[burn0ut]

Ay, something just poped up in my head, i was wondering how hard it is to make a fighting game like streetfighter for an example? is the coding hard for it or any tutorials on the net where the engine is already made and u can modify it how u like ? you own characters and what not? if anyone knows of this stuff, please do tell, or email me thanks

[Worthy]

Well..considering I worked for a company that did that basically did that kind of stuff..I can tell you that I personally didnt think the 3d aspect was all that difficult..depending on how many charatcers, how many moves..if you want a single-skin character, if you are going to use mo-cap or just generate the motions and displacements yourself..etc.
As for the coding...I have no idea!

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3D Sculptor
Viewpoint Visualization

[tanis]

Woohoo! That really is my stuff.
I've been into game programming for years and I know quite a lot about that kind of games since they've been a major hit in the past.
Five years ago it would have been a real hard job to make even a game that seems "easy" as street fighter. Nowaday everything's simplified. You've got DirectX that take care of all the assembly stuff you once had to know (sigh!) and it's just a matter of knowing what you want to do. If you know C like the back of your hands and if you've already coded a demo or something you can succeed by reading the DirectX manuals and applying the knowledge to your task.
I mean.. it's not that simple, but if you are into programming or if you know someone who's really into that kind of stuff, you can more or less easily create a street fighter clone.
If you're lazy and don't really mind to optimize the game and you'r not looking for a contract as a commercial developer, then there are a real lot of already done libraries floating around the 'net. Or if you want, you can take a look at Klick 'n Play, that dumb pseudo-programming language way too much similar to a Visual Basic for games.
Well.. what I mean is that you can go for something easy but you won't get a professional result, or you can go deeper into some hard coding stuff and make whatever you want, but bear in mind that this takes knowledge, time and a lot of dedication.



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C'ya!

Valerio Santinelli a.k.a. TANiS
[email protected]

[SushiMaster]

The coding is extremely hard, at the level at which they work nowadays. At the level of streetfighter 2, it was already very hard. Nowadays it's hard enough that you need a whole, large team of crack programmers to make it work.

Game programming is (imho) the hardest aspect of programming. When you program apps, you don't really care if it takes a fraction of a second more... you try to optimize it, but it's not your primary problem. When you program a game, you not only have to make it do all that you want, but you have to optimize it to squeeze every drop of performance so that it actually runs fast.

I don't know of any streetfighter like engine open sourced on the internet or elsewhere but there probably are a few. However using them and making a game out of them is not a walk in the park. It takes years of programming experience. If you don't know how hard it would be to make a game like Streetfighter, you very probably can't. You certainly cannot learn programming from scratch by trying to adapt such an engine to your needs if you know nothing about programming anymore than you would be able to learn to paint the Mona Lisa when given a brush and a canvas, some colours and a basic outline of the shape if you knew nothing about drawing.

Daniel

[Transcendence]

I'm also into programming. I pretty much agree with what tanis and sushi said. It also depends on how large you want it. It's also pretty obvious you need C++ for this because VB wouldn't be able to handle the speed it needs to preform at [did that come otu how I wanted it to?]

You might want to try either of these sites
to get some ideas..
www.dosfx.com/bbs
www.planet-source-code.com

[This message has been edited by Transcendence (edited July 17, 2000).]

[duhroach]

I've been a senior Programmer for about 3 years now for a development company. I have to say that 2d fighting games Like street fighter have a few "difficult" items that take alot more time, but the rest is simply displaying pretty graphics.
The items to which carry the most weight is Hit detection, and Animation. You figure for a fighting game of any time, you have to keep a table of punches, kicks, etc to test against the target's animations of blocks, dodges, and collisions. It's basicly just alot of boring table math.

All in all though, Fighting games have to be the easiest (next to racing games) for the programmers, and hardest for the Media men.
SF2 for instance had some 8 odd characters, with roughly 20-30 animations a piece. That all had to be hand drawn, and milked to run smoothly.

DirectX would definitily be the way to go for that. They have some really nifty (and easy) routines for drawing 2d graphics to the screen. Collision detection and animation code will come with programming time


~Main
==
Colt "MainRoach" McAnlis
www.BadHeat.com/sinewave

[Transcendence]

what would be the hardest? RPG's?


the only really difficult thing I'd find is the mathematics for damage and such depending on weapons, magic, defense, etc.

[Nex]

RPG's are not that hard to program (except you want to make something really modern with 3d environment and this stuff.. because then they are not that much different from ego games any more.)

