Elliot Nation - Official Project (By Devin M.) - Developers

Elliot Nation By Devin M. What is Elliot Nation? Elliot Nation is a 2D Shooter/Platformer/RPG/Fighter game. The hero must escape from Elliot's Fantasy World, called "Elliot Nation" and get back home. The only way he can do this is survive. He must eat, drink, sleep, and fight. Everyday. He can survive by fighting his enemies, and finding what he needs to survive. How does the "Hero" find supplies? He can go to the black market if he earns enough "tokens" (Which can be earned by killing enemies and completing levels, and surviving for a certain amount of time.) to buy weapons, ammo, and repair kits. He can also purchase health kits and armor at the black market. He can go to different buildings, like restaurants, to get food. But he must fight through enemies to get there, and he can only stay there for X amount of time, so he needs to prioritize what he will do. What will you be able to do in this 2D World? Wait... 2D??? 2D is not the "Way of the Future", 3D is. But I am a novice programmer and suffer from procrastination and sometimes feel too depressed to learn anything or do anything, for longer then 20 minutes. And within that time I fail to pay attention. This confuses me, considering I am intelligent, and not just academically. But anyways, that's not the point. I am making this 2D because it is easier and not overwhelming. You will be able to do a lot of things. Meet people, make moral choices, kill enemies, gamble, drive cars, go into an arena to fight enemies for tokens, craft (and repair) weapons, and best of all. [B]SURVIVE[/B] How will you create this game? I will be using the Love 2D Engine, programming using the high-level programing language, "Lua". I will need to continue learning Lua if I want to achieve the creation of this game! Now, I need to ask the questions. I need help, motivational support. I can't complete this by just going on Notepad++ and being programming, I'm not like that. I need to get mentally prepared to work for longer then 5 minutes on something, I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO REMOTELY DO! I mean, WHEN YOU LEARN LUA, HOW DO YOU KNOW HOW TO MAKE A PERSON, HAVE HIM HOLD A WEAPON? It frustrates me to NO END, and NOBODY has offered their help, and when I ask I get this... "12 YEAR OLD LITTLE KIDS DON'T BELONG ON THE INTERNET!!!!!!" and I get harassed OVER, AND OVER, AND OVER again." And I didn't even do ANYTHING! So I need some help. If anyone wants to work on this with me, or give me some tips. Contact me on the Forums or in the reply section. Thanks, Devin. [B]---- PRODUCTION HAS NOT "TECHNICALLY" STARTED - THIS IS ONLY AN IDEA, IF YOU ASK FOR SCREENSHOTS/VIDEO OR OTHER FORMS OF MEDIA, YOU WILL BE RATED, "DUMB" I WILL NOT BOTHER WITH YOU, I HAVE DEALT WITH PEOPLE THAT ONLY SKIM THROUGH THE THREADS LOOKING FOR PICTURES ----[/B] Hopeful Release Date: Late November 2013

[quote] I need help, motivational support. I can't complete this by just going on Notepad++ and being programming, I'm not like that. I need to get mentally prepared to work for longer then 5 minutes on something, I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO REMOTELY DO! I mean, WHEN YOU LEARN LUA, HOW DO YOU KNOW HOW TO MAKE A PERSON, HAVE HIM HOLD A WEAPON? It frustrates me to NO END, and NOBODY has offered their help, and when I ask I get this...[/quote] How do you propose to create this without solving this problem?

[QUOTE=Novangel;41480103]How do you propose to create this without solving this problem?[/QUOTE] Removing the illusion of choice.

if you don't even know how to do that don't even bother trying to make a game.

Here I have plan for you 1) google what you want to do + "tutorial" 2) follow instructions, making sure you understand each point clearly before going onto the next one 3) write things you learn down in a notebook 4) repeat until you have made a game No-one's going to hold your hand and teach you everything you need to know. You need to be determined and put the work in to teach yourself. Until you can do that no-one will take you seriously.

