Who is writing a game?

[WILL]

Well lets have it. Are you working on a game or a game project?

Lets hear about it.

I'm currently working on my revamp of Garland's Quest which wil be a Windows, Mac OS X release. I'll later push it to Linux, iOS and Android when I can.

[paul_nicholls]

I'm currently working on getting libgdx up and running in Oxygene for Java so I can make/port games to Desktop + Android without too much hassle :)
Then I will port over "Vectored!" and "The Probe" to Android...

[Super Vegeta]

Being on a summer vacation and not really having any duties, I find it hard to motivate myself into doing anything. I have like three or four projects started somewhere along the way, but I'm rarely able to force myself to actually work on them. I hope that when the academic year starts, I'll get more organised.

[User137]

Simple free stuff, for fun. I have a lot of ideas without concrete plans, and some of them are even started. But well... nobody is actually helping with them, or expecting any release, so i can aswell spend time for playing games too.

[de_jean_7777]

I'm still working on my android game, perhaps I'll complete it sometime in 2099 :D Lately, I've been trying to get more free time and will to work on the game and my engine.

[Cybermonkey]

I am working on a simple Chain Rxn clone called "Bubble Chain".
Here's a screenshot of the Haiku port. (Seems I am the only one using FPC on Haiku for making games?) The final result will work on Linux32/64, Windows, MacOS X and Haiku (as usual). Oh, btw, this is a "real" Pascal game, no Lua coding involved ... ;)

907

And a small video of a very early version (startscreen, menus and sound are now implemented):


http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151006763073932

[wagenheimer]

Games, lots of games! =)

Sultan's Labyrinth - A Royal Sacrifice was already released for MAC and iOS port is about to be released!
Clairvoyant - The Magician Mistery was already released for PC/MAC and iOS port is my Next Work!
A new Match3 game and a New Solitairie (I can't give much details yet) are almost ready and will be soon released for Windows/Mac and iOS. Just a hint, this Dragon will be part of one of these!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e1H-BECBFg

[Sascha Willems]

Well, I'm still working on "Phase 2" of Projekt Weltherrscher (http://www.saschawillems.de/?page_id=829), but for a project that complex (and the fact that I only have the weekends and evenings to code) I'm pretty happy with progress, especially lately. And yes, a beta release is nearing ;)

[Daikrys]

im currently working on my bachelor exam and have done a small game for it, i will release it soon
on the other hand after my exam i plan to finish some games wich are actually only prototypes (tons of them) or fully written game design documents

EDIT: oh i forgot, i have two projects that really need to be done and both will be commercial
but no promises until one is done ;)

[SilverWarior]

I'm having problems geting myself to do any programing lately (lack of motivation) so I spent more time playing games than making them.
Anywhay currently I have three projects planed.
1. My game Life among the stars from 2nd PGD challenge - currently on hold (I still need to make decen GUIO for it)
2. I'm creating my own VCL-like GUI library. If I manage to do it the way I have imagined, it would be posible to use this library with any Graphic Engine capable of working with vertex graphics and probably even with other programing languages. My poor knowledge on this area is giving me some hard time at the moment.
3. I'm also planning to create my own program for creating graphics. I have idea for this for quite some time now but have decided to move it from idea to reality when I haven't managed to find suitable program for creating graphics for my game. So I folow the old saying: If you cant find suitable tool for yourself, go ahead and make one. This project is also on hold since I'm planing to use Game graphical engine (probably Asphyre Sphinx 2) for renderning whole form and all controls on it. I hope that in the future this will alow me to port this graphich creator program to other platforms aswel. And before I can continue working on this I need to finish my VCL like library.
So in the end my VCL-like library has top priority at the moment.

[Ñuño Martínez]

I'm almost in same situation than SilverWarior, but my lack of motivation is that I just moved myself from Madrid to Burgos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgos), so I'm tired and out of place. Lately I'm a bit more motivated and may be I'll continue with my Allegro.pas project soon.

Anyway, I'm planning to professionalize (as a lot of people asked me to sell some of my unfinished games) or move outside of Spain. Not sure what I'll do yet.

