I want to make a game for the Nintendo DS.

A

Azazel90x

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Im sick of all these "crappy" games for the DS, its especially lacking in the RPG department. So what i want to do is make my own homebrew rpg for the ds.
So my questions are as follows.

1.) Whats the best programming language for someone whos never coded before. I think its C++ but whats your opinions? Is there a program that specializes in coding, and making games?

2.) How can i test scripts after i make them?

3.) How would i make the models and landscape, and how would i go about animating it? Would i just make a script? Or do i make like a animated gif, or video?
Could i possibly use WC3's map editor and take the models from there? ( i know its copyrighted but im willing to ask Blizzard for permission)

4.) How would i put everything together? All the scripts, models, ect into a finished product? And then after its a finished product how would i go about making it a .nds file that can be played on the ds with flash carts?

5.) I want to utilize all aspects of the DS for this game, i want to use the Mic(VoIP), Wi-Fi (both infrastructure and ad-hoc), and of course the Touch Screen. How would i make sure to use it right?

6.) How can i figure out what the DS can handle so the framerates dont get choppy during heavy fight scenes? Is there any way to keep textures at a high quality level without hurting the frame rates?

7.) I want to utilize Wi-Fi for trading of items, armor, materials. PvP, and Co-Op, and possibly raids but i dont want it to become just an average rpg, i want to do something different, but my question is this, how can i prevent cheaters from duping items, boosting their stats, ect from getting online and playing with other people?

8.) Is there a file size limit for homebrew ds games? And if its too big, will it start lagging?


Those are all the questions i can think of at this time.

Now, DO NOT POST if your gonna complain on why im doing this on the DS and not the PSP (yet, could come will have to see how the DS does)

Please, if you have suggestions, post em

If this thread is in the wrong forum, please move it to the right one!
 
Eragon Dragonslayer said:
1.) Whats the best programming language for someone whos never coded before.
Click to expand...

You'll need to learn to program simple applications before you can build a game.

Start here: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1014086

Another way to look at it: Intel couldn't just go out and build a 45nm CPU from scratch.

They needed a ton of foundation work: electronics, manufacturing, etc. The industry started with simple transistors, resistors, capacitors before they moved to Integrated Circuits and eventually CPUs.

The same thing goes with programming (or anything else) - you'll need to take some time to learn how to program first.

Good luck and have fun!
 
http://dsdev.org/
http://patater.com/manual

Go there and get your answers. While I enjoy you not asking "4 da cod3z" what you just outlined is a hell of a lot of work and studying. Learn *how to program* first then go tackle a ds game... but don't expect that to be tomorrow or next month.

Good luck.

Is there a program that specializes in coding, and making games?
Click to expand...
 
Eragon Dragonslayer said:
Now, DO NOT POST if your gonna complain on why im doing this on the DS and not the PSP (yet, could come will have to see how the DS does)
Click to expand...


I dont think anyone will complain about that, but waht you're taking about is A LOT of work.

A LOT.


People spend their lives doing this stuff, and others spend quite a few years before they even touch a DS devkit. Learn to program first - you don't go out there and say "we need armor, PVP, etc". There's A LOT behind each game, but you gotta crawl before you can walk. Consider writing a full fledged DS game sprinting, and since you don't know how to program, you got a ways to go.

After that, we'll talk.


That's not to say you can't do it. I urge you to. But, there's a lot to it.
 
Game programming involves many different disciplines, graphics creation and programming, resource management and optimization (especially on hardware like the DS, where you will have to worry about memory and CPU usage), audio programming, event scripting, writing (you know...language writing), software design, and in a more general sense, stuff like AI, physics, animation, networking. And of course, testing, which will drive you nuts because you will try to exercise the myriad number of ways the game can be abused.

If you are truly serious about this venture, expect to put in a lot of time and effort if you want to develop a full fledged DS game. The language used in homebrew DS development is C or C++ and you use one of the homebrew APIs.

You'll have to learn to crawl, then walk, before you run.
 
I don't mean to be so negative in my post, and I probably shouldn't even be posting with my current point of view towards this topic but.... holy fucking shit.

Theres so much about programming that you would need to understand to design a game, specifically an MMORPG (which is what your insinuating). Its so far beyond "items, armor, materials. PvP, and Co-Op, and possibly raids" that you wouldn't possibly understand. I've been a CS major for almost 1.5 years(which is nothing) and I can barely program a basic 2D adventure game with different levels. I can't even fathom designing a dynamic world with 100's of users simultaneously connected to a server with real time graphical rendering of all players avatars/health/mana/energy while still maintaining playable frames on a system with 128mb of RAM(just a guess, I have no idea what the DS has). I'm sorry to be so morose, but without years of college/reading/learning there is no way your going to accomplish anything to this extent.
 
S3th13 said:
I don't mean to be so negative in my post, and I probably shouldn't even be posting with my current point of view towards this topic but.... holy fucking shit.

Theres so much about programming that you would need to understand to design a game, specifically an MMORPG (which is what your insinuating). Its so far beyond "items, armor, materials. PvP, and Co-Op, and possibly raids" that you wouldn't possibly understand. I've been a CS major for almost 1.5 years(which is nothing) and I can barely program a basic 2D adventure game with different levels. I can't even fathom designing a dynamic world with 100's of users simultaneously connected to a server with real time graphical rendering of all players avatars/health/mana/energy while still maintaining playable frames on a system with 128mb of RAM(just a guess, I have no idea what the DS has). I'm sorry to be so morose, but without years of college/reading/learning there is no way your going to accomplish anything to this extent.
Click to expand...

Yea, i kinda think this game is gonna be super impossible(for me), and i am leaving and going to the army in june, so im definitely not gonna be finished by then, and when i do go into the army, ill have very little time to dedicate to this game. So, i think ill give it up (for now) and hopefully maybe after college since i will be doing some programming, i might attempt it again. But i do have to thank everyone for their responses, but ill have to put the game on hold for now....

Once again thank you everyone!
 
This isn't for the DS, but if you want to learn a little something about making games you should go pick up a copy of the book The Game Maker's Apprentice. It's geared completely toward using the Game Maker program to code PC games, but there's a large community built around making games on this platform. Some of them are pretty entertaining! Check out www.yoyogames.com to see the main community page- you can also DL the free version of Game Maker to mess with.
 
Speaking as a computer science major... this is way more than you can handle at the moment. Learning to program is a great skill and a game is a good way to put together everything you have learned. As a single person writing an rpg or anythign similar is going to take many months of workign on it hours a day.

For my computer graphics class myself and 5 other group members worked an entire semester each putting in about 30 hours a week and barely had a working 3d game engine to show as a final project let alone a game. Mind you this was 6 seniors in computer science all with extensive programming and computer science skills.


But I very much encourage you to start simple making easy text based games as an intro to programming, and work your way up. Game programming utilizes almost everythign you learn in CS
 
Here is another example of how tough this will be. I am in the process of writing my first game ever just to see fi I can do it. It's pretty much an oregon trail knock off using silverlight. I am a programmer by day and I thought this game concept would be pretty each to create because if just 100% random (mostly)

Totally wrong though. I end up having to create more objects, scripts, pathings etc daily because I never accounted for certain things. This game doesn't even include any crazy animations or graphics. It's barely real time, more like a stop and go kind of thing.

It's not easy anyway you think about it. Even if you are a programmer or CS major, a game is a huge under taking and you need to have really solid skills to do it. I also think it includes MUCH MUCH more than you'll ever learn in a computer science. Well, it's not even close unless you making tic-tac-toe.
 
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