A game idea and question

I am no programmer I can think of some ideas for them though, and I don’t even know if this is possible But, an adventure game kinda like Zelda link to the past, but with a gimmick kinda like the stone of agony. You play normally for a bit like till the first dungeon then after you find an item called perhaps the spear of light you are instructed to insert an led into the header and when you’re near treasure or a boss or a clue to a puzzle the led blinks.

So is this possible?

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It’s very possible, it should be very easy for anyone with just a little programming experience. In fact, switching an LED on and off is the first Arduino tutorial you will find. I know we aren’t Arduino here, but the same principle applies.
If you have a Pokitto, then just jump right in, there are instructions on the forum here for setting up the software you need to get started.

We would all be old and dead by the time I finished programming any game Lol

Hahahaha! Believe me, its not that difficult!

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I would like to agree. I think that the technical part is quite straight forward, it’s only the motivation part that trips me up, I have a folder with about 95 nintendo ds homebrew projects that didn’t even get half way :stuck_out_tongue:

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Start with something simple.
Like noughts and crosses, or rock-paper-scissors.

If you get stuck, there’s a rumour that there’s this benevolent disembodied skull on the forum who likes to explain C++ things to people. :P


My main problem (apart from motivation) is that there are so many cool projects that I end up with 100 projects 1% complete instead of 1 project 100% complete.

Sometimes I manage to 100% complete something if I don’t bother to design it properly.
E.g. earlier in the week I threw together an IPS patcher to apply a translation patch to a ROM.

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Had an idea for something easy, simple game, like the wario ware stuff first one is just a smash game you see either tingle a Cucco or Navi and you either push up to avoid the Cucco (hitting it is game over) a to hit Navi and b to hit tingle and it just keeps track of your passes and hits on each. And that’s it.
Problem is I have no idea how to start.

Oh boy, I could talk about motivation :slight_smile:

So true, but you know, remember really simple. Not simple like in “my RPG is only going to be 2D instead of 3D”, simple like tic-tac-toe simple :slight_smile: You always underestimate how difficult the project will be.

Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.

Finishing a project is satisfying and motivating, not finishing it is the opposite. But the size of the projects almost doesn’t matter here, so to get motivated, look for projects you’re likely to finish. This is exactly why I fell in love with Arduboy and Pokitto - the projects can be done quickly, without spending a month preparing just the assets and meanwhile getting an idea for 20 new projects that have a high chance of rendering this a wasted time.

By doing it - a lot of people start programming right away with placeholder assets. I usually start by drawing the sprites - this gives you a preview of what it’s going to look and feel like and your subconscious has some time to think about the program design a bit (e.g. while drawing the player sprite you’re thinking about the actual C++ classes this will be linked to - of course this only applies when you know how to program already) - then I get to actually programming, no prototypes or UML diagrams or other planning, simply open the editor and start writing the code, the main function, make it compile, make the sprites move. Seeing the stuff move is always motivating, even when you’ve done it a 100 times already. And from there it’s just a matter of small steps and fine tuning to the final game. Also the order of things for me is usually:

  1. The main things first - usually first thing I program is drawing the game map, then player and NPCs, items etc.
  2. Bind the programmed stuff to inputs, that is make the player react to button presses.
  3. Menus, GUI, savegames etc. last.

With simple games like tic-tac-toe you won’t even need to draw sprites, you can use basic shapes like squares, lines and circles and get right to programming. That’s what I’d recommend for a first game. It is usually best to keep everything as simple as possible. If you can do without sprites, it’s best to not do sprites.

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*hides warehouse of unfinished projects*

I always start by designing on paper, even if it’s a really rough design.
Sometimes I’ll spend a lot more time designing than programming

I’ll usually start with a state diagram and design the UI at the same time,
thinking about how the UI causes changes between states.
Later I’ll make a class diagram if it’s a big project.

I don’t even touch any code until I’ve got an idea of what the final thing should look like.
If I’m working to a design/spec I find it’s easier to avoid feature creep,
and harder to get lost about what to do next.

This, I 100% agree with.
That’s why when I thought “I haven’t contributed a Pokitto game yet, what should I make”, I decided to make Noughts & Crosses.

2D RPGs have always been my favourite kind of game (Pokemon, Dragon Quest, many others),
but to this day I’ve never found the motivation to make one properly because they’re such hard work.
I know that I know everything I need to make one, but it’s just the sheer amount of effort involved that stops me.

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Also RPG involves a lot of content in addition of the feature themselves

It shouldn’t be too hard to write an RPG are used to play DND and wrote all kinds of bread ventures back Leanne it would require for Paquito at least episode of conversion work it out or save the saved file and add it to each additional episode and would require a booklet of some sort given the backstory for the world

I could probably write the story I just could not coded