[paul_nicholls]

As of yesterday (Friday) my motivation has dropped significantly...I found out that I along with the rest of our office are being made redundant in maybe 4-6 weeks time :(
Major dang and blast!!

[pitfiend]

Currently I'm working on a set of classes and components based on an existing API for an online game. Plan to release it as soon as complete and stable.

[de_jean_7777]

As of yesterday (Friday) my motivation has dropped significantly...I found out that I along with the rest of our office are being made redundant in maybe 4-6 weeks time :(
Major dang and blast!!

:( Sorry to hear about that. I hope you'll be able to find another job soon.

[WILL]

Wow that sucks Paul. I hope you'll find your next job with ease. You were a day-time software guy too am I right?

[paul_nicholls]

Wow that sucks Paul. I hope you'll find your next job with ease. You were a day-time software guy too am I right?

Yeah I did Delphi development + Excel Visual Basic macros in my job, mainly for in-house programs, utilities, and automation of work.

My main job was content design for our Electronics Design Automation (EDA) software, but I did do lots of programming over the course of around 13.5 years in this job - a bunch of that was making some plugins (DLLs) using Delphi for the EDA software as well as the utilities and job automation programs.

I am really good with Delphi I think :)

[code_glitch]

Heck I don't thinki anyone would dispute your work in delphi but it sure does suck to see so many talented and awesome people being made redundant these days...

[farcodev]

I'm currently on my current project, FAR Colony (or FARC), and it has just 3 years since August 16 now :)

The Alpha 3 [0.5.2] will be released in the next days.

There are again 2/3 years of work until the complete beta stage.

[SilverWarior]

I'm currently on my current project, FAR Colony (or FARC), and it has just 3 years since August 16 now :)

The Alpha 3 [0.5.2] will be released in the next days.

There are again 2/3 years of work until the complete beta stage.

I tried your game some time ago and must say that I haven't played it a lot. The main reason was the fact that I never actually figured it out how to play it (there was no tutoria at the time I don't know if there is now).
Anywhay it surpised me today when I learned that FAR Colony is done in pascal. I honestly didn't knew that before.

[farcodev]

I tried your game some time ago and must say that I haven't played it a lot. The main reason was the fact that I never actually figured it out how to play it (there was no tutoria at the time I don't know if there is now).
Anywhay it surpised me today when I learned that FAR Colony is done in pascal. I honestly didn't knew that before.

It's a bit early for some tutorials, FARC lack of many things yet.
It's dev in Delphi 2009 w/ an old build of GLScene + some TMS components + fastcode + fastMM + GR32 + Vampyre Imaging Lib.

Thansk for your interest :)

[SilverWarior]

It's a bit early for some tutorials, FARC lack of many things yet.

I figured that out myself.


Thansk for your interest :)

If I would have known then that it is made in Delphi I would have definitly contacted you and maybe even offer my help (probably wouldn't be of much help since then I had almost no game development expirience but still). As for now I do have three projects of mine in development (two are currently on hold) and I also keep close eye on two games which are still in development phase (none of them is being made in pascal - shame) and offer some of my ideas to the authors. Just for quencing your curiosity theese two games are Towns and Gnomoria (I did lose a bit of interest in Towns).
Anywhay maybe some day in future I guve your game another try and come up with some ideas. If I do you will be the first to know :-)

[farcodev]

I figured that out myself.

If I would have known then that it is made in Delphi I would have definitly contacted you and maybe even offer my help (probably wouldn't be of much help since then I had almost no game development expirience but still). As for now I do have three projects of mine in development (two are currently on hold) and I also keep close eye on two games which are still in development phase (none of them is being made in pascal - shame) and offer some of my ideas to the authors. Just for quencing your curiosity theese two games are Towns and Gnomoria (I did lose a bit of interest in Towns).
Anywhay maybe some day in future I guve your game another try and come up with some ideas. If I do you will be the first to know :-)

Wow 3 projects 8) at least you're fully busy. Gnomoria seems to be a good easier alternative than DF.

I hope FARC will not be with show stoppers bugs as in the Alpha 1 and 2 when you'll test it :D (two are already fixed the two other will be for the Alpha 4 release).

