Hi, No kidding. Jeremy seems to program new games with inhuman speed. Speeds I myself can't even match without a lot of time and energy.
Actually, that said, Jeremy has a number of factors in his favor that allows him to produce these games faster than someone like myself. Which makes all the difference, and those of you who aren't programmers probably aren't aware of these factors. First, Jeremey is programming in Visual Basic. From the start the language was designed to be easy to learn, easy to program, and was designed for rapid development and deployment. Although, Visual Basic 6 has now been completely fazed out in favor of languages like C# .Net and Visual Basic .Net they both were designed for rapid development and deployment as well. In short, what I'm saying is that the ability to get things done quickly and simply is in large part do to the language Jeremy is using. For someone like myself it takes a lot longer because I've taken a more traditional programming route and base my code on C++. Compared to a rapid development/deployment language like Visual Basic or one of the newer .Net languages C++ is something on par with climbing a mountain, or so it seems to me. C++ is more technical, and certain libraries are more bare bones requiring some extra steps in developing software. Second, issue is Jeremy largely relies on third-party speech support like Jaws, Window-eyes, NVDA, or Sapi. This obviously speeds up the process because he can send text to whatever speech service is available and speak it. It is in its own way as easy as printing text to the screen once you have the speech services initialized and running. However, many accessible game developers llike GMA, PCs Games, and myself use prerecorded speech for our games. You have no idea how long it takes to first record, edit, and then write the code to load/speak the message. i'd say it takes three or four times longer to do that alone. Third, Jeremy is targeting a specific platform and target group. Obviously since his games are only intended for MS Windows platforms he has lots of options and choices when it comes to programming APIs etc. It takes less time to create software for one target environment and considerably more if a developer wants to target Mac or Linux. This imho is one area where I myself lost considerable time. I spent months looking at various cross-platform APIs, experimenting with potential cross-platform betas, which only ended up delaying the process. If I had skipped the cross-platform research altogether Mysteries of the Ancients would have been completed long ago. Finally, the time it takes to create a game largely depends on the type of game being produced. Castaways for example seems more complex than it really is from a programming standpoint. Were I to write something similar given the same factors above I could probably produce something equal in a weeks time period too. One of the things that speeds up development in this type of game is Jeremeyhas very minimal sounds and music. He hasn't had to deal with loading, playing, and processing hundreds of sounds in real time. Producing a soundscape as complex as Tank Commander or Shades of Doom takes lots more time. Writing a good high qualityaudio environment is in its way like adding graphics and animations to a video game. That is where a large majority of programming takes place in initial development. Another thing is Mysteries of the Ancients both 2d and 3d are actually more complex from a programming perspective. We have hundreds of items, monsters, etc all operating in real time. Just to move the character alone requires a number of separate actions like running, jumping, walking, climbing, swimming, not to mention opening doors, picking up items, and fighting monsters. Basically, the scope of the project has far more underlying code than you might expect, and I'm betting Castaways isn't nearly as big as MOTA in terms of how many lines of code it takes to operate. I don't know how many lines of code are in Castaways but i can say MOTA beta 21 is closing in on 50,000 lines of code. So that's something like 833 pages of closely typed text. I'm pretty sure Jeremy hasn't written more than 800 pages of code in a week. Now, you know why Mysteries of the Ancients is taking forever and Castaways is being produced at inhuman speed. :D Cheers! On 7/15/11, Yohandy <yohand...@gmail.com> wrote: > Jeremy, > You can't be human man. nope. you're some kind of robot or something. how on > earth can you possibly program complex games so quickly? It's totally > ridiculous. in a good way of course :D. have you realized the business > potential? I'm scared to imagine what you'd whip up if you start working on > a commercial audio game for like 6 to 8 months. I bet the game would be so > good that you'll be able to sell it for around $60 with no problems. and > most people will buy it! look at your games right now? everyone's > downloading and playing them. that's what I call a successful developer! > selling games is definitely something for you to consider I think. anyone > else agree? Also, since you're fully sighted, it wouldn't necessarily need > to be audio-based only. you could whip up some graphics and sell it to > everyone! ok I'm getting a bit excited here haha. one thing we desperately > need I think are beat-em-ups. or fighting games in general. not every blind > person is willing to try something like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter no > matter how much those of us that play try to convince them that they're > accessible enough. Also thing with these fighting games is many of them > are console based. I personally would love to play something like Streets of > Rage online with other audio gamers. > > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jeremy Kaldobsky" <jer...@kaldobsky.com> > To: "Gamers Discussion list" <gamers@audyssey.org> > Sent: Friday, July 15, 2011 9:39 PM > Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Castaways, 1 week milestone reached! > > >> Boy I wish I didn't have to work, lol, I wouldn't have to stop coding! :D >> >> If you do end up donating, believe me, it will be greatly appreciated. In >> >> fact, you would be my first donater! I don't think donater is actually a >> word, but oh well. >> >> Well sadly I'm heading out, have fun guys! >> >> --- >> Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org >> If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to >> gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. >> You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at >> http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. >> All messages are archived and can be searched and read at >> http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. >> If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the >> list, >> please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. > > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. > --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
