How to start your own project

[razing32]

Hi,

I have a question , how can you start your own indie free game project ?

But take into account the following , I absolutely stink at coding .

I love a game called Gorky 17 / Odium and would love to make an open source version.
Here's a quick look at the game : http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/gorky_17

Not sure how many of you know this game , but I am curios , where do I start :
Where can I find people interested ? (I swear this is an obscure game , and I rarely find fans)
Should I start a website , or try recruiting on forums ?
Should I learn coding and graphic engines , AI , sound etc and start on my own ?

Please let me know ,any opinions are welcome.

[zookeeper]

Should I learn coding and graphic engines , AI , sound etc and start on my own ?

Yes, yes, absolutely yes.

Unfortunately, there's almost zero chance of people joining a project which isn't already functional to some degree. People who are then able to actually do all the work, that is. If you make at least a solid prototype, then someone might. Still, it's not something that you can really rely on, and you should always aim for something that you think you can, if necessary, finish entirely on your own.

In indie/free/OSS game development, there's pretty much no demand for project leads or game designers who can't do a lot of the actual work involved. Game ideas are dime a dozen, and everyone has their own. Capable programmers and artists would rather implement their own ideas than someone else's, and will only do the latter if they don't need to do all the work and if they believe the project is healthy enough that their efforts won't end up going to waste. You can't really convince them of that unless you have something concrete to show.

[Crendgrim]

If you are going open source with your project, you might also ask for advice at the FreeGameDev Forums (although, of course, what zookeeper said applies there just as well ).

[razing32]

So , now that we have that out of the way , what do you recommend I code in ?
What's easiest for someone who is just bad at coding ?

Now when I said I was bad at coding I was not joking , I managed to fail 2 out of 3 programming courses and had to re-take them during college.
I only passed my Java course because we were allowed to use the internet and help files so I found examples to adapt to my needs.

[Celtic_Minstrel]

I like C++, but I don't think I'd recommend it for someone who's "bad at coding" and has failed several programming courses (though with Boost and the standard libraries it's not particularly hard to use). Java is a good choice, if a little verbose, but Python may be a little easier to use since you don't need to worry so much about types of variables (ie int, String, etc). On the other hand, indentation matters in Python; in Java, it doesn't.

Another one you might consider is C#, which is like Java but a little better in general (though I don't use it myself). I think there was another one I could recommend too, if I can only remember what it was.

[Dixie]

Since this is tangentially related to the subject at hand, I'll take the opportunity for a question that has bothered me for some time:

I understand that Wesnoth is mostly C++ (right?), but if I am not mistaken, there's is also a part in python, plus support for Lua (which may arguably be another case altogether). Is there a reason for this? Are certain languages better at certain tasks, and if so, which? For exemple, is there one that totally rocks at doing UIs or displaying graphics, while another is much better for a complete core engine, etc.? I suppose some are more efficient cpu-wise? Or is it merely a matter of personal style and taste?

[razing32]

I like C++, but I don't think I'd recommend it for someone who's "bad at coding" and has failed several programming courses (though with Boost and the standard libraries it's not particularly hard to use). Java is a good choice, if a little verbose, but Python may be a little easier to use since you don't need to worry so much about types of variables (ie int, String, etc). On the other hand, indentation matters in Python; in Java, it doesn't.

Another one you might consider is C#, which is like Java but a little better in general (though I don't use it myself). I think there was another one I could recommend too, if I can only remember what it was.

What about getting graphic plugins into your code ?
And what about a framework that makes things easier ?
Which language is more user friendly in this regard ?

[Celtic_Minstrel]

Well, for GUI (ie windows, dialogue boxes, and that sort of stuff), Java has a Swing in the standard library for graphics stuff. Python has support for Tk in the standard library, but that's not (in my opinion) a particularly easy-to-use GUI library. If you were using Java, I'd just say use Swing; for Python I'd suggest getting Python bindings for Qt or wxWidgets. But, this is only if you want complicated GUI stuff, which for a game is often not the case.

For more low-level drawing functions such as you'd normally use for games, I personally recommend SFML. It's written in C++, but can be used with both Java and Python as well as C#, Ruby, and D; it's what I'm currently using for a game project. It does have a few downsides though, such as limited support for non-US, non-Windows keyboards. There's also the classic SDL, though pygame (the Python version of SDL) seems to be hard to install(?). I dunno if there are Java bindings to SDL, but I would be mildly surprised if there weren't.

I would also point out that GUI is hard in general, so if you don't need it, I wouldn't recommend using it.

[razing32]

I would also point out that GUI is hard in general, so if you don't need it, I wouldn't recommend using it.

Well , the game had 3D models , but I am not going that far.
Just a simple 2D character pulling out a gun and shooting at a monster.(possibly isometric)

I'm thinking of using Wesnoth as an example for AI and stuff like that.

But I don't want to get ahead of myself and then loose interest 1 week in.

[Celtic_Minstrel]

Well, if you want to use 3D, most of what I said won't be much use, though SFML does sort of support it a little since it's implemented with OpenGL (but you'd still need to know OpenGL to do 3D stuff with it, and OpenGL is hard).

[Crendgrim]

Since this is tangentially related to the subject at hand, I'll take the opportunity for a question that has bothered me for some time:

I understand that Wesnoth is mostly C++ (right?), but if I am not mistaken, there's is also a part in python, plus support for Lua (which may arguably be another case altogether). Is there a reason for this? Are certain languages better at certain tasks, and if so, which? For exemple, is there one that totally rocks at doing UIs or displaying graphics, while another is much better for a complete core engine, etc.? I suppose some are more efficient cpu-wise? Or is it merely a matter of personal style and taste?

Although this is off-topic, I think I can answer this (despite not being a Wesnoth developer myself). The main part of Wesnoth is written in C++, that is the whole engine. Wesnoth then has its own scripting language for all content, WML. To enhance this, there is Lua (using which you can create new WML tags and stuff) which is executed from within the engine, so from C++.
Python is used only for helper scripts (such as wmlindent or wmllint) where you want to have an easy-to-modify script which does not need compiling.

So (and here I slightly go on-topic again), the question whether to use a language like C++, or a scripting language like Python, depends on what you are going for. Programs in C++ are precompiled, so they load faster; while scripts are (usually) interpreted on runtime, so they have to be parsed each time you execute them. For a small script this is no problem, but imagine a program like Wesnoth being interpreted on each start. It would take ages.

So.. I do hope I did not say anything wrong now. *crosses fingers*

[razing32]

Well, if you want to use 3D, most of what I said won't be much use, though SFML does sort of support it a little since it's implemented with OpenGL (but you'd still need to know OpenGL to do 3D stuff with it, and OpenGL is hard).

Yup , that's why I'll start in 2D and build a solid logic behind the game.
Once that is done , I can look to re-doing the graphics in 3D.

Already found a hex example scheme in Java with the help of a friend , so I'll start tinkering there.