I've done bits and pieces - I've got the game to highlight all movement squares accessible by a character (based on the number of squares that a char. can move), and if you click outside the available squares nothing will happen (it will probably end up playing a 'denied' sound).

My next aim is to implement a user interface, so when you click on a character their portrait and stats will appear at the bottom of the screen. Unfortunately I'm encountering a problem that, while not critical, indicates that something isn't right with my program. Occasionally when I exit, the program returns an error that has to do with invalid memory access. It doesn't seem to crash the game or anything, but I'd like to sort out what the problem is as it could be something that will give me a headache down the line.

Unfortunately I probably won't get much time to work on the game in the next week or so, as I'm travelling for work. Once I get home, however, I'll try and get stuck into it and make some more progress.

While I'm still fleshing out the basics at the moment, I should soon be able to start on the 'fun' things - that is, figuring out a battle system, setting, story and the like!

I see, good luck with all that.

OK, quick update for those people (Void) who are interested in this!

I'm still having problems with the game crashing on exit occasionally. I haven't managed to track it down yet, but I've got a fair idea of where I'll find it. Unfortunately I've got a few things going on at the moment, so I probably won't get much of a chance to work on the game for the next month or two. I definitely won't drop it, however, as I really want to see it through to a proper game.

EDIT: I just realised that I haven't put up a video of the 'proper' pathfinding working yet. I'll whip up a video this weekend to show the character moving through a bit of a maze, just as a demonstration.

Funny, how there were like, 8 people other than us posting on this topic, now it's just us posting.

...So I guess this is an abandoned thread now? That stinks. =(

Don't worry, I'm still here.

I haven't had a chance to work on the game in a couple of weeks, as my wife and I are organising an unforeseen international move, so between that and still going to work I haven't had a lot of time.

Once we get back to Australia, hopefully I'll get settled fairly soon and can start working on the game again. I don't think I'm too far off being able to have some basic battles, so I'm keen to get to that stage ASAP!

Edit: I appreciate other people posting here, though. Nice to know I'm not talking to a metaphorical wall!

This thread made me randomly feel like spriting. I like isometric~

YOU MAY HAVE THIS ONE FOR FREE. Don't have time (or the overall talent) to offer any more sprites though. This was just a bored spare half-hour :3

_{Only have Paint. Had to work out all the 'transparancy' hues on the glass manually. ew D:}

I wish I could help. I feel so useless.
I wish I could do this but I'm young and I don't even understand petit computer.
Meh someday maybe I could.

Hello, I'm one of those "idea guys" who flood the forums with "unique and super original ideas", Thought one was "needed" here, been playing stratagy games for about 15 years, and developed "many AWESOME ideas" but ofc. no programming skills, you know how it goes... anyway if you want any suggestions on game mechanics or concepts, I can share my "amazing" ideas.

As this thread is nearly dead, I thought I name myself as the daily necromancer and revive it to announce that I am making my own game! That's right, give a warm and hearty welcome to...

Project SD blog #1: The Reveal Q&A

Q: What is/will be Project SD?
A: Project SD is/will be a top-down 2D shooter.

Q: "Top-Down 2D Shooter" doesn't say a whole lot. Can you tell us more?
A: The only concrete details I have written down are...

• The game will take place within a 800 by 600 window (due to holding myself back/my inexperience, could change).
• The game will have randomized elements of some sort.
• The game will have multiple campaigns/series of waves.
• I am aiming for Geometry Wars-style gameplay although the target might be changed ever-so-slightly.

Q: What does the "SD" mean?
A: I am not going to answer that, mostly because the unraveled acronym partially derives from a gameplay mechanic concept that I may or may not be able to implement into the game.

Q: What computer language is Project SD being written in?
A: The game will be written in Java. I've been heavily dabbling in Java for the past four-to-five years and now I'm ready to dive head-first into game development.

Q: When can we expect Project SD to be fully released?
A: Never. I am only a programmer, with no natural talent in the arts (both drawing and sound/music creation). Because of this, whatever prototype, Alpha. or Beta versions of the project I am able to create will be heavily unpolished in both the art and sound departments. Unless I am able to get/hire more people to work on the project, then there is an extremely small chance that I will ever put out a "Complete" version of the game. However, I will attempt to publicly release some extremely early versions of the game just to show that I actually am/was doing work.

