project suggestions?

In my opinion, you get kind of limited after a while with console game programming. You could start with SDL, which is easy enough to understand and will teach you some basic 2D graphics stuff.

edit: maybe you could recode those programs in graphics mode, or start with the classics: pong, tetris, arkanoid...

[Edited by - steeg on February 28, 2006 9:26:00 PM]

if you're confident, you have quite a few choices. You can pick a library and learn it. You could get techinical and learn some different algorithms(this can be done without bothering with graphics if you want, think stuff like writing an AI to play poker, or chess).Some choices for libraries to learn are SDL, .NET(dont knock it till ya try it ;), DX and OGL of course. When I got to your level I dove right into Allegro(a library for c/c++) and had alot of fun working on simple 2d games. some good starting 2d games are asteroids, a marioish game(easier than you would think! the art was far harder than coding) a tetris game(challenging game logic simple gfx). or pac man which i think is best if you really wanna exercise your skills. it offers a well rounded project, 2d gfx, collision detection, controls, simple AI and its fun to show off to your friends!

If you are about inheritance and polymorphism, I believe that a pacman game can be interesting - you may have to pick up a simple 2D drawing lib such as allegro or SDL in order to be able to draw your game content (actually, that would be good too: you'll learn how to use a library and the basics of 2D drawing).

Character
* Ghost
* PacMan

GumBall
* SmallGumBall (only give afew points)
* GhostEatingGmBall (ar ar ar ! kill the ghosts !)

Simple enough to be done, bu you'll experiment with inheritance ;)

Bye,

Great, I think I'll try Allegro or SDL. Gonna have a look at each and see which fits me best. Then, once I'm comfortable enough with it I'll try some collision practice of some sort and some AI. After that I'll give pacman a shot, or some variation of it anyway :)

On that note, are there any recommended reading for collision and general AI stuff?

Thanks to all.

I was gonna give Allegro a look but I'm having trouble finding how to set it up for vs.net 2003. Can anyone help me with this?