ID:157623
 
I read about a little less than half of refrence, read guide, did zjh tutorials, part of lumox skin tutorial, looked at ss4j hair and skin tutorials, and some naruto source tutorials, And i still cant figure out a lot of things. I guess i dont know what to try with the amount of knowledge i have, i try to do something too complex but end up failing and dont get what i could to do practice.

So, I ask you, how should I challenge myself by creating something which I would not have to ask for help with, just spend some time on? Could somebody give me a project with maybe a snippet of code or an idea of what I should use that would help me learn?

I would really like to see a sort of fanbase version of the Byond guide that is more like Microsft programming guides.
Your primary mistake was looking at sources.

They are always terrible.
Darkjohn66,
First off, your not alone. Learning a new programming language can be tough. Most people start off going too big. It takes a long while to ramp up to where you can produce some cool games. I recommend starting with something really small and static.

Example challenge which are all just suggestions. Do with them as you will.

Phase 1
- Create a maze that players have to find there way through. This will teach you about mob movement, solids, pixel art, and map creation.
- Host the game and have a few of us join and try it out. We will be more than happy to give you some feedback and then move on.

Phase 2
- Add monsters
This will teach about player vs mob control. Make the monsters so they only block forward progress vs attack. Make the monsters so they run out to block and then return to their starting point. The player will have to bait the monster using food or trick it into a trap before they can pass.
- Host the game again and get feedback

Phase 3
- Add traps and switches
This will teach you about interaction. Use the monsters to create a mix of challenges.
- Host again ...

Phase 4
- Add medals and award the player for finding a secret entrance among other things such as escaping the maze.
- Host again ...

Phase 5
- Post it on the hub and make it an official game entry.
- Announce it in creations.

At this point, you have completed a real game. Your now ready to take on a new game and/or challenge. You know what it took to make the maze challenge. I recommend making the next one on par with the first as far as challenges go (reuse a lot of what you learned) but come up with your own game idea. Repeat the same steps.

At this point, your well on your way. Just think of new things that are slightly more complex than the first. Throw in a few new things learned and your good to go at whatever pace you like.

Oh, your not alone when it comes to questions. Post good questions on the forums and you will almost always get at least one good answer back. :) That has been my experience anyway.

ts
Just challenge yourself. Most tutorials and articles have "homework" at the end. Things for you to add to the project on your own to get better. Do these things, or make up your own. When you run across a problem try every possible thing you can to fix it. Dig through the help to find out what things do then try to implement them into something.

Read articles, and look up demos by people who are known to be good programmers(Garthor, Shadowdarke, Xooxer, LummoxJR, etc). Try to go through and see what each line does so you can understand it. Most of the time these demos will be commented nicely so you should have no problems learning from them. Avoid the "Naruto source demos", these are not what you want to learn from.

I would definitely suggest reading articles. I would suggest all articles for Lummox JR, and probably all from Nadrew(I've only read a few.), and definitely How to Fail at Game Programming.
Lummox JR
How to Fail at Game Programming
Nadrew

Also when you post programming problems, and people respond with lines of code don't just copy and paste it, try to learn from it. Otherwise you are just going to repost that code and ask how to do something else with it
In response to Tsfreaks
tsfreak i think itd be really cool if you made more of those guides.

Also, I think this is the big putdown for a lot of new coders. Its that once they read the guide they expect that creating a game from there will just be time consuming. But its a learning experience. And I'm trying to learn past what the start page suggests. Maybe a site update could have the start page feature challenges like the one Tsfreaks gave me.
In response to Darkjohn66
From Deadron's Article:

* Creating a player character who can move around the screen.
* Having the player character say something.
* Adding a computer controlled character.
* Having the computer player respond if you say a specific word near it.
* Adding a hit point attribute to characters.
* Adding a target attribute to characters which indicates who they are talking to or attacking.
* Adding an attack command to characters that causes them to do 1 point of damage to the targeted character.
* Having a character announce that it is dead if its hit points get to zero.
* Making it so that a character can't do anything if they are dead.
* Having the computer controlled character attack back if attacked.
In response to Ulterior Motives
Can you place a direct link in your post to that article?

ts
In response to Darkjohn66
Feel free to ping me and discuss your progress and thoughts. I'm interested in learning more about the new devs point of view on things. :) If you want to take on my challenge, we can discuss it in greater detail. Ping me.

ts
In response to PopLava
In response to Ulterior Motives
Honestly, and its just my opinion... That article should not be provided to new BYOND users. It's designed for people with some experience and it actually targets one very specific group of people with the primary goal of entertaining a different group of people. I don't see how this is a great place to try and start someone off.

You could strip out all the great points and put them into a positive article that is 1/10 the length though.

ts
In response to Tsfreaks
I think it's a great article for beginners. It explains in a backwards way many things that you can do to not fail. It tells you how to ask and find help. How to set minor goals and not try to create some massive game when you first learn the language. How not to just copy and paste random segments of code into your project.

If every newbie programmer followed that guide I think we would have a lot more competent programmers on BYOND. That's just my opinion though. It could use some redrafting, but from my understanding Deadron isn't around anymore.
Once you have a basic idea of how to make a simple game, skim over the DM guide. I don't really recommend it for newbies as it sort of over complicates everything and makes DM seem like it's harder than it really is, but skimming over it couldn't hurt once you have a basic understanding of the language.
In response to Ulterior Motives
I think if you took out all the snide/reverse physiology garbage that you would end up with a really great article albeit not as entertaining. So I agree with all the great things you point out and you agree that it could be written in a more user friendly way. :)

ts

In response to Tsfreaks
Tsfreaks wrote:
I think if you took out all the snide/reverse physiology garbage that you would end up with a really great article albeit not as entertaining. So I agree with all the great things you point out and you agree that it could be written in a more user friendly way. :)

You also have to remember we're dealing with a generation younger than ours, and a lot of them seem to have a tl;dr mentality after the first couple of sentences.

Posts need to contain a little bit of humour in order to be interesting. Which is why I always throw tiny jokes in every post I make (why did the horse cross the road?) just to keep peoples attentions.

Hell, even I find myself faced with that annoying tl;dr brick wall when reading a post I find to be particularly boring. More so if it's from someone (because it was being ridden by the chicken!) I don't like or I'm required to read it for whatever reason.

Besides, the reverse psychology employed by that post is actually pretty useful.
In response to Tiberath
I'm still having trouble with pixel art. I've read tsugomo's tutorial and I have been practicing, I'm better than I was. Does anybody know a good way to learn how to icon floors, or make an outline of a 32 by 32 person.
i would recommend using each tool you have at your disposal.

for instance. make variables until you are comfortable with them.

then make lists, procs, verbs,

and so on and so forth.


All of those things build upon each other and allow you to make code.

I would also recommend just making a verb simply mob and moving it around on your screen. from there add in some things like making it talk.

it really depends on what type of game you'd like to make tho as to what you would benefit from learning the most about
In response to Darkjohn66
In response to Darkjohn66
Go ahead and make new posts for your questions. That way more people can benefit from the different topics. :)

ts