Ive always loved video games, ever since I first played them on a friends computer in the afternoon after elementary school. Theres 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. Ive also always wanted to make games myself but, until recently, didnt have the technical knowledge to do so. Now, Im a second year software engineering student, so if I werent able to code a game without too many dramas thered be something drastically wrong. Well, everyone can get in on the game creation process, and you dont even need to learn real programming to do so.
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.
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 cant use when youve decided on the technology youre going to implement the game with. In general, the second type is probably the best one to go with when designing games.
Lately I have been posting an awful lot of business stuff and it seems I have been neglecting my EzineArticles account for a few months now. I thought today I would write about something more fun and compelling, as opposed to the same old boring business jargon. I decided to write about flight simulation and which games I prefer that provide the most realistic flight simulation experience.
So, for a first game youre going to want a pretty simple idea. Dont get me wrong, crazy-go-nuts game ideas are fantastic, and there should be more of them out there, but youre 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 its just your first game. Many people try it; none that I know of have succeeded. Imitation is the best way to start out. All are largely simple to create but have some inherent challenges. Pacman for example, requires path finding for the ghosts. Space Invaders is a nice point to jump in.
If youre stuck for an idea, pick a genre that you enjoy. Do you love adventure games such as Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Space Quest, Kings Quest etc.? Are you into fighting games like Street Fighter, Tekken, Soul Calibur, Mortal Kombat and so on? Come up with an idea for that. Feel free to be as generic as you like, this is a learning experience after all.
Now that you have your idea its time to flesh it out. Dont 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. Once its set, it should remain set until the tweaking phase (Ill go into this more later) or youre likely to enter development hell, where the project goes on and on; more and more work is done with less and less outcome.
I prefer computer flight simulator games. It is not a good game if it does not support your pedals and yoke equipment. Games that don’t adapt professional equipment usually aren’t worth the money in the long run, and usually are much more limited. Do you want a game you will master too quickly that only features a couple of aircrafts?
Are you looking for a fake sim game just to have fun? Or do you want a simulator based on real life terrain, with tens of thousands of real airports, and which offers you the ability to change all weather settings and make the game as realistic as possible? I would say it’s the latter for me. If you are interested in a realistic game I suggest you keep reading.
He also recommended it because you can add your own custom graphics!
- A written outline of the games 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 isnt too vital for Space Invaders or Tetris, but for Uber Quest: An Adventure of Awesomeness its a really good idea)
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 arent fantastic artists and our images can be a little& open to interpretation&)
Now that you have a fleshed out idea, its time to work out how this will all get put together. 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 isnt too complicated or involved. The free ones are listed first, organized by game genre.
The graphics in the game are open source, it does come with great graphics, but if you are an artist and/or photoshopper this really comes in handy, as you can virtually replace whatever graphics you want with your own better ones. Thus completely customizing the game.
Well, that should be enough to get you started in the creation of your game. The most important thing to remember once youve 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. When you get to this stage you will always have a huge number of things that you wish to change, fix etc. but youll get a great feeling from knowing that it is, in its way, finished.
Some features I really enjoy myself regarding “ProFlight Simulator”
- Awesome Helicopter selection.
- Old and new Aircrafts.
- Military Jets.
- World wide scenery, fly over your own house.
- Realistic controls, night lighting, full weather conditions, extremely accurate schools.
- ProFlight Simulator is used in professional flight training.
- Support all kinds of equipment, like yoke, foot pedals, throttle, and most everything else.
- Full support for Windows and Mac systems.
- Thriving community. Since the game is open source, it’s always being upgraded. Free updates are provided with a one time subscription payment at a reasonable price for all that you get.
- This is the only flight simulator you need.
- 3D Cockpit views.
- Real time Integration with Google Maps.
- Scenery based on Actual Military Data.
- Multiplayer (up to 32).
- Flight combat bonus.
Take note of what isnt fun or could be better and change things here.
If you thought that the paper was informative you might also wish to be more topics about Rpg Games For Pc.