[SilverWarior]

Wow 3 projects 8) at least you're fully busy

It would be better if I would have only one proyect so I can concentrate more easily.


I hope FARC will not be with show stoppers bugs as in the Alpha 1 and 2 when you'll test it :D (two are already fixed the two other will be for the Alpha 4 release).

Then I'll wait till they get fixed. Keep us posted about your progress.

[phibermon]

I would avoid referring to your project as FARC if I were you, last thing you want is to be flagged on some terrorist watch list ;)

[hwnd]

Currently im working on a 3D map editor, i actually worked on it since 2008, rewrote it hundreds of times and now i have to do it again, because im unable to find fast object picking for my editor.
Tried many things and most of them fail or are too slow.

The rest of the features are easy. The editor is for specific game, made in 1999, my most favorite game and that's why i work on map editor for 5 years now, i had many months of doing my other things, while this project was just "freezed".

Now im again on it. Im doing it in OpenGL and Delphi 7 Personal Ed.

For me, making this editor, is alot more interesting than making some game.
Im not much of a gamer, i only play few games, including the favorite one.

[paul_nicholls]

Currently im working on a 3D map editor, i actually worked on it since 2008, rewrote it hundreds of times and now i have to do it again, because im unable to find fast object picking for my editor.
Tried many things and most of them fail or are too slow.

The rest of the features are easy. The editor is for specific game, made in 1999, my most favorite game and that's why i work on map editor for 5 years now, i had many months of doing my other things, while this project was just "freezed".

Now im again on it. Im doing it in OpenGL and Delphi 7 Personal Ed.

For me, making this editor, is alot more interesting than making some game.
Im not much of a gamer, i only play few games, including the favorite one.

Hi hwnd, the 3d map editor sounds interesting...have you got any other information that you could share about it? :)

[hwnd]

OK, i have few videos on YT, im posting the latest and better ones:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO3hsePugF4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSubaCJXp_A (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSubaCJXp_A&feature=plcp)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yWoD55tSYE

Any questions, comments?
Sometimes movement looks laggy, but it's because video recorder.
The program itself is very smooth.
Im using OpenGL and Delphi 7. It was rewritten many times, if i now find a good and fast picking method, i will rewrite it again. Many things depends on it and i want to make it as good as possible. The most cool thing i want to add is animated tiles, but im not a guy who could throw out fixed FPS style animation, or even regulate FPS for each animation.
There must be some global clock in app, on which everything is built, atm it's just Delphi TTimer, on which everything is drawn. But i don't like it.

Hopefully nxPascal will help me on this case.
It has some timing code, dunno if i can build my animations on that.
Everything should be on timers, even camera movement.
With blocks there is a thing: each block could have a animation with his own FPS, (how fast tiles are animating). I once tried it with another TTimer, but it was ugly.

So, timing and good picking is the most needed things atm.

EDIT: but at the same time, i don't like that the editor will take 100% CPU.
But it should redraw fast, i tried TThreadedTimer and set it interval to 1ms. It was good, because user can just "paint" tiles on blocks and editor should draw them immediately without any delay. That's why 1ms timer. Although i know that TTimer is limited to >16ms

[phibermon]

EDIT: but at the same time, i don't like that the editor will take 100% CPU.
But it should redraw fast, i tried TThreadedTimer and set it interval to 1ms. It was good, because user can just "paint" tiles on blocks and editor should draw them immediately without any delay. That's why 1ms timer. Although i know that TTimer is limited to >16ms

A couple of ways to limit your frame-rate (pseudo Code) :

ATime := GetTime();
Render();
While (GetTime() - ATime) < TimePerFrame do
begin

Sleep(1);

{This will free up the CPU - tells the OS Scheduler it can do some other stuff NOTE : it's not garunteed to sleep for exactly 1ms, only garunteed to wait *at least* 1ms. it could sleep for 10ms in this example, for example.}

end;

You could use VSync on it's own - that'll just wait on GL Swap Buffer if it's called before it's time for the next frame but the above method offers more control. You should leave VSync enabled regardless, if you want to measure performance it's much better to time how long Render(); takes rather than seeing what your max FPS is.