[QUOTE=devincm;41480061]HOW DO YOU KNOW HOW TO MAKE A PERSON, HAVE HIM HOLD A WEAPON? It frustrates me to NO END[/QUOTE] When I start thinking about how to implement stuff, I break it down into little sub-problems. The first thing for this would be loading and displaying an image. I think Love2D makes this rather easy. So I'd then look at their documentation, searching for anything related to "graphics", "image" or "sprite". Next thing, you probably want it moving when pressing keys. So I'd then look through the Love2D docs for anything concerning "keyboard", "input" or the more general "event". Often frameworks use events to inform you about input, but I think Love2D is higher level than that - might be wrong though, I don't know Love2D, only heard of it. I presume Love2D has some form of update function that automatically gets called once for each frame. There you can check for pressed keys and update the internal variable for position. When drawing the picture, you of course need to take this variable into account. That should be pretty straight forward if you figured out how to display something at arbitrary positions. To have the person holding a weapon, you will need another image, the weapon. and draw it on top of the person-image. That should also be simple to add. If you want something like aiming with the cursor, then you'll need some maths to rotate the weapon properly. I imagine you can find a snippet at their (Love2D) wiki (I imagine they have one. I think I've even been there once), since it's a common thing for side-view 2D games to have. Sorry to not be more specific, but I really can't be without doing further research myself. I hope you can comprehend my train of thought so, since this is what I was trying to explain, not necessarily the "how to make a person with weapon"-thing. Places to get more specific info is the Love2D documentation and their community platforms (wiki, forum, IRC) and of course also here (you've hopefully received some just now :smile:), or just in general the Internet: Thanks to Searchengines you can generally find stuff if you know what you are looking for. I would be much less of a programmer without out. The Love2D community can probably generally provide you with better resources to learn about Love2D though.

I think posting your ideas at this stage of development will only demotivate you further. Now as for a suggestion how you could still play around with your idea, well... there is a lot of game creation software made for people who are not experienced in programming. You could try [url=http://www.stencyl.com/]Stencyl[/url], [url=https://www.scirra.com/construct2]Construct 2[/url] or [url=http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/studio]GameMaker: Studio[/url]. There are also open-source alternatives, but unfortunately, they're either quite a bit less accessible or lack popularity. And popularity's really quite important when you want to get help for something. (However, if you would have enough experience in programming, you could make use of a quite huge amount of good and widely used open source game engines.) The biggest problem with your game would be the assets, though - in other words, you need art, sounds and perhaps music. Make sure to use material that you are permitted to use. Perhaps you might be surprised that there's quite a lot of it, though. Look for stuff licensed under certain Creative Commons licenses and stuff released into the public domain, but avoid things licensed with a "non-commercial" or "no derivatives" type Creative Commons license. I can point you to [url=http://open.commonly.cc/]the Open Game Art bundle[/url] and [url=http://opengameart.org/]OpenGameArt.org[/url] for art, and [url=http://freesound.org/]the Freesound project[/url] for sounds. Also, 2D games are still fine and doing well, don't panic over it. And you will have less trouble making one, too. Programming and especially finding art assets is easier. 3D games have the added complexity of requiring 3D models and environments.

Thank you for helping me out and explaining some stuff, I do comprehend what you, and everyone else are saying. And I agree with what a lot of the opionons are on what I am doing and the project. So thank you, and everyone else.

[QUOTE=devincm;41483396]Thank you for helping me out and explaining some stuff, I do comprehend what you, and everyone else are saying. And I agree with what a lot of the opionons are on what I am doing and the project. So thank you, and everyone else.[/QUOTE] Having good manners puts you a mile ahead of everyone else your age. Good luck!

If you've never done programming before, I'd start smaller. You're gonna lose motivation [i]quick[/i] if you just jump in like that. But give it a shot anyway. Google is your friend.

You have more creativity than me, my first game was called Deadly Blocks. Good luck!

people need to stop thinking up story lines and start thinking about game mechanics.

[QUOTE=Hentie;41492087]people need to stop thinking up story lines and start thinking about game mechanics.[/QUOTE] Game Mechanics is how the story plays out, I find it easier to create a story first. [I know what the Mechanics are, I simple created a metaphor. Don't go trying to be all smart and telling me I'm incorrect.]

You're incorrect, that's not a metaphor :v: Beyond that, it doesn't make sense to me. You can create game mechanics without a story. You can make a whole game without a story, and the result is not even necessarily worse because of it.

