Why many projects are never finished?

[Pharap]

my main point here is that you can follow a tutorial where you make a (basic) game from a to z.

Hrm, I suppose so.

I’d have a crack at it if I didn’t already have other things to be doing.

[BigBadHodad]

I just had no idea how to do anything beyond the initial stuff I did.

[Hanski]

I guess you are right but my main point here is that you can follow a tutorial where you make a (basic) game from a to z. So maybe @filmote should start making a version of his tutorial for Pokitto!

@jonne is actually making a video series about porting Operation Wolf to Pokitto.

[sbmrgd]

@jonne is actually making a video series about porting Operation Wolf to Pokitto.

@jonne must be really busy then because he is also porting Operation Fox at the same time!

Seriously though, I do not know if this would be suitable for real beginners…

[jonne]

Heyyyyy…

I actually did something on this last night.

The challenge is that OpFox runs on RBoy lib, the grandfather of PokittoLib

There are some cool things that are missing on PokittoLib (automatically animated sprites) and I am porting that stuff over as well!

[sbmrgd]

Yeah ok, but what about Operation Wolf???

[Pharap]

Another thought I just had.

I think a lot of people when they write Pokitto games feel that they need to make use of all the resources available, so instead of making simple games with basic graphics they try to make big full colour games with lots of features.

Whereas with the Arduboy people are always throwing together very simple games that don’t actually do much.

In other words, I think the higher capability of the console might be causing people to set the bar too high for themselves.

[Hanski]

I have been wondering the same. It is like making a C64-level game for Amiga. Or NES-level game for SNES. It does not look as good as the rest. That may cause people not to release a game.

[jonne]

I think a lot of people when they write Pokitto games feel that they need to make use of all the resources available, so instead of making simple games with basic graphics they try to make big full colour games with lots of features.

That’s deep thinking right thre. You may be on to something.

[torbuntu]

A large barrier for myself has been tooling. As a linux user that is not likely to register to use tools, the entry to Pokitto has been a little rough.
I’m also a java programmer mostly so the change from the tooling available for the jvm to a c++ embedded stack was a pretty major shift.

I’ve been getting by with atom and platformIO but atom is lacking in a lot of ways that I’m used to. I then was just using a makefile and nano. But then as a new user without knowledge of the api it was difficult to find exactly what I needed to do.

I think I’ve found a good place using platformIO and Eclipse. But I’m still trying to get my feet wet with the change in ecosystem (as I’m very used to a more simplistic setup with gradle which manages all dependencies and project structure. But platformIO works just great as that).

So, not sure if anyone else felt the same as myself, but the tooling and just getting a development environmental setup (especially on Linux) has been my biggest hurdle. I’m getting over it now it seems. But just wanted to share my experience

Edit: I by no means mean this as a slight to Pokitto. It is just my experience and lack of understanding in this field. I just wanted to share my experience in case others felt the same or had suggestions. I love Pokitto and am working hard to learn how to make great things! (Like an infrared blaster hat!)

[Hanski]

I have been wondering the same. It is like making a C64-level game for Amiga. Or NES-level game for SNES. It does not look as good as the rest. That may cause people not to release a game.

I have used the lo-res mode (110x88) in PGP, mainly because of performance reasons (I wanted the game perform with good fps with audio). In my next (still unannounced ) project I will also use the lo-res mode. That is because I want to make graphics by myself, and I am not capable nor have time to draw hi-res graphics for it. I also like the look of lo-res gfx on Pokitto screen.

Edit: When people see Pico-8 graphics or Arduboy graphics, they can think that, hey, I could do that also. I have understood that also in Gamebuino Meta, the preferred mode is the lo-res mode (80x64).

[wuuff]

I think a lot of people when they write Pokitto games feel that they need to make use of all the resources available, so instead of making simple games with basic graphics they try to make big full colour games with lots of features.

I have been wondering the same. It is like making a C64-level game for Amiga. Or NES-level game for SNES. It does not look as good as the rest. That may cause people not to release a game.

I think maybe it’s also that a lot of the projects on these forums are done by people with a fair amount of experience that are trying to push the hardware, and someone new might come in and think “I can’t do that.” As @Hanski said it might be too intimidating to make a game that doesn’t look as good when there’s so many examples of how nice the hardware can look.

I have used the lo-res mode (110x88) in PGP, mainly because of performance reasons (I wanted the game perform with good fps with audio).

I also used lo-res mode in Planet Escape so I could focus on the game more than the tech.

I have understood that also in Gamebuino Meta, the preferred mode is the lo-res mode (80x64).

I wonder if this makes it more friendly to newcomers, since everyone is strongly encouraged to use a more forgiving mode that doesn’t require as many optimizations to get a playable game. There are more examples of games that a beginner might feel they could match the quality of.

[jonne]

Now, I am going to sit down, make a cup of tea and read this thread, in detail, line by line

[torbuntu]

Enjoy the tea!

[jonne]

Thanks, its very good. Had enough coffee today and its getting late (11:30 pm)

Also @torbuntu , I haven’t forgotten you had issues with Platformio. Gonna take a look at it.

[torbuntu]

Great hopefully it is something easy. I really an excited to continue my project