What are the most common tasks in 2D game programming?

What are the most common tasks in 2D game programming?

Siridivi 14 Dec 2007 16:44

I have read a few books, many articles and countless blogs about game programming, but still don't know how to program a game. I think I've stumbled on why: I don't know what basic skills I need and how to use them. As everyone keeps telling me, games are different than event driven programming. I've successfully created database programs, file sorting and renaming programs, horoscope programs, etcetera. I do have a reasonable understanding of C#.

What got me thinking about this was a post about a guy who wanted to make a Pacman clone. Someone said the easiest way would be to make it grid based. I didn't know what that was. I've read three programming books and they never talk about breaking down your screen into "cells" and putting those cells into arrays and mapping where you can and can't go on the screen via the values in these arrays.

That makes me wonder, "What are the most common ways of getting a level in a 2D game on the screen?" (it actually seems easier in 3D)

Then the posts went on to collision detection and why the grid method alleviated certain collision detection problems. So, then I ask myself, "What are some of the most common ways of handling collision detection in a 2D game?"

Do you see where I'm going with this?

Every trade has a base set of skills you need to know to work effectively. What skills do I need to know to create games effectively? I can't learn what I need to know if I don't know I need to learn it.

I propose a list of common game programming tasks, list three different ways of accomplishing that single task, with the pros and cons of each method. I haven't listed any of the most common tasks here because I honestly don't know what they are, nor what to learn first and then build upon in sequence to make it effective.

Using the aforementioned Pacman example, I now know to research the "grid" method. A patiently explained detailed example of it would be great, but if nothing else, I know what to start looking into.

If all goes well, this could be the start of a great way to educate others on what to do after you've finished that beginning programming book :-)

Re: What are the most common tasks in 2D game programming?

Linkage2 15 Dec 2007 05:22

Well, if you want to know what's involved in making 2D games, I'd imagine the best thing to do would just find some tutorials that cover the learning of how to do so. I don't know of any such resources for C#, however there would have to be some. Or, perhaps if you were willing to try out a BASIC language, we could offer more help as that is the general area that this website covers best.

As for 2D level displaying, I once wrote a tutorial on "tilemaps", a common way of displaying levels in 2D. It's not for C#, but the general explanation of the concept should be there and would hopefully give you an idea of how it goes. It doesn't cover collision detection, but I/others coud probably help explain that and it is indeed a better way of doing collision detection, in my eyes anyway. You can find the tutorial [here].

That tutorial, like I said, isn't for C#, but assuming you know how to at least draw basic objects to the screen it isn't too hard to emulate the concept without the kind of functions used in the tutorial.

Anyway, as for what's involved in making a 2D game, I'm not sure too much comes into mind off the top of my head, but I'll try and remember how I went about learning-

- Firstly, you would need to know how to display and handle Sprites. Assuming you may not know what these are, they are basically just images representing an object or a player and so on.
- Secondly, you would need to learn how to handle player input, such as letting the player move around, jump and so on. Your player needs to be able to interact with the game, obviously. :P
- Then, one of the most important things is collision detection. Learning how to do at least a Square-based collision between two sprites is very important since you will probably need it for every game you make.
- Next I'd say you'd want maybe some basic AI, be it for enemies or any other non-player object. You can afford to start off simple with this, such as just doing random movement for your first few games which isn't too difficult.
- Then, I'd say level display would be the next thing. This is obviously fairly important because you need an environment for your player to move around in. You could put this earlier in your learning order if you wanted, but I'm putting it further in because with your first few games you can afford to maybe just have a black background or whatever while you learn how to display levels properly.

Anyway, that's all I can think of that you'd need to get a good general knowledge of how to make 2D games. Feel free to ask more questions.

Re: What are the most common tasks in 2D game programming?

hartnell 15 Dec 2007 08:33

Link — He's describing something like .tut.

— hartnell