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How to write an FPS game
bit-tech.net — Bit-tech writer Joe Martin sits down with Martin Lancaster, writer for Crysis, and Rob Yescombe, writer for Haze, and discusses how to write a FPS game and some of the problems involved in the process.
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- razorar, on 10/10/2007, -3/+13Finally a article that makes sense. You see multiple articles about games in general - but very few about how is actually made. Bring it on Bit-tech nice job.. we want more articles such as these.
- Tallon29, on 10/15/2007, -1/+8"You see multiple articles about games in general - but very few about how is actually made"
I posted this over the weekend: http://digg.com/design/How_MMO_Worlds_Are_Created
- Tallon29, on 10/15/2007, -1/+8"You see multiple articles about games in general - but very few about how is actually made"
- yargthepirate, on 10/10/2007, -1/+50Make sure you have lots of character development.
Character 1.0: Guy with crowbar.
Character 1.1: Guy with pistol.
.........
Character 9.9: Guy with BFG and pet shark with laser attached to its head.- hydriplex, on 10/10/2007, -9/+0"is it too much to ask for frickin sharks with frickin laser beams attached to their heads"
~cue pinky to mouth motion~- brstilson, on 10/10/2007, -1/+10We all saw Austin Powers, there's no need to explain.
- cmiller1, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Austin what? Is that some sort of festival? Excuse me for asking as I've been living under a rock with my fingers in my ears since 1996
- hoovcluck, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Are they ill-tempered?
- brstilson, on 10/10/2007, -1/+10We all saw Austin Powers, there's no need to explain.
- counterplex, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9You need to tighten up level 3 too. Oh and I can't believe I'm playing games for a living! (tm)
- coreytn81, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I think we should make this guy move this way, and we need to fit in that sound effect from the last level
you mean this one
zzwwwpp!
yeah!- counterplex, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1See what you did? Now my keyboard is dripping diet coke! Thanks man!
- coreytn81, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I think we should make this guy move this way, and we need to fit in that sound effect from the last level
- hydriplex, on 10/10/2007, -9/+0"is it too much to ask for frickin sharks with frickin laser beams attached to their heads"
- jmke, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2good read, thanks!
- z00k, on 10/10/2007, -6/+18For some reason I kind of feel mislead on this article... I Felt like it was going to help at least give a "Programming Basis" kind of structure to the article... And since it did not the least I can do is provide people with some software that will help them create an FPS with what the article describes as "Good for a FPS".
http://www.fpscreator.com/ - Requires no coding at all. (I'll let you torrent/buy/demo it yourself.)- capiCrimm, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3I thought you might do something useful like redirect to the Red and Blue book or Crystal Space. Why is it that whenever game programming comes up, the first thing that happens is a bunch of people build up big ideas of what would be "cool". The second step is to figure out how to implement this "new" and "innovative" game (normally a MMROPG as well) without doing anything -- especially not coding. The final step is everyone slowly leaving after getting bored of the months of talking about how "cool" this is going to be and how rich everyone is going to be after it.
Learn to program, it's not that hard.- emfb, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Linear Algebra, Inverse Kinematics, UV mapping, Light Mapping, Occlusion Culling with Portals & Quad or Oct-trees Quaternions, Calculus based physics, collision detection, embedding scripting languages, file format loaders, perlin noise functions, scene graphs, etc...
Learning OpenGL and a programming language is the least of your worries. It's the engine design (see above), artwork + modeling that's a bitch.
Any tool can "write" the story / gameplay it takes allot of hard work to do the above.- staticneuron, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Any tool can do any and everything you mentioned. But to do it well is another subject matter.
- Nick22, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1You basically just described the exact process of every little game creation project by teens. I myself have done stuff like that loads...I have like 3 RPGs iv barely worked on and several flash games. At least with the flash games though there is alot of programming/scripting involved.
- emfb, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Linear Algebra, Inverse Kinematics, UV mapping, Light Mapping, Occlusion Culling with Portals & Quad or Oct-trees Quaternions, Calculus based physics, collision detection, embedding scripting languages, file format loaders, perlin noise functions, scene graphs, etc...
- capiCrimm, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3I thought you might do something useful like redirect to the Red and Blue book or Crystal Space. Why is it that whenever game programming comes up, the first thing that happens is a bunch of people build up big ideas of what would be "cool". The second step is to figure out how to implement this "new" and "innovative" game (normally a MMROPG as well) without doing anything -- especially not coding. The final step is everyone slowly leaving after getting bored of the months of talking about how "cool" this is going to be and how rich everyone is going to be after it.
- xerus, on 10/10/2007, -1/+22Start out with a guy or group of guys who are genetically enhanced super soldiers from a government experiment gone wrong in the post apocalyptic future. The rest writes itself!
- GMorgan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8Nonsense you just drop some guy on Mars with a pistol.
- Ranneko, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Nah, not actual Mars, at least not at first.
Drop him on one of the moons.
- Ranneko, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Nah, not actual Mars, at least not at first.
- GMorgan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8Nonsense you just drop some guy on Mars with a pistol.
- musters, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I love the mention of Postal 2
- tbenathan, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Make sure NOT to work on Duke Nukem: Forever
- Toshibi, on 10/10/2007, -4/+4The history of FPS part was a bit off at the beginning...Goldeneye should have been in there.
