How long does it take to learn ?

[Anonymous]

I've worked with the OHR and Zelda Classic. The OHR took me 1-2 months to become good at it, and Zeld Classic took me only 2 days. (Very easy program, love it!)

How long would this engine take me to be goo at it, and be able to work pretty fast?

Also, can you make an overworld were you choose maps, a "megaman-ish" game where you choose a stage and gain weapons and have bosses weak to another boss's weapons, and have huge bosses?

Just wanna know before I take the plunge and install it, and devote time to it.

[durnurd]

The more engines you've tried before, I've found, the less inclined you are to try to learn a new one.  However, that being said, the interface for SGDK is easy enough to learn, and very user friendly when creating maps and (surprisingly enough) graphics.  Other engines I've tried either don't support graphics creation at all, or have minimal support.  The built-in graphics creation support in SGDK is high-quality, but the engine also supports imported graphics.

Yes, you can create "overworld" maps.  You can create any kind of map you want, as long as it's 2-D.  No scripting is involved.  See Rolly The Purple Ball for an example of this.

[Anonymous]

I've always wanted to do a side scroller, so I think motivation will not be a problem.

So, it's pretty easy to use, right? About how long does i take to make a stage? Not a long one, but about, say, as long as an average Mario stage.

Oh, and how much space does it take? Also, can people play your game without having the whole engine?  Thanks.

[durnurd]

It's quite small, actually.  The map only takes one byte for every tile, which means 1,048,576 tiles will take only 1 megabyte (spread across any number of layers).

Images can be stored as BMP, GIF or JPG.  I reccommend BMP for lossless storage of tile images.  They are a little on the big side, but they zip well.

Audio and Video can be stored as any file format recognized by Windows Media Player including but not limited to: WAV, MP3, WMA, AU, WMV, AVI, MPG and DIVX if you have the codec.

The GDP file itself is so small it's laughable.  I wouldn't even bother taking it into account when calculating project sizes.

SGDK is not neccessary to play the games, however the Visual Basic Runtime files and BMDXCtls.dll are.  A file called GDPlay.exe contains purely the runtime executable for playing the game without editing.  I believe this comes with the project.  The Visual Basic Runtime Files come standard with Windows XP (and, I believe, Windows 2000 and ME).  However, they don't come with Windows 98 and earlier.

Distributing your game is where the NSIS packager comes in handy.  You can create an Installation File that will install your game just like any other program, including a start menu group, an uninstaller, BMDXCtls.dll, and (I believe) the VB runtime files.

[Anonymous]

Hmm...distributing a game seems a bit more complex than in most editors...

but ah what the hell, I'm installing the program!

[bluemonkmn]

I don't know if I would call the built-in graphics editor "high-quality".  It has a lot of features, but is somewhat difficult to use now that many graphics drivers seem to have a problem displaying the mouse correctly.  And it's kind of ugly with all the text buttons on the screen. But it gets the job done; it's usable and good enough to create or manage all the graphics for your game.  But I would reserve the term "high quality" for the graphics editor in SGDK 2.0 .

Anyway, please come back if you have any problems getting started with the kit.  And if you don't like the built-in graphics editor, I have plenty of other suggestions for creating and importing external graphics.  Don't let the graphics editor discourage you.

[Anonymous]

Everyh\thing's nice and all, but can I fiz the cursor problem in the graphic editor? it's invinsible unless I stop moving the cursor.

[billybob884]

I don't know if I would call the built-in graphics editor "high-quality".

also, im not sure if ive mentioned it, but it has problems using hte 10/360 degree function for tiles over i think ~150x150, its like hte puttons get "caught' on the tile and rotate with the image. but for smaller images, its great

[Anonymous]

Hey, how come I can't rotete my tiles, no matter what I do? I tried clicking on the x and y axis, and nothing happens...I also tried the other buttons, the left and right buttons.....but nothing happens...How come?

Also, how does gradient work?

[bluemonkmn]

1. No there is no way than I know of to work around the disappearing mouse problem right now.

2. GameDev does not support graphics larger than 128x128, so it's not surprising that you'd get strange results with 150x150.  (This fact is highlighted with bold text in the online help page for the tileset dialog.)

3. To rotate graphics, you need to copy the section you want to rotate, set the rotation angle, and then use Paste+ to paste it at the new angle.  See the help page on the Full Screen Tileset Editor for details on all the tools.  (Press F1 on the tileset dialog, then click "The Full Screen Tileset Editor" link.  From there you can click on any area of the tileset editor for details about its purpose and usage.

[durnurd]

By high-quality, I don't mean that it can compete with programs made for graphics editing alone (i.e. Gimp etc) but high-quality in comparison to most other game engines I've seen with graphic creation support.