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Author Topic: Creating my own "Wheel of Fortune" game  (Read 7658 times)

kidsplash

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Creating my own "Wheel of Fortune" game
« on: February 01, 2005, 03:08:51 PM »
As I said on the last post, I'm thinking about creating my own "Wheel Of Fortune" game. Big Jon said it takes Flash MX and a basic knowledge of visual basic. I want to make a customized version with options like shopping, theme music, puzzle board, bonus round, etc. Any help and/or inspiration from experienced programmers or Flash users will be greatly appreciated

Particleman

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Creating my own "Wheel of Fortune" game
« Reply #1 on: February 01, 2005, 03:19:31 PM »
My suggestion for anyone trying to write your own software is to buy a stockpile of books.  If you're jumping into this with absolutely no experience at all then you're starting out with a project WAY over your head.  Even with my previous programming experience and knowledge of graphic editing software, it took me at least a year to make Family Feud a somewhat complete game.

The advice Big Jon gave you is correct even if it's only one way to go to create your own programs.  But to outline everything you need to do to become a programmer from scratch?  Well, why don't you try a software developer's forum?

BigJon06

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Creating my own "Wheel of Fortune" game
« Reply #2 on: February 01, 2005, 08:25:23 PM »
[quote name=\'Particleman\' date=\'Feb 1 2005, 03:19 PM\']My suggestion for anyone trying to write your own software is to buy a stockpile of books.  If you're jumping into this with absolutely no experience at all then you're starting out with a project WAY over your head.  Even with my previous programming experience and knowledge of graphic editing software, it took me at least a year to make Family Feud a somewhat complete game.

The advice Big Jon gave you is correct even if it's only one way to go to create your own programs.  But to outline everything you need to do to become a programmer from scratch?  Well, why don't you try a software developer's forum?
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So true, you dont need flash at all to be honest.  VB or soley VC or related programming languages can get the job in.  Thats how i know everything i know, books, and mad reading and just figuring stuff out for myself...

Start with basics (how to control buttons, labels, timers. etc).  If you dont get them, you'll have a rough road ahead.....

kidsplash

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Creating my own "Wheel of Fortune" game
« Reply #3 on: February 01, 2005, 08:33:39 PM »
[quote name=\'BigJon06\' date=\'Feb 1 2005, 08:25 PM\'][quote name=\'Particleman\' date=\'Feb 1 2005, 03:19 PM\']My suggestion for anyone trying to write your own software is to buy a stockpile of books.  If you're jumping into this with absolutely no experience at all then you're starting out with a project WAY over your head.  Even with my previous programming experience and knowledge of graphic editing software, it took me at least a year to make Family Feud a somewhat complete game.

The advice Big Jon gave you is correct even if it's only one way to go to create your own programs.  But to outline everything you need to do to become a programmer from scratch?  Well, why don't you try a software developer's forum?
[snapback]73845[/snapback]
[/quote]

So true, you dont need flash at all to be honest.  VB or soley VC or related programming languages can get the job in.  Thats how i know everything i know, books, and mad reading and just figuring stuff out for myself...

Start with basics (how to control buttons, labels, timers. etc).  If you dont get them, you'll have a rough road ahead.....
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I don't understand why I don't need Flash. I thought you used Flash MX to make your own games.

roadgeek

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Creating my own "Wheel of Fortune" game
« Reply #4 on: February 01, 2005, 09:46:57 PM »
You have a variety of languages at your disposal.  I just finished writing a game using a vanilla version of C (at least as vanilla as you can get with Windows).  Flash is just one path you can take, with its advantages and disadvantages.

Particleman

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Creating my own "Wheel of Fortune" game
« Reply #5 on: February 01, 2005, 09:47:18 PM »
Why don't you ask one of us via e-mail?  The Game Show Forum really isn't the place for computer programming topics. :-)

BigJon06

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Creating my own "Wheel of Fortune" game
« Reply #6 on: February 01, 2005, 11:52:13 PM »
[quote name=\'kidsplash\' date=\'Feb 1 2005, 08:33 PM\']
I don't understand why I don't need Flash. I thought you used Flash MX to make your own games.
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If you dont understand, then it sounds like you have a looong way to go before you program anything. Grab a book and start reading man.  Its not gonna happen overnight i can tell you that.

parliboy

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Creating my own "Wheel of Fortune" game
« Reply #7 on: February 02, 2005, 01:44:43 PM »
roadgeek probably gives the best answer, IMO.  Honorable mention to BJ.  Buying books might help, although I rarely did so myself, since they were outdated so quickly.  I got most of my (non-classroom) knowedge from online tutorials.

