making a game.

[AmigaGiddy]

I was a keen amiga enthusiast back in the day. I loved dabbling in Octamed and Dpaint and tried many times to get into Blitz or Amos. I've never quite lost the Amiga bug and have decided to put what extremely little spare time I now have into doing what I dreamed of doing back when I was 14. Make a good amiga game.

I'm hoping its going to play something like flashback/another world, although obviously starting from scratch I know this is perhaps running before I can walk. Still, I'll chart my progress for anyone who cares

Any advice would be appreciated.

[Skope]

Cool! Looking forward for a new amiga blockbuster then. (:

[Jgames]

I would suggest making a .net 2d game, this way, you can hit a big audience.

[AmigaGiddy]

I'm not too fussed about the audience size as I want it to be as Amiga based as possible. I would be quite happy for it to live as an adf file so that only those with an original machine or emulator can play it.

I would LOVE to see a surge of new amiga games again to really capture that pd spirit that existed years ago. Another project I'd like to get started would be an amiga demake website with remakes of modern games such as halo and resident evil, only made purely with amiga software to run on amiga machines.

So many dreams...so little time sadly!

[Cammy]

Hey AmigaGiddy! Nice to see someone else around here who wants to make AMIGA games.

Why is it every time you say you want to make AMIGA games, someone tells you to go and make it for WINDOWS instead? What a joke! I get this infuriating response all the time when I tell people I want to make Amiga games too. But don't worry, I also share your dream and I want to accomplish it even if only a handful of people get to play it because the rest are too dumb to work out how to play it through an emulator on their PC.

I found a good way to start was to use Backbone to make a concept of the type of game I want to make, and then expand on it as work progresses. It makes it easy to quickly put together your graphics, music and sound effects without having to code the whole game engine first. You can lay out a few levels and get an idea of how you want the game to work, then you could focus on programming an engine designed for that kind of game, or hopefully impress some others enough to offer to help out.

If you have Workbench set up, either on a real Amiga or UAE, you can download and install Backbone and start working on your game straight away. It even comes with example graphics to use as placeholders until you have made your own. I think you'll find it's not a bad game maker for this type of game, as it lets you add endless cutscenes and events, collectible weapons and following/chasing enemies that can be used for friends.

If you want to check out Backbone, you can download it from Aminet here, make sure you install the main program, then install the update and the key.

http://aminet.net/package/dev/misc/Backbone_Full
http://aminet.net/package/dev/misc/Backbone_Upd
http://aminet.net/package/dev/misc/Backbone_Key

If you'd like to try out a bunch of games that various Amiga users have made with Backbone, I collected all the ones I could find a while ago and packed them into this archive:

http://home.exetel.com.au/amiga/BackboneGames.lha

And here are two more games that have been made and released since:

http://aminet.net/package/game/jump/Cornelius
http://www.amiworx.de/Games.html

Of course there's heaps more involved in making games, and if you're more interested in programming then there's a lot more we can talk about!

[AmigaGiddy]

Hi Cammy, glad someone else understands what I'm hoping to achieve.

Funny you should mention Backbone as I had already downloaded it with the intention of trying it out asap. From what I've read it seems to be the perfect program to get a rough trial game up and running whilst I try and get to grips with Blitz.

Basically I have an idea for a game, I'm competent enough with Dpaint and octamed to get the presentation nice and pretty, I just want to get a nice engine running behind it all. I messed around slightly with amos pro years ago but nothing really stuck in the old noggin. Hopefully this time around I'll fare a little better.

Thanks for the advice anyhow, I'm sure I'll be picking your brain along the way if thats ok with you.

[Peter]

Good Luck AmigaGiddy - It would be fantastic to see a new Amiga game!

[desiv]

You know what I was thinking might be an interesting project?
-"Yes, but how are we going to get a hold of Abe Vigoda's shoes?"

No.. I mean.. It might be interesting to have a group developed game, an open source project where several people are working on it and all the code is open...

It might or might not result in a good game, but it would probably be a very good educational experience for the people involved, who could take what they've learned and write their own better games...

I mean, it's one thing to look at someone else's code. But it's another to be involved with active conversations on "if we did this, it would look like that..."..

It also might mean that, if one person has real life get in the way, the project keeps going...

Just wondering...

desiv

[kriz]

Cool, hope you it going !!

[AmigaGiddy]

Ok so I'm slowly getting to grips with Backbone. Seems a tad slow on a basic 1200 but its certainly giving my project a ... ahem, backbone. Getting a nice intro together as well which i hope to stick onto youtube once its finished to give everyone a taste of what the game will be like.
Once I have a rough game the real hard work starts as I try to make sense of Blitz Basic to get it running properly.
I own a decent laptop and a ltd edition 360 elite, honestly I've hardly touched either of them since starting this project. What is it with Miggys being so damn addictive??