[User137]

That is close to how nxPascal game class handles it ;) No worries, it's perfect for making smooth 60 fps animations, while keeping CPU and GPU use near 0%.

Actually i can show you. It supports frameskipping too for rendering (could make it optional though):

t:=nxEngine.GetTick;
if t<nextTick then begin
Application.ProcessMessages; Sleep(1);
end else begin

FrameSkips:=-1;
repeat
inc(FrameSkips);
nextTick:=nextTick+FrameInterval;
GameLoop;
until (nextTick>t) or (FrameSkips>=10) or FNoFrameSkipping;
Draw;

end;

[hwnd]

Ok, but is it possible to take some constant and use the nxPascal "tick" to generate different animations with different framerate?
Slower / faster.

In my case, every block could have tile animation with his own frame rate. Some anims need slower FR, some bigger FR and still be same on any PC?
I mean animation that has slower framerate, will be actually faster in my friends computer, who has more faster pc.

So can i divide my FR value with something from that loop?
Im beginner in timers and animation, but i always wanted to make my editor timing better.
Just dont have enough knowledge.

[SilverWarior]

With blocks there is a thing: each block could have a animation with his own FPS, (how fast tiles are animating). I once tried it with another TTimer, but it was ugly.

Using standard timers (TTimer) for any precise timing is bad idea. The rason of this is the fact that TTimer heavily relies on Windows messages meaning that during high system loads it can become quite inacurate. Using multiple timers is even worse idea since they afect each other.
So using TThreadedTimer is much better idea.


but at the same time, i don't like that the editor will take 100% CPU

But it should redraw fast, i tried TThreadedTimer and set it interval to 1ms. It was good, because user can just "paint" tiles on blocks and editor should draw them immediately without any delay. That's why 1ms timer. Although i know that TTimer is limited to >16ms

Using timer with 1ms for contoling renderning is pointles. Why? By doing so you are forcing your computer to do more redraws (1000 redraws per second) that hardware is capable of. This will in the end consume all the CPU power.
Since you are only making editor I think that having 30 redraws per second would be more than enough. So you could simply use 33ms timer delay which makes aprox 30 FPS.

As for animations you do have to use some global counter (integer variable) which is increased everytime you redraw your screen. Then you calculate which frame is needed to be drawn at specific time. Below is the code example.


TAni = record //Record defining animation information
FPS: Integer; //Defines how many animation frames are being drawn per second
FramesCount: Integer; //Defines how many total frames is in animation
Frame: Integer; //Defines current animation frame
end;

... //some code

//Global unit declarations
var FrameCounter: Integer; //Framecounter is being used to count the number of frames which has already been drawn
//since its last reset
FPS: Integer; //Variable defining desired application FPS.
Ani: TAni; //Ani is of type TAni

...//some code

procedure OnDraw; //your renderning procedure
begin
//code used to calculate which animation frame needs to be drawn.
//this code can be put on the beggining off your rendering procedure
Ani.Frame := (FrameCounter div (FPS div Ani.FPS)) mod Ani1.FramesCount;

...//some code

//Code used to count how many frames have been drawns since last FrameCounters reset.
FrameCounter := FrameCounter + 1;
//Below code is used to reset FrameCount back to 0 after reaching AniResetFrame. Without this code FrameCounter
//will eventually exceed maximum integer value which could lead t many problems.
//AnimationsResetFrame is constand number representing frame number on which all animations would reach Frame 0
//at the same time.
//It is imperitive to reset FrameCounter at the right time to avouid jumpy animation.
if FrameCounter = AnimationsResetFrame then FrameCounter := 0;
end;


And one final suggestion:
Do implement some keyboard shourtcuts for various controls. Especially for rotatng objects so you don't have to do half dozen clicks just to find the right orientation for certain objects.

EDIT: Go and make you own thread in MyProjects section so we can continue discusion there and thus keep our forum nice and clean. I can then move relavent posts there.

[paul_nicholls]

OK, i have few videos on YT, im posting the latest and better ones:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO3hsePugF4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSubaCJXp_A (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSubaCJXp_A&feature=plcp)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yWoD55tSYE

Any questions, comments?