- blahblahhihi, on 10/10/2007, -12/+0http://digg.com/politics/The_FBI_wants_to_take_my_life_when_I_had_no_life_2
- linkin1, on 10/10/2007, -4/+3this is every FPS Game:
you are the good guy (but you don't know yet), and you are somewhere far far away, then there is a bad guy (who looks weird and alien-like) and have a huge army and own planet, you go in with few team mates, they all die, you end up on your own saving the world...every ***** FPS game..- mrmacky, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8That's not true, there are no aliens in Counter-Strike!!11oneone!
Just 10 year olds spamming the in-game voice chat...- screwzluse, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Who coincidentally sound like aliens. Wait a minute...
- mrmacky, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8That's not true, there are no aliens in Counter-Strike!!11oneone!
- Topher06, on 10/10/2007, -6/+5Mistake #1 is assuming you need to write your own game engine and re-invent the wheel. Let companies like ID or Valve design excellent game engines, and then focus on either extending them or just making good fun games out of them. This way, it doesn't take 5 years to make a game that looks f*cking sweet, but had about 20 minutes of focus on actual game play and sucks *ss.
- LordSkywalker, on 10/10/2007, -4/+1If you want to make the most advanced FPS ever, just jump to the next band-wagon whenever a new game engine is released. That's what DNF is doing.
- BlackMagic2, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3Great article :P
"We’re staying in first person for all of Haze – narrative scenes and all. We figured that there’s nothing too difficult about telling a story in first-person as long as you write one that’s fitting for that style. Hell, you experience the story of your life in first person, so how hard could it be? ‘Story of your life’. God that sounds ridiculous. Make sure you put ‘Said in Hilarious Way’ next to that."
He told us, hilariously." - nesibus, on 10/10/2007, -6/+1"How to write A FPS game."
- f4nt0m4s, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7I just want to say that the cut scenes in No One Lives Forever were hilarious and did not detract from the game's otherwise great story. No One Lives Forever and No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy In HARMS Way are both great underrated masterpieces. Although NOLF is getting old, NOLF2 still looks pretty nice if you up all the graphics, and you can't beat the character cast or the dialogue in those games. The games are twice as entertaining if you enjoy the Austin Powers/James Bond type humor/spoofs.
I still rank the two No One Lives Forever titles as the runner-ups to Half-Life(the original) in best story-driven first person shooter. - StormyAaron, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I don't know why but it bugged me about the plot line part, they failed to meantion the Godfather of all FPS Wolfenstein 3D which did have a story line, after every chapter or so. IIRC.
- theholycow, on 10/10/2007, -7/+4How to write a FPS:
1. Study what causes motion sickness.
2. Experiment with recreating motion sickness using only a computer.
3. Convince everybody to make all games use the same type of motion.
4. Make theholycow feel motion sick.
5. ???
6. Profit.- yargthepirate, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Yes, I'm sure every company consults you before releasing a game.
- theholycow, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6You'd be surprised. I make a decent living by vomiting on computers for game companies.
- yargthepirate, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Yes, I'm sure every company consults you before releasing a game.
- guinsu, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I think they underplayed plot way too much in that article, stating "only recently has plot become important". Half-Life came out in 1999, 8 years ago. Doom was what 1994? So it took 5 years before someone put plot in with the graphics. Thats like saying plot was unimportant in the 90s because in the early 80s games had no plot. Really, I won't bother playing a FPS with no plot, I get bored.
- Algfrig, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1There were plenty of first-person shooters with plots at least as good as Half-Life's between Doom and Half-Life. Ultima Underworld I & II (1992, 1993, though you could argue these aren't actually FPSs), Pathways into Darkness (1993), System Shock (1994), Marathon (1994), Marathon 2: Durandel (1995), Star Wars: Dark Forces (1995), Marathon Infinity (1996), and Star Wars: Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight (1997).
- WillyCornbread, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Everyone knows all you really need is a god cardboard box model.
- Jforsyth89, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Am I the only one who thought when reading the title that it would be about writing the code for an FPS game? I thought I was in for some overly simplified theoretical stuff or something way over my head. Anyways, nice read.
- pineapplehead, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6Don't forget about the crates ;)
- mahdaeng, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Good article, but the title is a bit confusing. I was expecting to see some code.
- mookieXL, on 10/10/2007, -0/+16And don't forget crates. No crates = no FPS.
- skyfire1, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Don't forget exploding barrels and long ladders.
- sexylee, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0I remember my brother used to play CS all the time and I was wondering why. Then I tried it out and it was so much fun. I always die first though :-(
- technique, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Wow, I read the article and immediately I caught myself thinking "I wonder if sexylee has ever played CS?" Thanks for clearing that up for me. Dugg.
- kRabbit, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1@Topher06
I don't know why people are digging you down. I'm not saying that everyone should use a pre-existing game engine. If you have the knowledge/tools/budget to do your own, by all means have at it. But for the majority of would-be game designers, a solid pre-existing engine is really all they need. - butbutz, on 10/10/2007, -6/+1halo is terrible
- KingGorilla, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Finally I can create Monkeys With Guns:Combat Devolved
- bennettwildfire, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0and in crysis there doing this, and in haze there doing this, and in crysis, and in haze, crysis, haze, crysis
also, complex game narratives = 'Kill all enemy units, don't be killed.' - findlinks007, on 01/31/2008, -0/+0http://www.gamesmd.com
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