Did you finish your first game?

[pauxlo]

I think my first computer game project, many years ago, was a try at an implementation of chess ... by MS-DOS batch files. I had a nice (text-based) user-interface, but I didn't succeed in checking allowed moves. (Knight was possible, but bishop not any more.)

So, not finished.

I don't think I have done anything which would count as a game since then, apart from my current project, which still is not finished (but already playable).

[Sgt. Groovy]

Yes, it was a Russian Roulette I wrote on the VIC-20 BASIC when I was something like 8 or 9. The only other one I have completed was a Minesweeper with huge-ass map, written in Turbo Pascal. The incompleted ones include a text adventure, a graphical adventure, MUD, tabletop RPG (it was a pen-and-paper one, but it did include character creation and maintenance software I wrote from scratch) and a random terrain generation program that could be used in a FPS or flight simulator.

[Viliam]

I don't remember. It was cca 20 years ago. I remember finishing some games (some of them are still on my disk, though not the earlier ones), but I can't tell if they were the first ones.

My first games I remember were:
- a card memory game (each player looks at 2 cards, if you find a pair you take it)
- a maze game (sequence of maze levels, in each you take a key and open the corresponding doors)

Neither of these games needed animation and the navigation was easy. Both required just arrows and possibly Enter or Esc keys. (The card game was before I had a mouse, so you selected a card moving a card-cursor by arrows.)

Heh, I still remember how difficult it seemed at that time to make an algorithm for shuffling cards. It took a few days of thinking and redesigning, just to invent essentially this...

Code: Select all

cards = list_of_values
cards = cards + cards  # two of each kind
shuffled = empty_list
while (not empty(cards)) {
  random_index = random_number_between(1, length(cards))
  shuffled = shuffled + cards[random_index]
  cards[random_index] = cards[length(cards)]
  cards = cards[1 .. length(cards)-1]
}

...except it was an equivalent of this in Basic. (And I used chars for card values and strings for lists.) I was so proud of having finished this.
Actually, writing a formula for "random_number_between(1, length(cards))" was a non-trivial task at the time.

[Hulavuta]

I remember I had everything planned out but never even started. I think that qualifies as a no.

EDIT: What happens if this thread is still around in a few years and we have gotten back to our game and finished it?

[Viliam]

EDIT: What happens if this thread is still around in a few years and we have gotten back to our game and finished it?

You already know how to use the EDIT button, so...

[Hulavuta]

I mean editing the poll, lol.

[SpoOkyMagician]

Well... I wrote my first game back in high school in C++ (A console application. I was a beginner to C++ back then...) I do recall finishing it but, it was nothing impressive to say the least... I don't think I have the code anymore. (Not that it matters. It wasn't that fun anyway... lol) It was a very simplistic, text based, RPG. (A battle/encounter system I believe.) You would encounter (infinitely) enemies until you die. Then, it's game over... (Not much of a game... Although, it worked.) I would like to try making a new text based rpg someday though...