DC Game Coding for Dummies

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Roareye
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DC Game Coding for Dummies

Post#1 » Sat May 05, 2018 5:11 am

I started looking at the possibility of coding my own game last night, and I can't begin to explain how little I know about code past HTML (I know, hardcore coding that). I'm a creative sort, but the actual programming is Swahili as far as I'm concerned, so I need support to learn. And that is where I found this link;

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/lets-bui ... ut.916501/

The steps are very straight forward and simple (I'm still going through the motions of Step 1 out of 3 though, early days), and it's not til Step 3 that you actually get to the game part. I'll keep you posted as to how I do, as I have a cool RPG project planned, hopefully with online multiplayer, and I'd hate to be begging coders to do all the grunt work for me. Help at times, sure, but it's a bit of a pisstake to say "Make my game, I can do some graphics and stuff" lol

Anyway, I hope this is helpful to us. It's pretty straight-forward but does include the need to install a few programs (It talks you through it all clearly though, and gives you clean links to what you need). Hopefully if this is as good as it seems so far, the Dreamcast Homebrew scene can see even more activity :D

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FlorreW
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Re: DC Game Coding for Dummies

Post#2 » Sat May 05, 2018 9:25 am

Well , unfortunately that guide is not complete. I have been looking for a complete guide like that several times without any sucsess :| I think that developing even the most simple game needs a lot ( and i mean alot !) of reading and learning.

It would be really really nice if someone who actually have enough knowledge in developing games for the dreamcast could make a tutorial about how to do the most simple game, it does not even have to be a game it can be how to use your controller to move a square on the screen in a direction etc etc.

I would love that :P

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Roareye
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Re: DC Game Coding for Dummies

Post#3 » Sat May 05, 2018 12:45 pm

Really? Incomplete? Nutsacks :(
I'm gonna keep going with it. If I can learn something it's better than learning nothing.

We need a simple visual editor for Dreamcast game building. It must be possible by now. Websites like WIX do that for website coding. I used to use a program called GameMaker back in the early 2000s, which you pasted in your sprites, but had to tell the program what button presses etc were meant to do (But not in code). It's a shame there isn't a DC equivalent of that.

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Roel
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Re: DC Game Coding for Dummies

Post#4 » Sat May 05, 2018 3:06 pm

I've only had a quick glance, but here's my impression:

Follow the tutorial to the point where you've set up the toolchain, and compiled and run some sample code. Then find other sources of information (e.g. documentation on KOS, and other tutorials) and learn by experimenting. Don't bother with the chapter about software rendering, because while not everything it says is bad, the rendering method shown is genuinely terrible. There's nothing inherently wrong with software rendering (Beats of Rage used it too and was very portable because of it), but the code in the tutorial is very slow and will not teach you how to do things properly.


Roareye wrote:We need a simple visual editor for Dreamcast game building. It must be possible by now. Websites like WIX do that for website coding.


Sorry, but just because building websites is (made) easy, does not in any way mean the same should be true for games. The two really cannot be compared in this way.

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Roareye
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Re: DC Game Coding for Dummies

Post#5 » Sat May 05, 2018 4:02 pm

Roel wrote:I've only had a quick glance, but here's my impression:

Follow the tutorial to the point where you've set up the toolchain, and compiled and run some sample code. Then find other sources of information (e.g. documentation on KOS, and other tutorials) and learn by experimenting. Don't bother with the chapter about software rendering, because while not everything it says is bad, the rendering method shown is genuinely terrible. There's nothing inherently wrong with software rendering (Beats of Rage used it too and was very portable because of it), but the code in the tutorial is very slow and will not teach you how to do things properly.

Man, good shout. Beats of Rage is junk. I just got an SD Reader today that was pre-loaded with many BoR ports and none of them played very well. That may be an issue with implementation or something else, but it was slow and unresponsive.

I'd certainly prefer to do it properly if only to keep the code clean and reduce issues, especially as I eventually want to implement online DC gaming, which won't be plausible with bloated code.


Roareye wrote:We need a simple visual editor for Dreamcast game building. It must be possible by now. Websites like WIX do that for website coding.


Sorry, but just because building websites is (made) easy, does not in any way mean the same should be true for games. The two really cannot be compared in this way.

I'm not suggesting it's as simple to do, I'm aware site coding is much simpler in every way than coding a game.

However simplification tools for this have existed for twenty years. The Sonic community (Especially from SAGE last decade) often utilised such tools as GameMaker etc to create fan games. These weren't usually great, but the term of the idea was there already. Add to that engines such as Unity exist to do much the same in a wider indie space, there's clearly a market for this sorta thing.

I'm also interested in the TitanIDE being made to do something similar specifically for DC, though I think it's too simplistic atm for it's own good. It's a bit limiting. But again, the idea is there.

