Messages

16

General discussions / Re: Making a game for an emulator

« on: June 10, 2014, 08:57:39 am »

Using SFML on an emulator would be tons of work since it would require that the generated binary complies to the SNES system. Consoles like that have very specific hardware with specific parts for rendering, audio, and also the CPU is an "exotic system" in that regard. So using OpenGL based rendering is completely out of the question unless someone has implemented some kind of OpenGL implementation for SNES which i highly doubt. And SFML uses OpenGL for rendering. The same goes for audio and just about anything that SFML implements that would need system specific implementations.

Aside from that, you'd also need to find a compiler suite which is capable of taking C++ code and output the binary format that the SNES uses, and also package all of it with all data assets in the proper ROM format.

Theoretically, with a _lot_ of rewriting SFML using heaps of knowledge about the SNES hardware/format, and probably a lot of custom tools, then maybe it is possible. But in practice, no, not in any way that I know of.

17

SFML projects / Re: Witch Blast (dungeon crawl shooter)

« on: June 07, 2014, 04:01:26 pm »

Awesome.

Looks better and better.

18

SFML game jam / Re: Game Submissions now open

« on: June 06, 2014, 06:04:31 pm »

Yep same. But I would also be fine with having a set amount of dependencies that people agree about before the jam. I don't mind either way.

19

SFML game jam / Re: Game Submissions now open

« on: June 06, 2014, 05:36:59 pm »

Yep, I know. But the same thing still stands. You might get people saying "That's unfair, that people can use Thor! I don't want to use Thor, but I want to use X instead and it is as simple and easy to include etc. And Thor is not SFML! So why can't I use X?" which imo is a fair thing to think.

20

SFML game jam / Re: Game Submissions now open

« on: June 06, 2014, 05:08:13 pm »

I'd also be fine with that, but in that case I'd not even have a "maybe" for other libraries since that would be very ambiguous in terms of which ones that should be allowed or not. IMO anyway.

21

SFML game jam / Re: Game Submissions now open

« on: June 06, 2014, 04:55:37 pm »

(also, we haven't made many levels yet D: )

22

SFML game jam / Re: Game Submissions now open

« on: June 06, 2014, 04:46:28 pm »

Good points about how C++ is hard to build for. That's why this is indeed a problem in the first place.

And I agree that providing a binary is courteous.

Imo forcing that the developer provides a binary for all 3 platforms is imo not reasonable. Very few developers have access to all three of them, and even less know how to build for them.

Forcing at least one binary has the problem that those devs that are on Linux/Mac will still have games unplayable by the majority of people.

Forcing no binaries at all, has the issue of as you said, dependency handling and all that.

None of those solutions are optimal, so maybe it is indeed a better approach to put constraints on dependencies. Making it more into a vanilla SFML game jam. Then many of the issues would be alleviated. But of course, it still doesn't answer concretely what binaries (if any!) should be enforced.

23

SFML game jam / Re: Game Submissions now open

« on: June 06, 2014, 04:25:55 pm »

I am not sure about if anything was decided or not, I merely wrote what I thought about things and how things came across to me.

But thanks for the apology and I apologise as well for any offending things I might have said (like calling you a bitch).

I also hope that this discussion can now take a more constructive turn, and that no one need to feel offended, unfairly judged or anything like that. I am not one to hold a grudge.

As for on-topic stuff, what do people think of the old idea to have the next jam be longer? Like, about a week or so?

IMO that is likely to yield more participants since there were quite a few this time that had planned to join but didn't end up having time. It would also give more time to deal with binaries and stuff like that. If not for anything else, it could be an interesting experiment.

24

SFML game jam / Re: Game Submissions now open

« on: June 06, 2014, 11:57:59 am »

Please calm down, both of you.

I agree that it's not ideal that therocode has not submitted the binaries, but at least he participated and submitted, unlike everyone else. That should not be forgotten. Even if I too think that not everybody should be expected to build the game himself. So let that be it please, and stop this useless discussion.

therocode, it would be nice if you revised your opinion of both providing the web version and participating in the next jam. I would really like to see your game as well as future contributions, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. This 3rd game jam has been very unfortunate regarding literally everything, but let's use the opportunity to do everything better next time. We must find a way to make the jam more attractive and accessible for both developers and users.

Thank you, I  couldn't have said it better myself.

In my opinion, for things like this it is good to keep discussions sane and reasonable. I admit that I got quite upset and emotional by exploiter's posts but I just don't like when people accuse me for unfair things, and call me "elitistic" and say that I "demand things to change" when I am just trying to come with calm constructive criticism and just explain why things turned out the way they did.

I agree that it is a shame to not provide the web links for everyone just becuase what one person said got to me. I can probably reconsider that, sorry about that. As for participating in the future, we'll see. I really don't like how this discussion turned out and if risk being up for that in the future, I'd rather stay away.

Of course, if others also agree that it warrants being angry at us for not providing the binary, of that I came across as being elitistic for not providing them, and that I was making lame excuses for being lazy, then I apologise because that was definitely not my intention. But I really don't think what I said was like that.

Also I think it is not right to get angry at participants in either case. Even if it is against the rules. One can calmly explain to them why, and then if the issue persists, just disqualify the game, no big deal.

An apology from you, eXpl0it3r would be nice too.

25

SFML game jam / Re: Game Submissions now open

« on: June 06, 2014, 11:04:05 am »

stuff

Uuhmm, are you serious?

"You made a mistake, but instead of fixing it asap you rather argue why it wasn't actually your fault and that the system needs change, etc."

