$12256 / $11500
Hi, which libraries should be used, combined with which genres?
If we're going to use 3d graphics, we should use either irrlicht or ogre, for 2d I think SDL, because it's highly supported, and lots of people have experience with it.
Genres possible for 48 hours:
1. Arcade
2. Plathform
3. FPS (IOQuake?)
4. ...
RPG may sound nice, but.. It really takes a long time to dev.
Realtime strategy is even worse, since it requires either AI, or multiplayer.
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I agree with SDL for 2D. If we go with that, we are allowed to reuse existing code bits if it's already published/public/open before the jam begins. I can provide a decent main loop and input handling for C++ with SDL from Flare.
Note that the game jam will announce a Theme when it begins, so we can't really pick a genre ahead of time.
theme != genre. Of course if it's something like 'space', it will make more sense to do 3d or arcade, but if it's medieval we could create basically everything.
We can actually make a shortlist, so we don't waste more time choosing then necessary.
For newbies, or people with no sense of reality: MMORPG will not be an option :)
You're correct. For reference, I found the previous Reddit game jam themes:
I for one vote for physics game, something akin to angry birds or the incredible machine, where the fun comes from just making objects with different properties interact. That way we define a bunch of physical properties for objects dependent on the theme, define the starting conditions and some obstacles, and then let the physics engine handle the gameplay.
I'd think Newton would be a good fit for the current agreed upon technologies:
http://newtondynamics.com/wiki/index.php5?title=Tutorial_-_Getting_Started
Competition results are usually rather abstract- or casual-style games - as for one because of programmer art (here OGA can excell) and as for number two because of complexity. If you shuffle the theme with some *random* verbs you may come up with games quite unique one couldn't have imagined before - yet quite simple. Often simpler than a lot of other things.
I would just like to say that SFML is very powerful pendant to SDL which is even faster to program with/use. I used both so this is not just a wild claim. Just in case there are several others who already know it, it could be an alternative.
I've been meaning to try SFML (I've done lots in Allegro and SDL in the past), so this would be a decent excuse for me.
I know its hardware vs software, but these SDL vs SFML benchmark tests are pretty convincing:
http://www.sfml-dev.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=43
I came across SFML some days ago and i'd actually love to use it in this project. It comes with so many powerful features we had to write on our own if we were using SDL, thus hopefully speeding up the development quite a bit. And i think development speed is the main issue on 48 hour contests ;-)
Well if we go with SFML might I suggest using Chipmunk too?
https://code.google.com/p/chipmunk-physics/
What does the arcade genre include?
Also, if this can compile for iPhone/iPad that would be wonderful; even if you don't add that into the toolchain early it would still be cool at a later date.
it would be wonderful if this project grew outside of just this compitition after the competition is over.
I think you need an apple developer license for those plathforms. I doubt anyone is willing to pay a hundred dollars for just compiling to those plathforms..
Also note that the Apple App Store is incompatible with the GPL. Unless something's changed since January: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/no-gpl-apps-for-apples-app-store/8046
I also believe you need a Mac to develop for iOS?
Yes you need mac. I even failed to install it in a VM, if you're not part of the big apple family you lose... I hate em...
As for SFML, alpha blending is free there ;) No more pink=transparent or mega slowdown for alpha. We could make some cool particle effects with thousands of particles.
Chipmunk seems really tempting, I didn't know that one yet.
I have (with my bro) tried to make apps for the app store. It was a profoundly negative and frustrating experience. Essentially nothing, as far as I saw, about the way Apple ran it was right. It's a darned shame, but there you have it.