’ at the following locations.
By the way, I haven’t used Mandrake in a long time. By Bubble Bobble clone do you mean Frozen Bubble? If so, Frozen bubble is actually a Busta Move clone.
http://www.happypenguin.org/
http://www.overcode.net/~overcode/writing/plg/
http://www.frozen-bubble.org/
Just found this, when looking up frozen bubble. Give it a try.
http://glenn.sanson.free.fr/fb/play.html
Sorry for being off topic. Still I think it’s neat.
Anyone who might be interested in a platform for beginner-level game programming or simulation might want to check out http://www.jigglescript.com/. It is a project i’ve been working on now and then so that those with some Javascript experience can pick it up and sort of piece together some games in OpenGL and such. It is going through a major rewrite right now, but if you’re just interested in poking around the demo I have up for download might provide a few hours of fun. Or not. Ya know, whatever. 🙂
http://www.ogre3d.org
axiomengine.sourceforge.net
axiomengine is actually a C# port of the ogre3d engine. Both are crossplatform.
I’ll guess the biggest problem with high-quality open source games are that there are tons of open source graphics engines, but not many(if any) high quality “game” engines. These distinct things.
Of course if you don’t care about all parts of your game to be open and really want to just concentrate on a game and not messing with a 3d engine, then I would recommend using the SDKs of commercial games.
I recommend the FarCry(CryTek) engine which has a SDK, excellent map editor, tutorials, and the game code is coded in the Lua scripting language which is used widely in the gaming industry and has some powerful features.
If you have a hefty enough machine I would download the farcry demo. It is absolutely gorgeous, with the ability to render expansive, lush outdoor scenes.
Instead of going OS-specific, I’d suggest looking at SDL (http://www.libsdl.org/). It’s supported on all of the major platforms, a bunch of minor platforms, and several console platforms even.
I think there’s even a C# binding for it somewhere, if you’d like (I would, but YMMV).
– chrish
found the link: http://cs-sdl.sourceforge.net/
The article contains some useful data and certainly has a point, but the language used is totally inappropraite for something that starts with “learn the basics”
The entire “Separating Abstraction from implementation” section is your typical textbook style endless horde of long words that means absolutely nothing. In no way does it add to the articles meaning, and would simply confuse anyone interested in “basics”
The ‘rolling’ code has to be one of the largest pieces of tripe I’ve seen. While yes, it does a marvellous job of seeding a random, is it really necessary to call 70+ lines of code for something that basically does a random(5)+1 and displays it? Isn’t one seed of the Random number generator enough for a ‘basic’ program? This code looks more like what I’d expect in a high end computerized slot in vegas than a ‘basic’ game.
Hm… i prefer pyGame…
http://www.pygame.org/
SDL + Python.