Creation

The creation of a game can be a very satisfying and rewarding process. But it is also something that can appear extremely difficult to people relatively new to programming. In this series of articles I intend to create a game from start to finish that features some of the basics of 2D games. The game will be made using only relatively simple C code to show that you don’t always need to use the most advanced features of C to make a game. I hope these articles also show the processes and thinking that occur when developing a game.

Existing programming articles and suggestions seem to focus on a relatively simple game such as Pong or Tetris. While this focus on simple games is useful it can then be difficult for people to make the jump from Pong to working on a full 2D game. These articles are my attempt to address this as the game we will create will have many different levels, be multi-player, feature scrolling, moving enemies and player shots, and also have different level features.

The Development will all be done with free software. We will use the Dev-C IDE (Integrated Development Editor) with the MingW compiler, the Allegro Library, and free graphics packages to produce the game.

Some basic knowledge of the C programming language and programming techniques is assumed in these articles..

I am not a professional writer or programmer, and so I hope you can accept the rough edges in the writing and the programming!

Completion..

After 8 articles Free Dungeons has gone from a concept and a design plan to a fully working and playable game. We have achieved everything we set out to do and I hope these articles have been motivational and useful in explaining how to make a more advanced game. Good luck for your future programming experiences!

Thank you.
Richard.

Articles:

• Article 1 : The Game and a Design Plan (11th June 2005)
• Article 2 : Programming Methodology & a Standard Framework (12th June 2005)
• Article 3 : Loading a level and drawing it on the screen (13th June 2005)
• Article 4 : Moving a player around the level (16th June 2005)
• Article 5 : Collecting & Shooting (19th June 2005)
• Article 6 : Opening locks, Moving monsters & Skull generators (21st June 2005)
• Article 7 : Sounds, Multiple Players, Death & Finishing levels (12th July 2005)
• Article 8 : 26 Levels, extra bits and Finishing touches. (14th July 2005)

Free Dungeon Program file, data & source code:

Free Dungeons files (14th July 2005)

Screenshot: