My first TGB experiment
by Jon Mitchell · 04/24/2007 (5:02 pm) · 9 comments
I have had a license for TGB for a little over two years now, it does not seem like two years have come and gone already but they have. Up until recently I had done nothing with TGB except the tutorials and I felt like it was a little of a waste to have it and not do some experimenting or something.
So there I was a bit before the holidays I decided to sit down and finally do something and I did start to do something! I started to make a top down tank shooter game. There was a bit of a learning curve and a lot of time searching TDN and the forums for answers, I had started to make good headway on my little experimental game until I ran into problems trying to put together something resembling and AI for the enemies. I got very hung up on this problem and I worried that I would get nothing accomplished if I continued to only work on this one problem, so I stopped working on the game for a while.
What I did was take some of the code I already had for the tank function and what I had learned and put together a simple little game I am calling Retro tank.
It is not very polished and it has a couple of game play bugs, but it was a great learning experience, I even came out of it with a pair of resources I submitted and were approved from what I learned while working on this game, one was for something that drove me crazy looking for, and that is how to do a quick and basic bounce, the other is for respawning with collision detection.
There are some things I know I re-invented the wheel on, like the way I went about setting up key binding for the two players. I really wanted to do the proper way with a listener for when you choose to bind a key or button push, but I could not quite figure out how it is currently done or find much for documentation. What I did instead was kind of interesting.
I guess what is really important is I had some fun while doing this and a feel I learned a lot. So with out further ado here are two downloads, one for Mac and one for Win
Retrotank for Win
Retrotank for Mac
So there I was a bit before the holidays I decided to sit down and finally do something and I did start to do something! I started to make a top down tank shooter game. There was a bit of a learning curve and a lot of time searching TDN and the forums for answers, I had started to make good headway on my little experimental game until I ran into problems trying to put together something resembling and AI for the enemies. I got very hung up on this problem and I worried that I would get nothing accomplished if I continued to only work on this one problem, so I stopped working on the game for a while.
What I did was take some of the code I already had for the tank function and what I had learned and put together a simple little game I am calling Retro tank.
It is not very polished and it has a couple of game play bugs, but it was a great learning experience, I even came out of it with a pair of resources I submitted and were approved from what I learned while working on this game, one was for something that drove me crazy looking for, and that is how to do a quick and basic bounce, the other is for respawning with collision detection.
There are some things I know I re-invented the wheel on, like the way I went about setting up key binding for the two players. I really wanted to do the proper way with a listener for when you choose to bind a key or button push, but I could not quite figure out how it is currently done or find much for documentation. What I did instead was kind of interesting.
I guess what is really important is I had some fun while doing this and a feel I learned a lot. So with out further ado here are two downloads, one for Mac and one for Win
Retrotank for Win
Retrotank for Mac
#2
04/24/2007 (5:34 pm)
kind of reminds me of a game I had on the old TI (anyone else have the texas instruments pre atari that even used cassette tapes for some of the games, best part is I'm only 25 I've been playing video games since I could touch a keyboard) nicely done. 
#4
Looks like you did a good job on this, and I'll definitely be checking it out when I get home tonight.
04/24/2007 (7:54 pm)
Jon, congratulations! Greatest thing ever for an Indie is releasing something, whether it be a final, beta or pre-alpha ... gotta love the feeling of accomplishment when you archive everything and say "Here ya Go!".Looks like you did a good job on this, and I'll definitely be checking it out when I get home tonight.
#5
I couldn't figure out how to rotate the cannon on my Mac build, is there a trick I'm missing or are the keybinds just not Mac friendly?
Cheers,
-Justin
04/25/2007 (3:47 am)
Looks good Jon, fun to make games isn't it? I couldn't figure out how to rotate the cannon on my Mac build, is there a trick I'm missing or are the keybinds just not Mac friendly?
Cheers,
-Justin
#6
04/25/2007 (9:02 am)
Well done Jon, good start indeed, keep it up! :0)
#7
I have not had a chance to test changing the keybindings on a mac because I do not have one readily available to test on. The little testing I did get to do the default Q and E for player one did work, as did 7 and 9 for player two.
I could not imagine there would be an input issue between the G4 I tested and something newer liek a G5 or intelmac. But I have been wrong about many tings before :-p
If you hit one of those keys and then hit the ~ key, is there any error output besides the font not loading?
04/25/2007 (12:13 pm)
Hi Justin, I have not had a chance to test changing the keybindings on a mac because I do not have one readily available to test on. The little testing I did get to do the default Q and E for player one did work, as did 7 and 9 for player two.
I could not imagine there would be an input issue between the G4 I tested and something newer liek a G5 or intelmac. But I have been wrong about many tings before :-p
If you hit one of those keys and then hit the ~ key, is there any error output besides the font not loading?
#8
The controls are simple, however, I believe the tank turret should track the rotation of the tank ... cause, realistically, unless the turrent controller is changing the direction of the turret, it would follow the actual tanks rotation ... the fact that it doesn't make the game a bit tricky ...
erm ... yeah ... thats my only pet-peave at the moment ... :)
good job, and I love the tank art work ... ;)
04/26/2007 (1:12 am)
k --- had a chance to try this out ... thought it an interesting little game ... however, here are my thoughts (as usual, haha)The controls are simple, however, I believe the tank turret should track the rotation of the tank ... cause, realistically, unless the turrent controller is changing the direction of the turret, it would follow the actual tanks rotation ... the fact that it doesn't make the game a bit tricky ...
erm ... yeah ... thats my only pet-peave at the moment ... :)
good job, and I love the tank art work ... ;)
#9
04/26/2007 (3:04 am)
Thanks for the input David :) My wife mentioned the turret issue to me too, it is something I will plan on fixing later.
Torque Owner BigPapa