I made some RPG's in the good old times of Bard's Tale 3. The main tasks were programming an engine that would run 100% okay, making 10.000 graphics for monsters (I don't know any other game where you need that many different enemies, allies, items etc.), and developing a good and logic combat engine.

It's really fun though.. I liked those games and I still like them. Bard's Tale 3 was my favourite game for years on the C64.

Well, but today RPG's are not "just" RPG's they have very complex engines so I guess its hard now to make an up to date game.



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- Nex

http://on.to/nex

[Zor]

Dammit.. all thease coders

Cheep plug I know, but still....

If any coders out there wants to work on a Next Gen Engine, HasteSoftware are seeking just the person.. Head over to http://www.hastesoftware.com and check the employment...(Its FPS Game - that is uing a modified version of the Q3 Engine)

And Anwyays, Burnout.. Making a game is a stressful Proceduce, but yet satisfying, I mean the work load soon adds up and before you know it, even just to do some basic things you need a few other developers, unless you have "that" much time on your hands, or you are multitalented in that area. - there are some games you can literaly just take apart and make new graphics just for Your eyes only though of course, but it will still give you the same pleasure if your unsure of how to start from scratch. best bet if your really into this, apply for some jobs as artist in the game buiness

Its the only buiness to be in!!!

Zor

[SushiMaster]

My guess would be that Strategy games are the hardest to program, because of the complex AI required (can you tell I know nothing about AI programming except for the simplest stuff? :-P). They're also, imho, the hardest to design because it's so easy to make them unbalanced. If you add on that a 3D engine for the recent RTS/arcade mix, that easily makes SF2 look like a walk in the park imho ;-P

Daniel

[Frost]

Indeed, lots of coders here, wow. =)

I've done some programming myself (C + ASM), and definitely, a street-fighter type game is not easy to do -- in fact, very few games are easy to do, unless you consider something like 'worms', 'pong' or some 'arkanoid' type game.

When using 2d sprites in a game like street fighter, the collisions and impacts are tested on a 2D scale and you can optimize/cheat by using collision tables and the math is rather simple. Doing this in 3D is a hell of a lot more difficult to test collisions and hits.

Blah.
RPG games are database driven, no toughie there, although the interface and interaction with the player is probably the hardest part in a game like C&C, Warcraft, etc.

[psi burn]

ok, ill give you the load down.

the hardest part of programming street fighter would be collision events, and AI (well, good AI.) displaying graphics is something any programmer should know, so unless you're creating a new revolutionary engine, it isnt the difficult part.

rpgs, no, they are one of the easiest to program. however, they take the longest to create, because of the mass amount of enemies, items, spells, stored characteristics, dialogue, animations, etc. you wont find yourself at your desk thinking "what do i type??", you'll be thinking "when will i finish this!?"

the hardest type of game is an FPS. i dont want to go into detail, but you could make a safe assumption yourself as to why.

[waylon]

Snake Grunger! How's it goin'?! Warrior Dragon is up to 30k? That's insane! That game sucks! ;)

Just thought I'd post this tentative list, see if I could get some other coders' opinions on this.

So here it is: (rated by programming difficulty and time required for content/balance)

1) Strategy games. Mostly difficult because of the AI, but they require a lot of content, and a LOT of balancing.

2) RPGs. Not as hard to program, but more content than any other type of game. (Doesn't need to be as carefully balanced as an RTS, but there's also a lot more stuff that can be downright broken.)

3) First Person Shooters. I only place writing an fps at #3 if you're writing the engine yourself. The rendering system needs to be top notch, with sufficient graphics to suppliment it. You can get away with less characters than an FPS or RPG, but they have to look good.

4) Space sims. Basically FPSs for all practical purposes, but instead of doing level optimization, programmers have to do lots of object optimizations. (Besides, I'm writing a space sim, so I HAVE to put it somewhere in the top 5!)

5) Adventure games. Simpler engine, but you have to spend a lot more time getting every detail of the content perfect.

6) Racing games. Not as much content, though getting the physics right is a lot more important.

7) Sports games. I really don't know much about them, to be honest, so I couldn't say for sure. You don't have to be very original, just do a good simulation of a real-world situation.

8) Puzzle games. Chu-Chu Rocket can't be that hard to make.

9) Game Boy Color games. (Just to diss Snake Grunger. ;)

So what am I missing? And what did I get wrong? (Should I bump Adventure games up a notch for you, Mr F.Stone?)

