Pascal Gamer Magazine Issue 4 Needs Content: Want to write an article?

[SilverWarior]

I'm still working ony mine as much as my free time permits me. I also have a few other ideas for articles (Handling Savegames, Making GUI components, Making proper code structure for games - using gamestates).
If anyone is interested in any of theese ideas go ahed. I only reserve an article about svegames for myself since I plan it to be somehow conected with my current article and since thisone won't be so buig I expect to finish it quite quickly.

Anywhay I think that it would be verry nice if we have all these articles writen before the next PGD chalange since they might all come verry handy for some newbie game developers.

[WILL]

You know what. A simple article about making a save game and best practices would do it. It doesn't have to be some complicated over-bloated article with huge technical words/terms like methodology or some other fancy new programming technique. We have to appeal to new programmers or beginners to attract a whole new community. So do small and simple.

• How to make your own Save Game system. (just cover basics and how to structure the data so that it's easily readable upon reloading save games)
• How to make a simple RPG combat system. (just cover HP and basic stats (think Dragon Quest 1) and action list and do it as a text/terminal program)
• The basic Code structure for games. (cover basics, main game loop, separating things like graphics into procedures, initializing, deinitializing, reseting game state, etc)

as an example of 3.

[Dan]

is anyone still making an article about the fpc cross compilation for android?

[SilverWarior]

You know what. A simple article about making a save game and best practices would do it. It doesn't have to be some complicated over-bloated article with huge technical words/terms like methodology or some other fancy new programming technique. We have to appeal to new programmers or beginners to attract a whole new community. So do small and simple.

• How to make your own Save Game system. (just cover basics and how to structure the data so that it's easily readable upon reloading save games)
• How to make a simple RPG combat system. (just cover HP and basic stats (think Dragon Quest 1) and action list and do it as a text/terminal program)
• The basic Code structure for games. (cover basics, main game loop, separating things like graphics into procedures, initializing, deinitializing, reseting game state, etc)

In my article about RPG battle system I do have already more complicated battle system. But I do start from smal and simple and explain how to make it more comlex etc. And since my battle system calculates values based on certain item a character wears (wepons, armors, ect., I also explain of how to make an inventory system. Also part of that article taks a litle about optimization. When doing all this I try to make it all writen in a way to be understandable even by those who have litle programing expirience. That's why I do some programing teachings also.
For my article about savegames I intend to show how to save data from some object do file and later retrive it. I also imntend to tell about wich data should go into savegame and wich doesn't need to (just teoretics). Then I also intend to talk a little about creating backup copies of previous savegames. Recently I hapened to se a game wich has been doung backup copies by literaly making hard copie of a savegame file by FileCopy routine. This aproach takes more time and is prone to data damage incase of power outage at the time. Simply renaming curent file and then saving savegame into new file is much faster and much safer.

[WILL]

is anyone still making an article about the fpc cross compilation for android?

I haven't received one yet... but I would love to put this article into the next issue!

[WILL]

In my article about RPG battle system I do have already more complicated battle system. But I do start from smal and simple and explain how to make it more comlex etc....

Don't get complicated at all. Trust me the readers will be able to do that on their own all by themselves. Just give them the basics and feel free to elaborate on it and how to expand, but keep it stupid simple as far as design is concerned and it will have the best readability and usefulness among most of the readership.

For my article about savegames I intend to show how to save data from some object do file and later retrive it. I also imntend to tell about wich data should go into savegame and wich doesn't need to (just teoretics). Then I also intend to talk a little about creating backup copies of previous savegames. Recently I hapened to se a game wich has been doung backup copies by literaly making hard copie of a savegame file by FileCopy routine. This aproach takes more time and is prone to data damage incase of power outage at the time. Simply renaming curent file and then saving savegame into new file is much faster and much safer.

As long as you keep it simple and to the point. Further explanation can be done, but only if it illustrates the point of the core lessons. This applies to the above article too! In fact to all tutorials and written lessons trying to teach something.

[SilverWarior]

Don't get complicated at all. Trust me the readers will be able to do that on their own all by themselves. Just give them the basics and feel free to elaborate on it and how to expand, but keep it stupid simple as far as design is concerned and it will have the best readability and usefulness among most of the readership.

Sorry but my article is already made upon a sourcecode for more complex battle system. If I go back to something stupid simple I need to rewrite my whole article all over again. I have done this several times to achive what I have imagined. To be honest I'm not prepared to throw away all my work so far.
Anywhay I still belive that it will have good redability.

[WILL]

Well if you've already gotten near competition of your article then I guess the point it practically moot. However don't make this a common practice or you may find the results disappointing so you put lots of effort into writing only to get little reaction to them.

Smaller bites are easier to consume than the much larger ones. As is with articles and their scope.

Right now for an article tally I have only 3 in my folder:

How to start making a Boulder Dash like game - from Paul Nichols (Not sure if it was complete or just a draft?)
Compiler Directives for Working with Muliple Files - from Super Vega
Playing with Pointers - Methods, Procedures & WinAPI - from Patryk "Brainer" Nusbaum

Am I missing one of yours? If so then please send it to contact@pascalgamer.com in case I've accidentally misplaced it. I will have another look around for it. I need them in some kind of odt or doc format to work with them (editing / formatting) locally on my system.

[paul_nicholls]

How to start making a Boulder Dash like game - from Paul Nichols (Not sure if it was complete or just a draft?)

Hi Jason, that article was complete