Looks like you've done a good job :)
BTW, I really love that music in the second video...I will have to look at getting some of Astral Projection's music!! :D

[Jimmy Valavanis]

I have some ideas for something new (a 2d puzzle game) but I don't have enough courage to start it and currently my brain is in .... COBOL programming mode due to needs of my job (I have to make the living :) ).

[paul_nicholls]

I have some ideas for something new (a 2d puzzle game) but I don't have enough courage to start it and currently my brain is in .... COBOL programming mode due to needs of my job (I have to make the living :) ).

COBOL?!?! Wow...I didn't know that was being used still :)
So what do you do for your job that needs COBOL?

[Ñuño Martínez]

Tada! (http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/showthread.php?13591-KOFFE-The-Fighting-Engine) :)

I have some ideas for something new (a 2d puzzle game) but I don't have enough courage to start it and currently my brain is in .... COBOL programming mode due to needs of my job (I have to make the living :) ).
I'm curious too about COBOL. I liked the language when I learned it a lot of time ago.

[User137]

Ok, but is it possible to take some constant and use the nxPascal "tick" to generate different animations with different framerate?
Slower / faster.

In my case, every block could have tile animation with his own frame rate. Some anims need slower FR, some bigger FR and still be same on any PC?
I mean animation that has slower framerate, will be actually faster in my friends computer, who has more faster pc.
This is demonstrated in the nxPascal demos many times. You have:
- nx.GetTick <= Returns multiplatform GetTickCount. It is a millisecond timer running onwards, each 1000 being 1 second.
- nx.GetTick2(range: integer; scale: single) <= Same as above, but you can limit it to certain range and scale
- nx.FrameTick <= FPS counter called GetTick in the Flip and stored it here. You don't need to ask it from system so it could be marginally faster, but this is 1 frame late.

What i prefer to use is the GetTick2(). For example:

nx.SetColor(1, 0, 0, 0.8+0.2*sin(toRad*nx.GetTick2(360, 0.5)));
It makes a red color with alpha being in range 0.6..1.0, smoothly going by sine-wave. With range 360 it always returns value from 0.0 .. 359.5. You can use different ranges and speeds for each animation. If you want it to loop animation patterns from end to start way, you can use modulus math:


trunc(nx.GetTick2(4, 0.001)) mod 4
This would return values from 0..3, like 0,1,2,3,0,1,... And being so slow that it only changes once per second.
(actually this is going so theoretic i might have to test to verify ::) It's how it's supposed to work though.)

edit: Verified, returns single though.

But naturally you can animate your stuff with like:

AnimPos:=AnimPos+AnimSpeed; // Where AnimSpeed is any floating point number
With the default fixed FPS, it works same speed on every computer.

[Jimmy Valavanis]

COBOL?!?! Wow...I didn't know that was being used still :)
So what do you do for your job that needs COBOL?




I'm curious too about COBOL. I liked the language when I learned it a lot of time ago.

Huge, boring, old, compicated social seq/pension system. Neither a game, nor Pascal :(

[WILL]

Hmm... so have any of these games surfaced anywhere?

[SilverWarior]

Unfortunately I must admit that you guys will probably have to wait quite some time for my game to get finished (the one I started for 2nd PGD mini competition). While I managed to build some realy cumerstone UI (with a few bugs and memory leaks) overal progress hasn't moved a lot from the status at which it was on end of 2nd Mini PGD competition. Main reason for this is the fact that I'm having some programing motivational problems lately (havent done almost any work in past few months).

Also I decided to focus most of my atention to another project which would in the end alow me to quicky and eficiently buid a nice UI for my game using similar approach as used when working with VCL or LCL in lazarus. It will alow me to simply say I want some controll at X,Y position with W,H dimensions using certain pictures to represent each parts of the it(client part and borders part).
In the end my goal is to make this Library which would provide me with this functionality to be designed in such way so that it can be used with almost any graphic engine.
Frankly there is still a lot of work to be done.

