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Hi guys, names linkmh here I'm new as of posting this

So here is the deal, next year I am planning on making my own 2d game using Dark GDK. The reason being is because next year I will be a senior in my college and more than likely I will be required to use C++ to program my game.

I've looked through the tutorials, but I have not done them yet as I have VS 2010 installed but I am working on installing 2008 so eventually I will start work on the tutorials.

So once I've completed the tutorials, I was wondering what other resources or links you might point me to on making my game?

So here's some background info on the game I want to make:

It is a 2d sidescrolling plane shooter like U.N. Squadron, where the player can move the plane up,down,left,right, shoot enemies and use "special weapons"

Able to have a start menu and a store with which to buy weapons.

AI won't be all that intelligent except for bosses

Layered backgrounds perhaps?

Music playing in background of course

Have a lives system and continues

I understand all this could seem complicated as a beginner, but that is why I want to start now to get used to it, and maybe cut out some things as I develop.

I've had 3 years of C++ training so I am pretty good at programming, but I will ask for clarification on some things later.

When I start programming this next year I would appreciate feedback as well, I really want to make this a good game!

Thanks guys!

If you have a year before you even start, I suggest you simply play around with GDK to start with. Take a look at some of the tutorials and then ask specific questions. Most people here will be happy to help.

Hmmm... I'm working on my own 2D side scrolling game (though it's been more than a month since I've last looked at the code).

I wouldn't mind forking some of it over to help you, but it's not finished at all, and write now it's also in a BIG re-write compared with the (badly coded) alpha version. I do have a method of side scrolling in use, but it's a lot different that what you will need, but I still know how to do 2D side scrolling (I should write a tutorial on how to do it sometime).

It's possible that you could pick this up by the end of the year, but you will really need to spend quite some time with this subject. For now, I suggest to play around with DarkGDK a bit. And it wouldn't hurt to dabble a bit in DarkBASIC Pro to understand how the DarkBASIC Engine works. And it will also help you learn the commands as well (most of them in DarkGDK are just the same in DBPro, but with "db" appended to the beginning of them).

Don't be afraid to ask any questions, we are here to help.

Hello and welcome to the community! it seems you're somewhat serious about it and won't leave after facing a problem or two like some people, so i'm pretty sure you're gonna make it

im afraid you won't find a tutorial on how to create the game, but the dark invaders tutorial pretty much explains all 2d essentials, well to be honest the structure there is not very nice as it doesn't use OOP, you can just implement the ideas there in OO design and you'll be fine, make a class for everything you think it should handle itself by itself, for example, a core class handling levels and effects, menu class handling menus, creature class handling enemies and player(s), maybe a bullet class too (well i'd rather make it only hold the sprite id and the target x/y, and the core updates it to move it to the specific point), and just update them from the core class class

one thing i think you will need a lot is a function like dbPointSprite ( id, x, y ), which is not included with GDK, this function might help you do this:


if you have any question feel free to ask, there are alot of people here ready to help