[duhroach]

that's a pretty accurate run down (mine is completly diffrent, but I guess it's based on what you know, and what you find easy to put together)

Someone mentioned that the Interface part of an RPG would be the hardest to make. I'd have to say the interaface to ANY game is the hardest part to design. You have to figure that this is the player's gateway into the game world where the action is taking place. If your gateway isn't up to par, the game dies fast.

I wouldn't put RTS so high on the list. If you figure the BASE GAME (no, not talking about AI) then RTS is an extreamly simple game. I wrote an entire RTS in about 3 weeks.

When you start to talk about game balance, and AI, and other items, You start getting into the difficulty of the Game Development.
Programming and development are two seperate worlds all together. If one of our designers comes to me, with a good detailed spec sheet on how they want the game balence to be, It takes about 30minutes to integrate it into the game.

Many people get programming, designing, and creating mixed up in terminalogy.(sp?) I'm not pointing fingers, just mentioning, that as a programmer, I have very little pull in the game design process. I'm just given a list of features the designers create, and have to bring them to life. So, in general, things like GameBalence, AI, ETC wouldn't be part of the "Difficulty in programming" because it should have already been designed before it gets to the programmer's desk. (If it's not, Your running your programmer overtime, and you'll have to buy a replacement sooner or later

On another note (since this reply is long enough as it is) I personally rank RPG at the top of the list in terms of difficulty of programming.

FPS, RTS, SPORTS PUZZEL etc, all have one thing in common,
You can have a main loop, and then events are called out from that loop for diffrent events, but in all, there's still a straight linear process for events in the game.
RPG's aren't like that, as Sega's new DreamCast Game (who's endorsed by CocaCola) demonstrates. An RPG allows the user to interact with everything in it's enviroment. To keep tabs on events going on within diffrent areas at a time, and push it all toghter to give diffrent responses in the area your in. Unless you've developed one hell of a system for handling that amount of info, Your just keeping alot of usesless variables laying around.

And FYI, Racing games are plopped at the end of my list. The only difficult thing you need to handle is hit collision and car physics. Other than that, you'r just pushing a Model through a world with acceleration.

I don't put Puzzels even on the list. Mainly because puzzel games are programmed at the designer level. Those games are already so defined before they hit my desk, that it takes like 20 minutes to put toghter the base code for the game. I don't even really program it, i just bring it to life.

~Main
==
Colt "MainRoach" McAnlis
www.badheat.com/sinewave

[Snake Grunger]

http://www.lumental.com

My game company ^_^ Already up to 30 000 downloads, I guess that's a bit too much considering the time it took us to make it, 2 weeks, and it's a total ripoff of Dragon Warrior Anyway, try it out if you want guys.

[Snake Grunger]

Hey Waylon, how's it going? No, my game does not suck! It's a complete game and you can finish it and see an ending! Anyway, it does suck a bit it's very unbalanced since we improvised on every possible aspect of the game itself hehe.

Anyway, you should post some snaps of your game here, I'm sure you could get VERY useful tips from Micke and Joachim who work at Innerloop

And by the way, Gameboy color games ARE hard to make!! You have to constantly optimize because you have but 2mhz and 8k (!) of memory on that little fucker. I swear, I hate it now, having worked on it for over a year! I'm quitting Paragon5 after that. Paul's not too happy, but I guess he likes money more than I do.

BTW: Maybe Chew-Chew Rocket can be easy to code, still, you have to think of 100+ puzzles, then place them in order of difficulty, then see if any normal human being will be able to get to the end. In general, ANY game, from start to finish, is hard to make if you don't want it to suck.

[This message has been edited by Snake Grunger (edited July 19, 2000).]

[waylon]

You've definitely got some good points there. It's hard as hell to make ANY video game, if you want to make it good. You have to put a lot more polish on a simple puzzle game, just BECAUSE there's less content, and if every single detail isn't perfect, people won't dig it. But, personally, I still think it would be more difficult to make (for example) an RTS like Starcraft than a puzzle game like Chu Chu Rocket.

I guess it's kind of hard to generalize, too. I mean, the recent Final Fantasy games have had more artists working on them than any other games in history (as well as a huge collection of programmers and designers.) But something like Icewind Dale probably had a lot less people working on it than many other games from many other genres.

Maybe I'll just go back to writing my own game, and not worry about how much trouble it would be to make something else. ;)