But again, I can understand that even if a decent enough program were to exist, it wouldn't be as efficient as coding yourself. As you're marked as a Developer, I guess that's why simplifying the process by reducing the code efficiency doesn't appeal to you, and that's understandable.

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Roel
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Re: DC Game Coding for Dummies

Post#6 » Sun May 06, 2018 3:29 am

Roareye wrote:Man, good shout. Beats of Rage is junk. I just got an SD Reader today that was pre-loaded with many BoR ports and none of them played very well. That may be an issue with implementation or something else, but it was slow and unresponsive.


Please don't conflate all the mods, ports and adaptations with the original. Beats of Rage wasn't perfect, but it was far from junk. Also, the very fact that you were running it from an SD card may have been at the root of the problems you experienced, because the SD card interface blocks while reading, while a CD/GD can do non-blocking reads. This greatly impacts performance.

Anyway, I only mentioned it in regards to software rendering. The tutorial mentions that the given method isn't even fast enough to render a single tiny sprite at 60 fps, while Beats of Rage (both the original and Neill Corlett's DC port) easily renders full scenes with large sprites and blending effects (provided it doesn't have to stream music from SD).



Roareye wrote:I'm not suggesting it's as simple to do, I'm aware site coding is much simpler in every way than coding a game.

However simplification tools for this have existed for twenty years. The Sonic community (Especially from SAGE last decade) often utilised such tools as GameMaker etc to create fan games. These weren't usually great, but the term of the idea was there already. Add to that engines such as Unity exist to do much the same in a wider indie space, there's clearly a market for this sorta thing.

I'm also interested in the TitanIDE being made to do something similar specifically for DC, though I think it's too simplistic atm for it's own good. It's a bit limiting. But again, the idea is there.

But again, I can understand that even if a decent enough program were to exist, it wouldn't be as efficient as coding yourself. As you're marked as a Developer, I guess that's why simplifying the process by reducing the code efficiency doesn't appeal to you, and that's understandable.


I am well aware of the existence and the long history of GameMaker, Unity and other engines. I am in no way opposed to them, nor would I ever claim that every game should be programmed from scratch. In fact, given the amount of work involved in writing a modern-day game engine, it had long ago occurred to me that pre-built ones will in time become ubiquitous, and custom-made ones extremely rare. I wasn't denying the possibility of having a similar product for the Dreamcast either.

My only point was exactly what I said: that one part of your statement did not necessarily follow from the other. It's not about simplicity versus complexity - the considerations in game engine development are just completely different from those that apply to website builders. I should know, I've worked in both fields and have built several game engines and website builders from scratch.


I hope this clarifies my intentions. In any case, I wish you good luck with your endeavours.

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Aleron Ives
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Re: DC Game Coding for Dummies

Post#7 » Sun May 06, 2018 4:32 am

Game making is a lot easier now than it was in 2000, mostly thanks to pre-built game engines such as Unity, but most such engines are intended for platforms much newer than the Dreamcast. In the DC era, developers were expected to create the engine for each game from scratch, so it's not like you can take something like Unity and expect it to run on DC hardware. On the bright side, this higher barrier to entry meant that DC-era systems got much less shovelware than modern systems do, as making shovelware was much harder when you couldn't just download some pre-made assets from a website, slap them into a scenario, and call it a game.

Common game engines have lowered the bar for entry into modern game development, but to develop on DC you really have no choice but to spend some years learning C or C++ before you're going to be able to create anything that people are interested in playing -- especially if you want to develop a 3D game. Programming is an inherently complex task, so what you're looking for in the thread title does not exist.
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Re: DC Game Coding for Dummies

Post#8 » Sun May 06, 2018 1:26 pm

Building your own engine can be a slow and painful process, but creative game idea can come out of those limitation. I made a tiled floor generator for my game, and it sparked a bunch of idea for a generative-based ressource collection game.

Ask yourself, what do I really need to make my game work? The absolute minimum. Do I need animated 3D model? Do I need precise physics? Can I do it with sprites? And go on from there. Load your most basic asset (ie: a .png file, a .wav soundeffect). Learn how to use the controllers and move things around, have them interact with each other.

This is how I started. I had huge ambition that I scaled down to what is essential to the game I want to make. I also have a team of IRL friend to game dev with. This single factor also changes EVERYTHING.

Anyway, feel free to ask any question here or on the dreamcast-talk discor din the game_dev channel. mrNeo and I are usually around.
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Re: DC Game Coding for Dummies

Post#9 » Sun May 06, 2018 8:02 pm

google the titan ide. its essentially game maker for dreamcast, with game samples that run on the dc. but IIRC, its still in alpha or beta stages of development
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Roareye
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Re: DC Game Coding for Dummies

Post#10 » Sun May 06, 2018 8:18 pm

I've checked out TitanIDE. I believe in future this will likely be the way for amateurs to build games. In it's current state though you're heavily restricted to genres pre-built in, but I don't want to speak negatively, developing these tools takes time.

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