ID:1436566
 Dec 3 2013, 11:46 am
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What was one of your biggest "Beginner Mistake" when making some of your first game projects? What did you learn from them?
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Dec 3 2013, 12:25 pm
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Fugsnarf
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I remember trying to make a Megaman game when I had little-to-no knowledge of DM or programming in general. The physics confused me and the game was absolutely terrible. I tried, and that counted for something.
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Honestly, poor practice that took me years to resolve. Years and countless hours of people telling me how dumb I was over the forums.
Unfortunately, still working things out. | |
Here's something I used to do a lot:
obj/weapon What I mean is, I used to write very non-generalized code. I would create multiple procs that did basically the same thing, just with different numbers or variable names. Look at any fanrip and you will see examples of this. | |
Hazordhu's source has some beginner-level stuff in it, IIRC. I may have replaced those parts in optimization, though. It's open source now on GitHub at F0lak/Hazordhu. Bonus points to anyone who finds ridiculous code in it.
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Kaiochao wrote:
Hazordhu's source has some beginner-level stuff in it, IIRC. I may have replaced those parts in optimization, though. It's open source now on GitHub at F0lak/Hazordhu. Bonus points to anyone who finds ridiculous code in it. My code was perfect, you guys just suck :) | |
I couldn't call myself advanced or anything, but I do think I'm pretty well past the beginner stage, and I guess after thinking back I would have to go with shortcuts. I often went with things that were easier to use too often. A couple notable examples are using goto in a character creation system, avoiding the use of datums because I didn't understand them at first, and even using things like alert() and input() on a frequent basis when honestly on screen object based methods are almost just as easy yet look way better.
Granted, it is a bit tougher when you want to make them just as flexible in use, but for the most common uses like simple yes and no pop ups the difference in quality far outweighs the slight difference in difficulty. I really kicked myself for not switching to them sooner. | |
Toddab503 wrote:
avoiding the use of datums because I didn't understand them at first I'm totally guilty of this and even using things like alert() and input() on a frequent basis when honestly on screen object based methods are almost just as easy yet look way better. Also guilty of this...screen objects in general were kind of a mystery to me until recently. It took a lot of floundering around and looking at the forums until I finally started to get it. Like, realizing how to have your hud update when values change, rather than constantly updating itself like Stat() | |
Honestly, if I made any beginner mistakes, it's working on too ambitious of projects beyond my current skills. This pretty much goes for anything really. When you start out, best thing to do is work on the basics and even make simple games in this regard. Trying to work out your dream game too soon can cause one to give up too easily or be easily frustrated due to lack of skill or experience.
Best thing to do in reference to what I said is start small. That way, you will be able to build your dream game or project. Heck, maybe an even more ambitious project provided by earned skills and experience. | |
I started off using rips my first year. I got out of that habit and ended up making copies of already made games from scratch. The biggest mistake I made as a beginner was that I used usr everywhere. Because I pronounced it "user" in my head, I basically though that every time it is called, it will be the "user". It kind of it, but then again, it isn't. Because if src.Attack(M) was called, then the user is really M because.. well.. M is the one where most of the work will be acted upon because you have to factor in their health, death checks, etc. But in reality, my thought was wrong and I've learned my mistake after being told harshly, "No!"
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My biggest mistake was definitely learning how to program through rips. Took years to shake off all of the bad habits they instilled.
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I think almost everyone ends up making the rip mistake, or at least almost everyone used to. I am really thankful for having a couple very helpful friends, because I was on route to making the same mistake, but they pulled me off it before much damage was done.
Getting old projects that are at least programmed decently, if not well from some friends can help a lot. | |
Xirre wrote:
I started off using rips my first year. I got out of that habit and ended up making copies of already made games from scratch. The biggest mistake I made as a beginner was that I used usr everywhere. Because I pronounced it "user" in my head, I basically though that every time it is called, it will be the "user". It kind of it, but then again, it isn't. Because if src.Attack(M) was called, then the user is really M because.. well.. M is the one where most of the work will be acted upon because you have to factor in their health, death checks, etc. But in reality, my thought was wrong and I've learned my mistake after being told harshly, "No!" My life has been a lie! I kind of consider myself lucky that I started learning to code before I got into making rips. When I finally got my hands on a Naruto source I used it more for experimenting with coding than to just host a game. Eventually this caused me to make my Bleach game from scratch. It sucked, but it wasn't a rip at the very least. I'm still making a TON of beginner mistakes though. Even though I started coding in '05 I've been treating it as a very light hobby, only doing some coding every few months, so I'm not a very experienced coder. I can hold my own and make something, but it's usually a slow process where I have to learn how to do something on the spot haha. | |
Has to be not understanding the use of a datum for longer than I care to admit.
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Carnage Productions wrote:
Has to be not understanding the use of a datum for longer than I care to admit. Ditto. I still never cared to fully learn the uses of them. I haven't had time to read up on them. | |
I'm starting to think there needs to be REALLY good tutorials added for teaching people about datums. I'm talking a text based one, a video one, a sound file one, all pretty short and straight to the point.
They're so powerful, and yet oddly mysterious. Ah, but I'm getting too off topic. I think another huge beginner mistake of mine, and likely many other people, was overwhelming myself by taking on a huge project early on. You can't make something like say, Eternia, or NEStalgia right off the bat. Lots of people want to jump into a huge RPG because it's what they dream of, but it's too huge, and too tough too soon. You need a smaller project or two, and/or a middle ground project first. That, or at least a couple years or so of experience. That point might of been touched on already, I can't remember, but I wanted to add it in to my earlier mix of beginner issues because I've been seeing some of that taking on too much stuff from other people lately. | |
Toddab503 wrote:
I'm starting to think there needs to be REALLY good tutorials added for teaching people about datums. I'm talking a text based one, a video one, a sound file one, all pretty short and straight to the point. I wouldn't say datums are as powerful as they are convenient. I must admit, though, that I took far longer than I should have to start using them as well. | |
Yeah, bad choice of words on my part. Convenient is the right word for them, but I definitely took way too long as well. I think they were the very last major thing I learned.
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Fugsnarf wrote:
I must admit, though, that I took far longer than I should have to start using them as well. I'm guilty. | |