You know what, I won't share the link of the web-ported game in here. I never said it wasn't my fault, I merely gave the true reasons why i didn't. And I never said "the system has to change" I gave suggestions on how it in my opinion could be improved in a calm and constructive way, like many others in this thread... unlike you.

I find your post highly offending, and you're acting like quite a bitch imo. Sorry others, for having to read it in a public forum.

I won't take part in the next game jam, that's for sure. There are other game jams out there where there aren't people that get angry at you personally for missing out some details. I mean, if it is such a big deal, just disqualify the game. It is pretty lame to get personal and rude for a gamejam submission.

26

SFML game jam / Re: Game Submissions now open

« on: June 06, 2014, 10:43:00 am »

It's been a few days by now, enough time to pack it and upload it. The submission pages are also editable.

Why are you expecting me to have it uploaded ASAP anyway? I do have a life doing other stuff than just maintaining the gamejam entry. It sounds like you are angry with me, or that you think I am really lame for not having uploaded the binaries yet. Why don't you complain on all the others who didn't even upload?

It's not my job, nor my duty or anything to upload those binaries for you or others to try them out so please cut some slack. Maybe if you had paid me to do it, it would be a different story.

For your record, the coding time me and kim have spent after the game jam have been to port it to the web so that all of you can test it regardless of platform since that seemed more reasonable than providing binaries with dependencies, sorry if it isn't good enough for you.

It doens't feel very rewarding to participate when you end up being accused for being lazy, or making excuses for not uploading binaries etc. I have given you my reasons, so please stop with that attitude.

27

SFML game jam / Re: Game Submissions now open

« on: June 06, 2014, 10:29:00 am »

It's not a rule as such, but then again how would you know, since you obviously didn't read the rules either...

Also, I'd just want to point out that this type of discussion is not very nice and quite rude. If you continue that attitude I'll just not reply to you since I don't think it is very constructive.

28

SFML game jam / Re: Game Submissions now open

« on: June 06, 2014, 10:27:17 am »

But consider the following. You know how to build the game on at least one platform, since you did so already in order to test it. The effort for you to provide a binary is close to zero.

...

Yep, sure, providing my binary would be close to zero effort, but keep in mind I had 3 minutes to go at the time haha, and I didn't want the upload form to be locked so that I couldn't upload at all. Even packing and uploading a binary that already exists within 3 minutes is a bit risky.

I also figured that since my binary would use shared libraries, as you say, the user would have to grab the dependencies anyway and if they do, an additional grabbing the game source, cmake, make and play is not much more effort.

But it is true that it keeps people away, but even if I would have provided a nice linux binary that would work for _all_ linux peolpe, it would _still_ keep all windows/mac users away which is kind of a big user group. This is a problem that is not easily solvable, and the more dependencies that are in play, the worse it gets. After all, who wants to install 5+ dependencies just to try out a gamejam game?

This seems to be a broader issue for game jams in general that incorporate users with different platforms.

I also see that it can be too much to request builds on multiple platforms by the developer, but as you say we could require that the game use only portable and available dependencies. Somebody of the community or the Game Jam Team could then take care of building it for missing platforms.

Yeah, indeed and that can indeed be a solution.

Another possible solution which would be cool but would take more maintenance effort would be if someone sets up a buildbot instance or something and every participant gets ftp-access to a folder to put the game's source with a cmakelists file and the buildbot automatically builds it for the major platforms. Then if you want dependencies, there is some time _before_ the game jam to request which ones you want, and have them installed on the bot. This solution would not really be worth it though if there are as few participants as we had.

29

SFML game jam / Re: Game Submissions now open

« on: June 06, 2014, 10:15:13 am »

It's not a rule as such, but then again how would you know, since you obviously didn't read the rules either...

A link to a playable version of the game for either Windows, Linux, or OS X is required when submitting. This must include the executable and all the assets/dependencies needed to run the game.

I read the rules last time, and I asked jebbs if they changed and he said no. But I didn't remember the details on submitting so I checked the form's mandatory fields, and according to the form's appearance, binaries was not one of them.

I wouldn't look for uploading guides in the rules.

30

SFML game jam / Re: Game Submissions now open

« on: June 06, 2014, 10:00:45 am »

It makes totally sense to have a binary requirement, I mean you're supposed to create a "product" for the end-user, something you give a friend (who doesn't necessarily have to know C++ and all the building magic surrounding it) to play and have fun with it. Creating something that works out of the box on the right system is imho part of the process of creating a game.

I never saw in the rules of the gamejam that "you're supposed to create a "product" for the end-user, something you give a friend (who doesn't necessarily have to know C++ and all the building magic surrounding it) to play and have fun with it." and that was not what I was in for the game jam for. If that is your idea of the game jam, then that's up to you but it's not mine.

People looking in this forum are coders using SFML anyway, and if they aren't able to build the game, then that's a shame I suppose, but in my opinion that's alright. It's a game jam which for me is about having some fund with your fellow coders, coding a game.

You can call it lazyness if you want, but I'd call it time priority. The same reason why you often don't see very pretty code design and neat code during a game jam. Is that lazyness too?

A requirement that would make sense though imo is to only use external dependencies that are easily available for the major platforms. Because then all games should be quite trivial to build. I mean they can even be provided after the deadline for convenience.

If the game jam time was more than 72 hours, then it could make more sense to have to provide a binary too. But 72 hours is barely enough to create a game if you want to polish it and design levels etc even if you're experienced, and to _also_ have to deal with creating reasonable binaries seems like a bit too much imo. Which is also why I like some others in this thread would suggest a weeks time or something. Then we're more likely to get more than one submission too.