How does one create virtual pet minigames?

B

Boltgreywing

Senior Member
I received a lot of feedback through my suggestions feature on the old site that there is not a lot of things to do beside pet battling. Some suggested that maybe I add a couple of minigames to my virtual pet site. Others suggested that I might allow pets to befriend other pets.

I am kind of a bit worried about my skills as a game designer. I been through about 4 tutorials or more from various users on game development. I have tried my hand at least 3 games and each has pretty much burned up in flames. I had a Sonarbat java project that I was really proud of but I ran into technical limitations due to a lack of understanding of collision detection and my character would pretty randomly fall through the floor as soon as he would jump, he sometimes get stuck in walls and glitch through certain sections of the stage. I was not able to get very far with and the time I spent on getting the music and colors on the pet wound up being totally worthless.

The second project I attempted was to try porting it to C++ instead since I know that a bit better. Unfortunately I ran into many issues with that as well. I can't even get text to appear on the screen or get anything that I had in java working in c++.

My third project that I attempted was an old text based adventure game which it almost ended but I wound up getting that even wrong.

This has kind of lead me to kind of question my abilities as a developer and I feel very discouraged because of the projects I was not even able to get working. I really like to just get at least one project that is successful even if it is just a clone of the simplest thing imaginable. I have a bit more pressure on myself because my users have told me that they want minigames added to the site itself?

How am I even suppose to do this even if I can't even code a simple text based adventure correctly?

I know this is not something I can manage on my own and I need someone who can help me to build a minigame together. Its why I need someone is a bit more of an expert at this. While I know flash games are good and all, I'd like to eventually build a c++ game in addition to the flash game so that if a user is on a mobile device they can still play games even if their phone doesn't support flash.

Will you guys help me pretty please?

 
Design1online said:
You'll have to check their license, most of them are GPL.
Click to expand...
@Design1online: Well I guess it wouldn't hurt for me to check though. One of my goals for my pet site would eventually be to develop my own minigames on my own. While adding an existing one might make me feel better in the short term it doesn't really help me that much in the long run.

I need to gain confidence in designing games with other peoples help first before I shoot off on my own. I want to feel comfortable that I can do something on my own rather then rely on someone else to provide the work. Its kind of like fishing. While you could potentially catch all the fish you want for me, it would help me if I can catch the fish on my own.

 
I have some simple game tutorials on my blog and there are lots of game development resoruces and online classes out there you could take and try. Just don't expect someone to be willing to walk you through how to design and develop games without paying for their time.

My blog is http://jadendreamer.wordpress.com

Search online for free game development courses. There are lots of sites out there to get you started.

 
Design1online said:
I have some simple game tutorials on my blog and there are lots of game development resoruces and online classes out there you could take and try. Just don't expect someone to be willing to walk you through how to design and develop games without paying for their time.

My blog is http://jadendreamer.wordpress.com

Search online for free game development courses. There are lots of sites out there to get you started.
Click to expand...
@Design1online: I am not going to expect them to help me build the next big 3d game or an even better game then Megaman. I have taken a couple of online courses they are pretty useful. :) I want to start on something small or maybe help out another user on a project to get some knowledge. I'd like to make something simple like maybe pong, snake, or Gorrilas(Qbasic) starting out.

I will give your blog a look as well as the game development courses. I like recieving knowledge as well as sharing knowledge of what I know with other users to help make their games better. :)

 
@Boltgreywing, I would recommend checking out HTML5 games, which are composed of HTML5 (usually canvas tag), and drawn onto with Javascript.

Popular libraries exist to help make the process easier to handle, one being Phaser, which we have a tutorial here, as well a lot of resources on the web:



https://phaser.io/

I don't know if @PaulSonny was planning any additional parts, but he has quite a bit of knowledge using it as well.

 
doensnt HTML5 work on mobile, while flash and javascript do not?
I know a lot of people now want mobile compatibility. 
I also wonder if there's a framework you could use to build a game in.

I do flash coding and was making an interactive world for wajas, but that fell through. Feels as though as soon as I learned that, it became out of date lol.

edit: derp, digital already mentioned a framework LOL

 
Last edited by a moderator:
It does but it still depends on the browser installed on the phone. You can check out http://caniuse.com to see which features are supported on all modern browsers. Otherwise if you want to make a mobile app you need to use something like swift or the Android sdk or something that is multiplatform like Unity.

 
I think pretty much the rule of thumb nowadays is to make sure it works on chrome/firefox and on the chrome browser on the phone. So far, I think flightrising is the only pet site that has browser games that can also work on your phone, but I could be wrong. and by work I mean "slightly playable", and by "slightly playable" I mean "very unpleasant, but it works I guess when I'm desperate". 

I think it may be a phone resizing issue. I'll try to see if I could play it using my stylus on my note 4. but on my small moto G it was ... pretty bad. but it DID work. albeit poorly.
I dont think there's any way to implement any app with a petsite at all. I know neopets has made one, but the points arent connected to the site and its a standalone game. 
tbh I dont think there's a way to link the two, so using an android app or a standalone game that isnt in the browser isnt really feasible.
also looks like unity's a 3d game engine, and I'm not sure that could do what we need either. though, I think it'd be absolutely wonderful if someone could try. 

someone should like... I dunno.. make a dude punching a brick that racks up points to transfer to the site to test this.
but I think the effort is too much for too little gain. and then there's the economy balance issue, so you cant make something someone can play all day. you gotta cap it. I'm a big fan of just "spin the wheel" type games. you click, wait, and then blam. money.  Much like neopets. 
it provides dailies, and incentives to check up on the site.

I also know when neopets made actual *likeable* games to play, it skewed the neopoints market. I remember running habitarium all day farming and getting like.. 100k a day. which was ridiculous.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
If you use HTML5 for your games and responsive web designs you should be able to get any pet site playable on a phone, tablet and PC. Flash is not supported in all browsers but javascript is.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
huh! nice to know. I'll definitely check that out then. 
I've been shirking the idea of having minigames on my site for that reason, but I'll take a second look if I could find someone knowlegeable enough after the site is built. 

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top