And after I finish work on my library I will probably focus my atention to another project of mine which would hopefully alow me to easily make necessary graphics for my game. I also belive that this Tool might also come in handy for other programes so I intend to put a lot of work into it.
Currently I have some parts of this tool already made but they still aren't conected int whole so for now I have verry limited functionality.
Also since I'm actually thinking of making whole UI with my Library that I mentioned before I'll have to develop my library at least to certain point where it would be stable enough to be used.

Anywhay when each of theese projects of mine comes to a point where they could actually be usable I will post more information in My Projects section.

BTW Do you guys have any good tip for increasing motivation for programing. I could surely use one. :D

[WILL]

More people should be posting in the My Projects section. :P

We need to see more games being made! :D

[Micronix-TRSI]

I started to code the game (working Title : Urban Challenge)

I published some code and wrote about it here http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/showthread.php?13409-3D-Camera

Because I develop alone at the moment and with Windows - it would be nice if I will, Hi Will, find here someone who could support and manage Free-Pascal version on system like MacOS or Linux or Smartphone IOS/Android.

If you want to join the develoment team as GFX, 3D-Lvl-Designer, Cook :O SAY Yeah and keep me a message!

968

I will look into the future! It would be not a highend-gfx killer game but with nice features, gameplay and sound!

At the moment i create a room with Nitrogen Stuff where the character is moving .... Tech-Demo as attachment !

967

GOOD WINTERTIME

[Daikrys]

i would be able to cook but its still a way to far from near berlin ;)

[laggyluk]

I'm working on a simple side scrolling shooter for mobiles (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.laggyluk.dogfightdog). Currently it's in beta stage, waiting for some bug fixes in AppEasy (http://appeasymobile.com/)engine it's build upon and for graphics being re-done. So in meantime I started building a voxel engine prototype.

[shihonage]

I am getting close to releasing Monsterland (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atUCCYftQjg). Written in Free Pascal and SDL.

[paul_nicholls]

I am getting close to releasing Monsterland (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atUCCYftQjg). Written in Free Pascal and SDL.

@shihonage: That looks very very good! Where did you get the really cool computer voice in the game?
I am looking forward to playing it :)

[shihonage]

@paul_nicholls: Thanks! I got someone to record the voice, and put it through several filters :)

I notice a similarity in our projects - both tile-based 2D games which we both had to write level editors for. Yours is written in Delphi and Lazarus/FPC, which furthers the similarity, because level editor for mine was written in Delphi while the game itself in Lazarus.

[paul_nicholls]

@paul_nicholls: Thanks! I got someone to record the voice, and put it through several filters :)

I notice a similarity in our projects - both tile-based 2D games which we both had to write level editors for. Yours is written in Delphi and Lazarus/FPC, which furthers the similarity, because level editor for mine was written in Delphi while the game itself in Lazarus.

Cool! Could you share what sort of filters you used (low pass, high pass, notch, band...)?

Yeah, I guess our projects are similar in that respect, but it was my old level editor that was written in Delphi. The latest version of the game includes the level editor in the game itself :)

[shihonage]

Asides from cleanup/noise reduction, the two filters responsible for the effect are "Mechanize" (default setting) and "Flanger" (stereo echo effect), applied in that order.

[soecreator]

My current projects:
1. New versions (with new features) "Soldiers of Empires II"
2. Scenario pack's for ______________________^
3. new game (setting - WWI, 90% of time of work - searching military data and scenario creating) at game-engine of "Soldiers of Empires II"
4. Some stuff only for fun - auto-kit tools for creating retro-games (like games 80: ZX Spectum, NES,...)

[Ñuño Martínez]

Right now I'm finishing Allegro.pas 4.4.4 (64bit support, lots of bugfixes, lots of new examples, lots of new functions). May be I can release this week.

Also I was working a bit with KOFFE (http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/showthread.php?13591-KOFFE-The-Fighting-Engine).

[paul_nicholls]

All my game projects are on temporary hold while I concentrate on an online Java Oracle certification course I am currently studying :(

I can't wait till I finish the course...

[Daikrys]

All my game projects are on temporary hold while I concentrate on an online Java Oracle certification course I am currently studying :(

I can't wait till I finish the course...

good luck with this c(o)urse :)