What should I code??

This may not be the answer you want to hear, but personally, I''d try to learn just one thing at a time until you''re comfortable with it. As you said, you''re learning DirectX and Win32 at the moment, so I''d just focus on that right now.

I agree with MH, but however, sometimes I get bored or crazy from reading. So I then fire up one of my other projects and code some in those projects. It helps me relax and keep focussed. I had this linked list assignment for school wich helped me staying normal for the past 2 weeks(I worked slowly, coding a few lines per day and rewrote a couple of functions to optimize them). So, maybe usefull games wich run in a console can be fun. But also other usefull stuff can be usefull.

Sand Hawk

----------------
-Earth is 98% full. Please delete anybody you can.


My Site

While learning that new stuff, try making a simple game that takes advantage of what you''ve learned. That way you''ll remember it too. For example, make a simple platformer. I can''t get enough of those

cin >> Boost >> GOTW tips >> GOTW articles >> CUJ expert columns >> FAQ lite;

To me it sounds like you enjoy sub qusts when you get bored with the main one I don't see anything wrong with that.
I myself prefer to focus on one task at a time, just like MH. But if you're rally bored, then a brake will do you good.

If you're interesten in 2D or 3D graphics, then a good side quest would be to create your own vector library, the mathematical vectors not the data structure ones
You can test all of your functions or methods or procedures or rutines or features in a simple console aplication.
Later on you can use your vectors to implement a lot of cool physical phenomena (ie. momentum, forces) in your future games, or use them to implement another library, your Camera library, where you define all that is neccessary for a camera in 3D space. After you're done with that, controlling your camera becomes really easy.

And of course there are plenty (too many to list) of data structures (ie. lists, trees, graphs) and algorithms (ie. tree/graph traversal) you can learn using a console app, that will make your life much easier later on

[edited by - csDraco_ on November 3, 2002 8:32:02 PM]

>I can''t get into games now because, well, my DirectX knowledge >needs be increased.


Try Allegro, it''s a directx wrapper and its also multiplatform.
Check out www.allegro.cc

Well, if you don''t feel up to coding a game, might I suggest eye-candy?

For instance, a fractal generator, running windowed and using DirectX, would be great to familiarize yourself with both windows programming and DirectX. As an added bonus, try to include a menu item that allows the user to switch between full-screen and windowed.

I learned Windows programming by writing a random landscape generator. It was quite a learning experience and amazed me how easy handling menus was.

I started with fractals. Boy was that painful in QBasic on 286''s. I had to use a whole lab of PC''s working together on a shared network file to render one in a reasonable amount of time. The Mandelbrot set is very impressive in 4 colors (count ''em, 4).

The 256 color (DOS) C version was "a little" better

Mockup a game. Take screen shots of the main menu and various screens like the options panels. Then try to get it to work the same. Most often when people say they are learning Win32 they mean they are learning the user interface elements rather than say memory mapped files and semaphores. So start out just getting it functionally the same using standard windows controls with a standard appearance. Once you have the flow down so that things are functionally correct try changing the appearance, i.e. a push button is defined by function not appearance. The experience you gain from changing the appearance of the standard controls will actually go a long ways toward understanding what you need to do with the graphics in a simple game. An example would be drawing a sprite on a background.

Check this out..
http://213.180.75.67/mud/
It''s the framework for a multiplayer(supports max 300 simultaneous clients, but tht can be increased without much overhead(+4 bytes/client when the slot isnt used)) textbased game. Check it out, build on it. I''d love to see someone use my code for something.

Eric

For now, I think I stick with my Linked List class. I wrote a single linked list class for college. I think I convert it to double linked(If I can manage that, otherwise I just rewrite it) and overload the operators ++, --, =, [], +, -. After this I will write a Queue and a Stack. These can easily derived from the linked list class. I will shove em in the profiler and optimize them.

About the MUD engine, I would love to write a MUD, but I want to write one from scratch, not with a pre-written framework. I will probably reinvent the wheel, but it is a great learning experience for me.

Sand Hawk

----------------
-Earth is 98% full. Please delete anybody you can.


My Site

Ywah, bout the mud, thats exactly why i created it. I wanted to do something of my own. But this code is still so small that it can be easily edited to whatever you want. If you want some good help, go to #gamedev and find voxel, ask him about it cNetTCP class. It''s the only part that i stole(for the mud)(used that i didnt create)...

Eric

You could start with a MUD where you can simply walk from room to room and get descriptions. Each room would have a linked list of links to other rooms. The rooms form nodes in a graph which is sort of like a linked list. Well, actually I think a linked list is a graph. You could do a simple editor where you can display the text for the current room and a list box listing the links to other rooms.

Once you have a set of rooms with general descriptions you can expand upon it by breaking a room into subareas. So basically a room has a linked list of child areas. Each subarea would have a keyword and saying "examine keyword" gets you the description of the subarea. An example of a keyword might be chest. Then you might have "look in chest" to see the subareas of the chest. Those subareas would be actual items which can be moved into inventory with something like "get key from chest". Then "use key on door" would attempt to find an item named key in the inventory and use it on an object named door. Basically a bunch of fun and games with linked lists.