Create Computer Games - Get Started on Creating Your Own Virtual Worlds

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.

Free Game

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/

Create Computer Games - Get Started on Creating Your Own Virtual Worlds

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Create a Game Room For Family Fun

At one time only the affluent had a game room in their home. Now, game rooms have become almost a staple in many new built homes, and many homeowners of older homes are converting basements, attics, and garages into game rooms.

Locating a Game Room

Game

The first thought should be about the types of games and equipment you intend to put in your room. Most people immediately think, "pool table". If this is on your list, you'll find you need quite a large space. The minimum room size for a room with a pool table is 17x14. For the largest size pool table, you will need room space of 19x15. This is only for the pool table area.

If space is limited, a two-in-one table. These tables have a reversible top and can be used as a dining table or card table. If your room just isn't large enough to accommodate a pool table, consider locating it in a separate area.

Game Room Equipment

A poker table is also an good option for a family of card players. Some tables, called casino tables, can be used for a variety of games, such as roulette, craps, chess, backgammon, etc., just by flipping the table top. When the game table is not in use, it can be covered with it's table cover and used as an area to serve food and drinks. With it's cover on, this table can also be used for playing board games. If you don't have a poker table and like to play family board games or make puzzles together, a folding table that can be stored along the wall or in a closet is a good option. If you have children, you can add a ping pong table, foosball, or air hockey game. An old fashioned pin ball machine or video game is always an eye catcher. Keep in mind however, that these are expensive pieces of equipment to buy and maintain. If you are a musical family, set up a music center in your game room. A karaoke machine and a keyboard or small piano will make a fun music center. A juke box will also add to the musical theme. If you are gamers, what's more fun than playing Nintendo Wii together as a family? A flatscreen TV attached to the wall will take up no room at all. If you are sports fans, this will be a great place to invite guests to watch the latest, most important sports event of the season. Along with a TV on the wall, darts are also a perennial favorite that will add to your game room and not take up much space. One note, if you have children who will be using the darts, opt for an electronic dart game to prevent injuries. And speaking of not taking up much space, you can also paint a shuffleboard on the floor for some rainy day activity.

This is just a partial list of game equipment you can obtain. Of course, you don't want or can't have it all in one room. I just wanted to give you a few ideas and a jumping off point to get your creative ideas flowing.

Arranging Your Game Room

Once you've chosen a location and decided on your equipment, it's time to layout and decorate your room. The easiest way to do this is to start with a floor plan. This will save you much aggravation along with your back. Also, if you haven't purchased all of your game room equipment yet, this may save you from making costly mistakes.

The first step is to decide on your focal point. If you have a pool table, this will most likely be your choice. If you are a card family, your poker table will take center stage. Other choices for your focal point could be a smaller game table such as foosball or air hockey. Perhaps you'd like to make a wet bar and food service area your focal point. Whatever, your choice, set your focal point in place first and arrange all other pieces of game equipment and furniture around it.

This is why it is such a good idea to use a floor plan. With so many small pieces of equipment to locate, you can play around with the arrangement to your hearts content, until you come up with something you are happy with.

A Great Family Project

Creating or redoing a family game room is a great way to spend time together as a family. Working together to make decisions on where to locate the room, what type of games should be included, and how to decorate it will be great fun. Get everyone involved in the work also. Cleaning, painting, moving furniture can be done by everyone. No little red hens here. This should be a great way to get the family involved and spending some time together.

Create a Game Room For Family Fun

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To create a game plan and stress-free holiday, your

It's holiday time again! Yes, that' right. The holiday season starts with Halloween and continues through New Year's and even longer if you want to count Valentine's Day in the mix. That's at least two months of celebration! During this time there are countless holiday parties with all kinds of food, drinks, and desserts; days spent shopping and writing cards; hours spent cleaning, decorating, and baking all while you try to keep up with your everyday family and work life.

Whew! No wonder so many of us feel extra stress come this time of year as well as a sense of dread and depression in some cases. On top of all the frenzy, this is a time that the average American gains 1 pound of weight. Now that may not sound like much but most people never lose that 1 pound. Over the years, the weight just keeps piling on. And the news is worse for people who are already overweight. For this group, average weight gain can be more than 5 pounds. Much of mid-life weight gain can in fact be blamed on the eating and living patterns that we adopt during this two month period.

Free Game

All the stress and extra weight wreak havoc on our heart health, cholesterol levels and our sense of well-being. So to help you sail through the holidays this year while savoring them and staying on track with your priorities, I am going to show you how to easily create your stress-free holiday game plan. When your holidays are filled with activities you love versus activities that cause stress, your holidays will be more fun and less likely to cause you to overeat.

A first step in coming up with a stress-free holiday game plan is not only to free up time in your soon-to-be-busy holiday schedule but to also think about what activities you want to try this year to make your holidays truly special. What kind of holiday do you want? Don't just let yourself get wrapped up in tradition without taking a moment to determine if your holiday traditions are still nourishing you the way they used to.

So here's what you need to do...

