am i digging a hole for myself?
Hi everyone. I have a simple question-am i making life difficult for
myself by choosing xna to develop a game for my final year project? the
context-i have spent the last few years learing 3d, 2d and digital
sound design so would have the ability to create all the media quite
easily for a game. my doubts lie with the programming. the only game i
have created so far is space invaders. am i being silly to go for
developing a 3d game (maybe FPS or platformer-maybe one level) in
8 months?
Doing a FPS might be alot of work for you second project, you thought about doing a mod to show case your skills?
If you want to do it in XNA I would suggest you do a few test projects first, other 3D games before you go for the big one.
I would recommend doing a multiplayer 2D-using-3D game. Doing a full-blown 3D game would require tons of time to create decent content. That would be time better spent working on gameplay. Take a classic arcade game (that hasn't been released yet on Live Arcade 
) and recreate it or do a board game conversion. Save the 3D game for when you're not under time constraints. It really depends how comfortable you are with the programming end. I spent my final 2 years of college building an RTS game which unfortunately never got finished. The game featured an 2D isometric tile engine written in C++ with Direct Draw and the Win 32 API. No other libraries where used otherwise. The project also included an level editor program, and PAK file creator/viewer program. I choose to use MFC instead of the Win API for the Level Editor. Even though the game was never fully completed, I wrote an MS HTML help file documenting the entire project, as well as writing an installer program. A small splash screen program was built with VB 6 and a CD was put together to demo and show off the project. Needless to say, even though it was unfinished, it was still demoable and impressive enough for an A grade. Later the demo helped land me a job doing graphics programming.
On a side note, the engine I built was flexable enough to be reused for a bomber man clone I had to put together in 2 weeks for my Graphics Theory final.
8 months is a pretty short time. Problems I found during my 2 years of the project included: difficulty in finding people willing to work hard enough to build a video game (also knowledgable enough), and also having enough time to work on the project with homework, exams, etc always distracting me. If you need something complete, start with a small goal. Then if you surpass that goal quick enough, you can add tons of eye candy / extras. However, if you struggle with the project, at least hopefully you'll have enough time to complete it. If you understand C# and Managed DirectX 1.1/2.0 you really shouldn't have a problem pulling it off. It really comes down to how well you understand the concepts of programming, 3D math, and graphics theory.
I would say that with reasonable skills you would easily be able to build a 3D shooter in eight months (40 hour work weeks)
You could go for using the quake 3 level editor and load the BSPs from there. It's easy to use and the format is documented. Since it's a CSG editor you create the level with building blocks. You should be able to find someone that can make a few models for you.
If you don't aim to high in the AI area it should be very realistic to build this kind of shooter within your time frame.
The most important thing here is planning your work. make a feature list. Prioritize the important things (like level loader, mesh animation, collision detection etc.). Leave all things that are not must haves down on the bottom of the list. When you are done with the level loader animation etc and you have a complete game (without fancy effects or anything). This should be done in half of your time or less. Start improving and adding new features (prioritize equally hard).
I would say that if you don't get to deep into engine construction you will have a pretty nice (but not as good looking) shooter up and running.
The most important part! Do not feature creep until you have a complete game and absolutely no feature creep during the last month!
Good luck
 exal wrote: |
| I would say that with reasonable skills you would easily be able to build a 3D shooter in eight months (40 hour work weeks) |
|
I doubt he's going to be doing 40 hour work weeks.
Part of the problem with indie/hobbyist developers is aiming too high and getting frustrated with a lack of results. I see it all the time on game development message boards. I think it's much better to actually finish a small, fun, good-looking, polished game than to try to do a basic big game like an FPS that won't look as good and probably be buggy.
If he has to build this from the ground up there's no way that he'll get an FPS game done in 8 months unless he works on it day and night, which I be he won't be doing.
I'm not trying to shoot anyone down, I'm just being realistic based on what I've seen in the community.
thanks everyone, yours advice has been very helpful.
to be honest i reckon i was being a bit unrealistic with the FPS
idea especially since i cant even understand some of the
programming lingo some of you guys are talking! media creation is my
main skill and i would rather spend more time on that than programming.
maybe xna isn't for me which is a pity cause i'd love to do realtime
directx 9 style 3D stuff instead of pre-render. anyways, thanks for all
your replies ye have been very helpful