...And that's that for the first entry! I am working on getting a working prototype out, but Eclipse (the IDE I'm using) doesn't want to work with me right now. So that's something to look forward to!

Will it work on Mac? I mean I know I can run PC games on mac with bootcamp, but that takes time. If it's really good I'll try it out though
edit: I guess this topic is dead?

If you're referring to my Project SD, then yes. Java is a computer language which will run on almost all operating systems, including Linux and Android.

If you're referring to this thread's original turn-based strategy game by Wheels2050, you will have to Bootcamp the game for it to work. C++ is a language only native to Windows operating systems, meaning that the game simply won't work when attempting to run on an OSX machine (all Mac computers run OSX).

I'd help but I've only just started learning C++, the book I got on it is about 400 pages so I don't think I'll be done learning for awhile

@V8_Ninja
is it possible that you could post some progress photos, or are you still on the drawing board with your game?

@Old_School_Punk I can, but you won't see anything besides a red smiley face inside of a colorless box. As I said, I'm not a talented individual in the arts. =P

EDIT: As for my progress, I'm still coding the engine. I would say I'm about a little over 60% done.

I'm also starting out with developing a game similar to the original poster's. I've had almost three years of C++ experience, but most of it was with algorithms, so I just started teaching myself SDL for graphics in the last couple weeks (The tutorials are at http://lazyfoo.net/ if people are interested).

I'm posting mainly to get suggestions, and to let other developers know I'm interesting in seeing their development, but if people want, I can post updates on my project as well.

I don't really have a game engine, and I'm probably coding things in bad ways, but I just want to see what I can code in the next month and a half (my break from school).

So here's an image of what it currently looks like:

I'm using a sprite sheet for the graphics. The black spider thing on the top-left represents a unit. You can move it by clicking and dragging it. The cursor icon (black square outline) turns blue when "selecting" (left-mouse-button is down) and red when "selected" (left-mouse-button down and it's over the unit). I don't have checks for where the unit is moved to yet. Additionally, you can scroll around the map by moving the mouse/cursor to within two squares away from an edge.

Developer Stuff:
I want to keep the look of this (although improve the graphics upon the 5 minutes in paint place-holders). However, in terms of how the game is actually designed (such as with Wheels2050's mention of restricting where the unit can move and the Level object), I'm not entirely sure what to do. I was wondering if any game designers (Wheels2050 and V8_Ninja) have any suggestions for how to go about doing this?

I currently have the following files/classes:
constants.h (Holds all constants)
fileStructure.h (Contains the directory structure for the assets in the project as strings)
functions.h (Contains all functions that aren't part of a class)
globals.h (At this point I don't know how to do a lot of what I did without using globals, so this holds them)
Terrain.h & Terrain.cpp (The terrain class. Each square is a terrain class instance.)
Timer.h & Timer.cpp (To limit frame rate and hold the time [I'm not sure if this is needed, but I want it there.])
Window.h & Window.cpp (To manage window resizes and making it full-screen)
Cursor.h & Cursor.cpp (To display the cursor and detect clicks)
Unit.h & Unit.cpp (For the unit. It, along with the Cursor class, manages the unit's movement. I think this should be changed to make it more object-oriented (not relying on the Cursor class). Any suggestions here?)

Edit: I'm editing this a lot to format it properly... As I'm new to the boards it's taking a few tries.

Edit 2: Also, if anyone has good resources for this type of game design, unit creation, story writing, or other relevant topics, please post them! I don't have any specific ones for other developers at this time, but I'll post them if desired.

Also, Wheels2050, of the graph algorithms I'm familiar with (about five), I agree that Dijkstra's is the best for this. A* is great, but probably more complex than needed for this. If using Dijkstra's starts slowing down the program, I can help you code A*, as it probably would be faster.

Personally, what I would do is get all of the tiles of the selected path (use an array of some kind) and then individually check each tile to see if the unit travel over that tile (use a 'For' loop of some kind). If all of the tiles come back as OK to travel on, then the unit can move to its destination. If not, then some indicator will flash up stating that the unit cannot move to the located destination.

Of course, that solution may not fit with your current code, but it's how I would tackle the problem.

If you want help with the music, hit me up.

If I actually do get far along with the game so much that I start considering it a serious project, I will be sure to send you an email.

Sweet. I have always wanted to do a soundtrack for a game. I've done a few film soundtracks, but a game would be a different experience again