You sound like you have no sort of grounding at all in comuter science, and you're starting from scratch.  You really should learn basic programming principals first, from which you can apply knowledge to any language you choose to learn.  Way too often, people learning entirely in one language get locked into a certain way of doing things, and when they need to use a different language, they try to apply a subset of programming practices best suited to the first language.  Disasterous.

Many large communities have civic computer clubs that you can join, and they often feature lectures and training series on many topic, including homebrew programming projects.  You might want to see what's available to you there.

As BJ said, you don't need a specific set of languages to do this.  IIRC, BJ does most of his programming logic in a Visual environment, and then uses Flash primarily for animations.  It's an interesting combination than, though it has at first was a little clunky, has really matured as he's worked on his projects; some of his later stuff is practically seamless.  However, kidsplash, you can use almost any environment or set of environments to  design a game.  Some are just better suited than others.
"You're never ready, just less unprepared."

mmb5

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Creating my own "Wheel of Fortune" game
« Reply #8 on: February 02, 2005, 03:38:44 PM »
A humble suggestion from someone with 10+ years programming experience and as someone who use to teach programming at the college level: you are biting off much more than you can chew.  You will spend at least 100 hours of your life on this.  Is it really worth it?

But, if your insane, oops, I meant game, I would recommend this:

1. Pick an easy development environment.  This would either be VisualBasic or Delphi.  I would not recommend any of the C-based languages or Java, those are not meant for beginners.

2. I wouldn't do WOF as your first game.  Think of all of the things you have to keep track of: reading in the puzzle, displaying the puzzle, spinning a wheel, what to do if the wheel lands on a special space, what if the letter isn't in the puzzle, what if I want to buy a vowel, how do I know if there are no vowels left, how do I keep score, etc.  Try something simple, like the Tic-Tac-Dough bonus game or a simple Price is Right pricing game like Lucky 7 or One Away.  You have a lot fewer things to administer, and you can use those experiences to make your WOF experience much less painful.  But, if you insist:

3. Break this project into steps.  Everybody's first few programming attempts are crap.  You may want to start out with developing a hangman program first, which WOF is once you strip away the wheel.  That will be challenging enough for you.

4. You probably are not going to be able to have an animated wheel.  Animation is the hardest thing in Windows programming.

5. Worry about the sound last.  Get the game correct first.  You are going to go through hundreds of iterations on making something work right.  You are not going to want to hear the theme every time you have to test something.  You will go insane (or even more insane than you are now).

I've coded over thirty small game show simulations for my Game Show Round, and these don't include many of the bells and whistles since it's pretty much presentation software and not meant as a stand alone game.  Some I've been able to make in as little as an hour.  Some have taken dozens of hours.  And I've been doing this for a long, long time.


--Mike
Portions of this post not affecting the outcome have been edited or recreated.

dazztardly

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Creating my own "Wheel of Fortune" game
« Reply #9 on: February 02, 2005, 09:59:28 PM »
[quote name=\'kidsplash\' date=\'Feb 1 2005, 03:08 PM\']As I said on the last post, I'm thinking about creating my own "Wheel Of Fortune" game. Big Jon said it takes Flash MX and a basic knowledge of visual basic. I want to make a customized version with options like shopping, theme music, puzzle board, bonus round, etc. Any help and/or inspiration from experienced programmers or Flash users will be greatly appreciated
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If you're a novice in programming, I would take a crack at a different project to build up your experience. If you go after Wheel right away with all those options you want to put into the software, chances are that your head will implode from confusion.

Now it doesn't neccessarily take Visual Basic, nor Flash MX[which is saying alot since I mainly write games in this enviroment] to attempt programming a game. There are other programs that you can work in, to build up your programming chops, yet produce great results in the process.

Game Maker 6.0 is one good example...
http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/markov/gmaker/

-Dan