freidin@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Robert Freidin) (06/07/89)
Attention Amiga Programmers: DOES ANYONE OUT THERE KNOW HOW TO PROGRAM VIDEO GAMES ON THE Amiga? I've just recently seen a sample of what this amazing computer can do (I saw Thunder Blade, Blood Money, and Menace), and I am wondering how difficult it would be to program games like these. I know Pascal for the Mac very well, and would be willing to learn C and/or Assembly for the Amiga if necessary. I'm only 14 and can't spend $3000 on hardware only to discover that programming things like Menace is near impossible, but if it's possible for me to produce arcade-type games, the investment would be well worth it. Another thing I might need is graphics design. Does anyone know how I could learn? Thanks for your help. Bernie Freidin
UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) (06/07/89)
In article <8895@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>, freidin@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Robert Freidin) says: >Amiga? I've just recently seen a sample of what this amazing computer >can do (I saw Thunder Blade, Blood Money, and Menace), and I am >wondering how difficult it would be to program games like these. I know >Pascal for the Mac very well, and would be willing to learn C and/or The Mac and the Amiga are roughly comparable in terms of difficulty. I suppose the Amiga is *more* difficult in the sense that it can do more, and has more special features, so there is more to learn. For example, the Amiga offers special support for animation that I believe is absent on the Mac. Also, on the Amiga you have to learn about handling colors. Also important, on the Amiga you have to learn some tricks about multi-tasking, that is you want your program to cooperate with other programs that might be running. To learn about the Amiga, one good book to start with is Rob Peck's Programmer's Guide to the Amiga, from Sybex. Another good place to look is on the Fish disks, advertised in many magazines, available from clubs and dealers, and even available on many mainframes. There are dozens of good games on these disks, with *source code* included! Lastly, since you are already a Pascal programmer, you might consider using Modula-2 instead of C. It is an excllent language for what you want to do, and well supported on the Amiga. The main problem with using Modula 2 is that many, many, many of the examples you will want to follow are written in C. You could probably learn enough C to read these examples and translate them into M2, since the two languages are in many ways very similar. good luck.
UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) (06/07/89)
One thing I forgot to add about programming Video games.
Even a professional programmer might take a year or more, working
full time ,to produce aarcade quality game. I expect it
would take a 14 year old longer. Still, it can be done.
Also, a lot of that time goes into adding fancy polish. A
playable, useable game might only take you 6 months.stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) (06/10/89)
There is to kind of programing on the amiga, the conventional and the 'outlaw'.Most of the Games are made in 'teams' more than one person work on one project. The most advanced amiga games in GFX are writen in 68000 assembly, well I could give you example but it would tell you anything. If you want the get an amiga system to develop on it you should first check how mutch work it will involved! What work have you done lattly? You should allow you 2 year to master the machine and Do any complex work(if you are lonly and teach yourself). began at your age with 65x0 assembly and pass by Basic,Pascal,C and now 680x0 asm.You can master 680x0 programing in 6 month, but you be less productif. You should start by learning C, then learn the machine you will be working on.I know people how work part time and are developing a game for 2 year.. ( I daVe:-) my last word, Get some source of some GFX demo done on the amiga and look at them... If you fell that you can handle it, well nothing stop you...
ali@polya.Stanford.EDU (Ali T. Ozer) (06/13/89)
In article <89158.094143UH2@PSUVM> UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) writes: > ... Also important, on the Amiga you have to learn some >tricks about multi-tasking, that is you want your program to cooperate >with other programs that might be running. I'm not sure I agree with this; as long as you follow common sense programming (or what I consider common sense programming 8-), you do not need to learn any tricks about multitasking. The phrase "on the Amiga you have to learn some tricks about multi-tasking, that is if you want your program to cooperate with other programs that might be running" is more true for the Macintosh Multifinder environment than it is for the Amiga. Rules for common sense programming include "manage your resources," and don't "busy-wait." On the Amiga "managing your resources" might be somewhat tougher than on a Unix machine, but not much tougher. Of course if you do decide to have your program talk with other programs or have your program spawn off tasks to do things, then you will need to learn about multitasking and message passing and so on. But that is only if you want to make explicit use of these features. Ali Ozer