[gameprogrammer] Re: RPG

On Friday 14 Oct 2005 02:06, Craig Chambers wrote:
> ummmm.... i'm not just looking at MS systems, but
> that's what i run at home so it would mean that i
> could playtest at the same time to see if the thing is
> doing what i really want. i would like to programm
> something so it could port to all systems, but isn't
> that really difficult?
It's not as easy as picking one system and coding specifically for it, but i 
wouldn't say it was _really_ difficult! Just avoid anything too nasty and OS 
specific (DirectX, Windows Registry) and it's not that hard to make an easily 
ported application in C++ (of course, sticking to ANSI standards helps!).
What problems you do find can be overcome with simple compiler directives to 
ensure that subtle code changes are compiled for the correct platform. 
Working with Video, Sound and Networks are areas that do cause problems 
across different platforms, however, using an 'open' library such as OpenGL 
or SDL (or both!) means even more of the nasty OS specific 
video/audio/network code is removed from your code, and let's you use a 
multi-platform API instead.

I wouldn't worry too much about coding multi-platform at the start, if you 
stick to using ANSI standards, use decent libraries for video, sound etc 
you'll find your code is 90% ++ multi-platform anyway.

> the end idea is that i would create an internet game.
> the single player or LAN multiplayer would be free but
> to play online with others from around the world you
> would have to buy a 'charge card' to get a certain
> amount of time on the game. something like ragnarok.
> the cost for that would only be to cover the server
> costs and game developement/enhancement costs. i'm not
> looking to make money off it, but if money does come
> from it then i'm not going to turn it away!!
The amount of time you will need to put into this project may change your 
viewpoint slightly i suspect!

Take care,
M

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