Make a list of everything you traditionally do during the holidays. To ensure you capture everything, break it down into the following categories:

1. Family holiday traditions
2. Friend/work holiday traditions
3. Personal responsibilities/to-do's
4. New things you want to try this year

Put a happy or sad face next to each item on your list to indicate if you like or dislike it. Don't worry about how you think you should feel about each item on your list. Really be honest with yourself.

Next, for any items that receive an unhappy face, decide if you want to delegate (give it to someone else), diminish (do it part way or less than perfect), delay (postpone until a later date) or delete (get rid of) that particular item.

In some cases, it may be hard for you to put either a happy or sad face because there are both positive and negative aspects to the item you are rating. In this case, I would put a sad face next to the item so that you think about how you can make some kind of positive adjustment. For instance, I put an unhappy face next to decorating; however, I do like decorating as long as I have the time to do it and as long as there isn't too much of it to do. This year, I plan to diminish the task by having just a lit, decorated wreath hanging in our dining room. I won't be decorating a tree or putting up lights this year as I have done in the past.

Now it's your turn. After completing your list, what small change do you plan to make so that your holidays are better and less stressful than before? If you do this exercise and then actually implement, you will have more time and will be doing fewer of the things you don't enjoy doing this holiday season. That will equate to less stress and more fun!

Happy planning!

To create a game plan and stress-free holiday, your

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Create your own video game.

The passion for video games is one that has to be experienced to be truly understood. It is not surprising when dedicated players decide to create their own video games because they have a clear understanding of what they like in a game and what they don't. Do you too share a passion to excel in the virtual world of video games? Would you like to create your own video game? There is plenty of help at hand online to help video game players of all ages to experiment with creating a game of their own.

Basics to Create Your Own Video Game

Game

If you ask a group of game players what is the single most important thing in a successful game they will all probably find it difficult to agree on any single factor. While some believe that it is the story line that makes a video game special others feel it is the manner in which the gameplay is designed, while still others focus on the special effects that have been included in the game.

Create your own video game.

To create your own video game it is a good idea to first decide what you find most interesting in your favorite video games and start from there. Most game players are clear about what they think a video game lacks and your video game gives you an opportunity to create what you think is a complete video game.

Once you have a great story line and characters in mind you would need to decide on the look and feel of the world in which your video game is set. Remember the more life like the virtual world the more absorbed the players become in it.

For inspiration and guidance for the style of storytelling you will find several resources online that can help you refine your narrative technique. Next you need to create the graphics for the video game and this can be done fairly easily using the varied software available for this very purpose. Most of these are free to download online and you should consider a few of them before you make up your mind.

If you don't want to sketch out characters and textures for scenes you can use the pre-made ones that can be downloaded free of cost from the internet. Two dimensional graphics are needed to create a 3 D affect and the background scenery should also match the look and feel of the video game. Depending on your level of understanding of software you need to select one that best suits your project.

Software to Help Create Your Own Video Game

Beginners and kids, you can try to create your own video game by using one of the software available for those who have little knowledge of programming and graphics but have the interest and passion for video games. The Games Factory is a great place to begin making your first video game whilst learning some of the principles of the process. Simply drag and drop the features you want included in your game. Stagecast Creator is also a wonderful tool for kids who want to make their own video game. Just draw or import your characters and indicate what you want them to do and the software takes care of the rest. This software creates terrific 2D video game that you can play and share with friends.

For players with a little more experience with games and relevant software, and are interested in 3D video games try Reality Factory, where you can build the entire world of your video game from the blueprint upwards. You can choose to use existing textures or create your own for your virtual world. There are several tutorials for Reality Factory that clarify all aspects of the software. It is free and easy to download and provides developers a great understanding of the script, models, affects, etc.

For those who are considering a career in game development and have a good understanding of the process involved software such as DarkBasic is recommended. Working on it will provide you a good understanding of the programming required for video games. As for professionals, you can't do better than C++ and Microsoft Direct X.

Microsoft XNA Game Studio Express allows Windows XP users to download it free and create video games on it. Soon developers on this system will be able to create, test and share their video games for the Xbox Three-Sixty.

Whether you are a beginner to gaming, an avid fan or a professional creating a video game of Your pleasant experience that encourages safe for you to create more games.

Create your own video game. X-Men Evolution: Season 4, Episode 9 Video Clips. Duration : 21.42 Mins.

GET ALL FOUR SEASONS ON ITUNES! X-Men: Evolution Season 1 itunes.apple.com X-Men: Evolution Season 2 itunes.apple.com X-Men: Evolution Season 3 itunes.apple.com X-Men: Evolution Season 4 itunes.apple.com The X-Men, the Brotherhood, SHIELD, Angel, Spyke, Havok, and the New Mutants all join forces to save humanity from the ambitions of Apocalypse. Then, Professor X tells them what may happen in the future (because he had glimpsed into the mind of Apocalypse).

Tags: x-men, kitty pryde, x-men evolution, wolverine, cyclops, nightcrawler