Medieval RPG - Grail Quest

[DanShadow]

If you guys want to improve your game art, i'd recommend doing what I did when I was your age: learn how to draw game images at the pixel level .
It's pretty easy, and it's how the "old" 2D RPG's were drawn. I find it's a pretty cheap/quick/effective way to add attractive graphics to a game... when your a programmer, heh.

Either way, its your game, make it how you like!

[Coldkick]

LOL, I fixed alot of the leaves problem, besides if I had a pentab I would be doing better art, for now I'm just using PS brushes styles, marques, and gradients xD.

[Srlancelot39]

thank you for the....constructive....criticism copthesaint =P, but i dont intend on making a second WoW. at the absolute most, the game might get graphics almsot as good as runescape classic....lol. the art Sniperdude and coldkick are making are above my expectations so its all going fine. and the trees with leaves on them are just outside the castle entrance. i have leafless, dead, burnt trees surrounding the cemetery and the witch's house.
please excuse the long comment, im just happy cus Comp sci is back up again lol

[DanShadow]

I was curious, how far do you guys intend for this Turing game to go? It certainly looks like your dedicating some time & effort into it.

[SNIPERDUDE]

I'm out of school (have for a while) and looking for work. I'm using this as a scapegoat to keep my mind from melting. I do believe when Sean has learned C++ he'll restart the project there.

[Srlancelot39]

this game is already 3 years old and it doesn't intend on dying =P
Coldkick is beginning to teach me C++ because I can't wait till second semester lol. At this point, I can make the words 'Grail Quest' appear in DOS (i was getting tired of seeing 'hello world' in every tutorial, so i decided to use something personal), but once I learn more the game should rebuild itself pretty quickly.

[DanShadow]

C++ is a large undertaking to learn from Turing mind you, and the graphics API is a fair bit more complex. I'd recommend looking into OpenGL 2D Graphics Programming as early as possible (not to learn as early as possible, but to know what kind of graphic programming your going to have to be doing).

Seriously though, I'd still recommend learning Java if you want to make a better 2D version of Grail Quest. The fact that you can run an applet has many advantages, namely that you can run it on almost any platform with no downloading, the graphics API is very similar to Turing, and that you can make it interact with a Database through your web-site, which will make a multiplayer adaptation pretty simple to implement.

Congrats for keeping the project going this far, a lot of other programmers would have gotten bored by now

[SNIPERDUDE]

I'd have to agree with Java over C++ on this one.
Java's syntax isn't too different from C++ anyhow if I remember correctly.

[Srlancelot39]

im not changing languages for better graphics, im only changing languages because Turing is not a 'real' language, and you cant sell/publish something made on Turing. Java seems a bit too much for me at this point, and C++ is widely used, as well as powerful and easy to learn/understand. I've heard Java is also prone to glitches...

[Srlancelot39]

Java does seem a good idea actually, but I already have 3 sources to learn C++ from and i don't know of any way to learn Java. I'll be learning C++ next semester, a guy i know from a few of my courses is willing to assist in recoding it in C++, and Coldkick is already teaching me C++ over skype lol...

Thanks for the congrats!

[TerranceN]

Srlancelot39 @ Wed Oct 13, 2010 12:45 pm wrote:

Java seems a bit too much for me at this point

Java is far easier than C++. C++ will make you manage nearly every aspect of your program.

For example, want to make a window? In Java you can inherit the Frame class, call one method and tada, you have a window. In C++ you will have to learn the confusing win32 API (at least on windows), create a system of communicating with the OS to handle events, register your window class to the OS, then finally create your window. There are API's to help with these kinds of things (like SDL), but why not use something thats standard and easy (Java)?

Also manual memory management in C++ can drive you crazy. In Java everything is automatically a pointer, then when there are no more references to it, it gets deleted. In C++ if you use pointers you have to keep track of whether that memory has been deallocated or not, and you have to make sure to deallocate it once you are done with it, or else you will get a memory leak and potentially use up all the memory on the computer. There are things to help with this too, like smart pointers, but they still require you to have an understanding of how memory management works and how they work.

Finally Java and C++ are syntactically similar, so Java is a good stepping stone to learning C++.

I think doing this in Java would make it much simpler, but if you still think you're up to the task of learning C++ I would recommend SDL and openGL. Here is a good SDL tutorial, which leads right into openGL, and theres a good openGL tutorial here.

If you want to use Java, then go read this for the basics of Java and this to learn how to make a simple game engine.

[DanShadow]

Even if your going to learn C++ anyway in a month, i'd even recommend learning Java on the side. C++ and Java syntax are very similar, so it wont be hard to learn both at the same time. But in the time it will likely take you to learn how to program 2D graphics in C++, you could have already completed your game in Java.
I would still recommend learning C++, but Java is a better idea for now imo.

[Srlancelot39]

I would like to start off by saying I deeply apologize for 'necroposting' because I know this is the definition of necroposting.

That aside, I wanted to say that I am currently taking a course in my university program that is formally teaching me C++, however I understand the advantages of Java and I am interested in using it as Grail Quest's new/future language. This means I will probably not be coding it in C++. If anyone knows of any means/method of learning Java on the side, I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks, and keep playing Grail Quest!
Special thanks to SNIPERDUDE and Coldkick for their ongoing work on the game! They are spreading through the credits like vines!

[TokenHerbz]

If you come across anything send it my way, because i'll be trying to get into this school course hopefully this year, and they use java.

I have to up-date my skills!!!

[Srlancelot39]

Dodges rotten tomatoes Sorry for necroposting!...again. But here's the most recent source code. It's very old, but the most recent nonetheless.

Thanks everyone for your help! Especially SNIPERDUDE and Coldkick