Game mechanics are how the player interacts with the game. Since interactivity is the thing that really sets games apart from other forms of media, you should pay attention to it. [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGTV8qLbBWE]Watch[/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdgQyq3hEPo]these[/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDDSYnZfxTM]videos[/url]. What you have right now is essentially a 2d "horde mode" game with some menial tasks thrown in to keep the player busy. While this is perfectly fine for a first project that you want to learn from, realize that it's not really mechanically interesting. And a little bit of advice, a lot of programming (and especially game programming) is being able to break a big problem up into a lot of tiny problems that you can solve easily. You said you got frustrated not knowing how to make a player and have him hold a weapon. Break it down: - Show a sprite on screen textured to look like a person - Control the sprite with user input (keyboard/mouse) - Get bullets to fire from the sprite - Be able to change the properties of the bullets that you fire (for different weapons) - Change the sprite texture based on which bullet type you are currently firing (or add a second sprite for the weapon) Each of those steps can be further broken down.

[QUOTE=devincm;41480061]But I am a novice programmer and suffer from procrastination and sometimes feel too depressed to learn anything or do anything, for longer then 20 minutes. And within that time I fail to pay attention. This confuses me, considering I am intelligent, and not just academically. But anyways, that's not the point. I am making this 2D because it is easier and not overwhelming.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=devincm;41480061]I need help, motivational support. I can't complete this by just going on Notepad++ and being programming, I'm not like that. I need to get mentally prepared to work for longer then 5 minutes on something, I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO REMOTELY DO! I mean, WHEN YOU LEARN LUA, HOW DO YOU KNOW HOW TO MAKE A PERSON, HAVE HIM HOLD A WEAPON? It frustrates me to NO END, and NOBODY has offered their help, and when I ask I get this... "12 YEAR OLD LITTLE KIDS DON'T BELONG ON THE INTERNET!!!!!!" and I get harassed OVER, AND OVER, AND OVER again." And I didn't even do ANYTHING![/QUOTE] [QUOTE=devincm;41480061][B]---- PRODUCTION HAS NOT "TECHNICALLY" STARTED - THIS IS ONLY AN IDEA, IF YOU ASK FOR SCREENSHOTS/VIDEO OR OTHER FORMS OF MEDIA, YOU WILL BE RATED, "DUMB" I WILL NOT BOTHER WITH YOU, I HAVE DEALT WITH PEOPLE THAT ONLY SKIM THROUGH THE THREADS LOOKING FOR PICTURES ----[/B][/QUOTE] You have to understand, developing takes a long time. A really long time. Especially if you've never developed a game before. I think you need to work out some things about yourself, and what motivates you before you decide to make a video game. Because in the end you're going to be the one motivating yourself.

You see, this is why I don't bother explaining my way of thinking. Because people like yourself can't comprehend it, therefore, why are you trying to explain anything to me? Yes, AS I SAID, I know what Mechanics are. DO NOT TELL ME I AM INCORRECT. Game Mechanics are the cogs in the machine, so to say, so no, don't tell me I'm incorrect. It was a joke... I won't even try to explain it.

[QUOTE=devincm;41552048]DO NOT TELL ME I AM INCORRECT.[/QUOTE] You're incorrect.

oh boy here we go

[QUOTE=devincm;41552048]=Because people like yourself can't comprehend it, therefore, why are you trying to explain anything to me? Yes, AS I SAID, I know what Mechanics are. DO NOT TELL ME I AM INCORRECT. Game Mechanics are the cogs in the machine, so to say, so no, don't tell me I'm incorrect. It was a joke... I won't even try to explain it.[/QUOTE] Watch out prodigy, your ignorance is showing.

[QUOTE=Jookia;41552240]Watch out prodigy, your ignorance is showing.[/QUOTE] A bit spiteful, but I agree. devincm, you will probably fail if you don't accept being corrected. Also, as you can see, it's a pretty bad idea to introduce yourself as intelligent or smart, because the people who do that are in a large majority self-centred types that most others don't want to be around. (Your posts do come across as this though, at times.) Being smart also doesn't mean that you won't have to put in the same work to achieve what you want, like you seem to be confused about it. It just may mean that you may be able to get it done a bit faster, but usually motivation is more important. Getting this done till end of November isn't unrealistic, but you will need to keep working on it consistently and be a lot less haughty to get people to keep helping you. Regarding motivational support: You're entirely at the wrong address with this. On the Internet you're always going to get a lot of opposition if you're not self-aware enough to see your own flaws and avoid offending other people. That you haven't considered being at fault after being rejected multiple times doesn't shine a good light on your communication skills. (Don't get me wrong, I think harassing someone is almost never appropriate, but there are ways to avoid becoming a target.)