How appropriate is TX2D + PSK for non-programmers?
by Robert DeMaria · in Torque X Platformer Kit · 03/02/2010 (10:48 am) · 4 replies
A friend of mine has an idea for a very simple platform game and I'm helping him find technology solutions to help him build it. The idea is around the complexity of something like Mario 1. (The game may not even have any enemies, so it might be even less complex than Mario 1.) Unfortunately, he doesn't have any programming experience. Based on what he's told me about his idea, the PSK looks like it has basically everything he needs already built in to it. But how much scripting would actually be involved in creating something like a Mario 1 clone from the PSK? Would the majority of the work be done within the editor by grouping components together and then tweaking parameters?
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#2
1) - this wasnt created using TX2D, so if youre used to how that layout is, then this would pose a problem especially if you purchased "The Complete Guide to TORQUE X..." book to assist with any tweeking of the PSK. nothing matches and no reference to build upon. meaning between the TX2D and JK's book, this was cake and pretty good learning. the PSK is a separate beast.
2) - doesnt benefit from the above especially if u need a player/score/health starter set-up in the PSK, code has to be arranged accordingly. for example, your Mario-clone cant collect coins for a score. you game character can run through their world and collect items which go toward their life-extention. thats it. i know this was probably done to showcase what could be done using the PSK, but without a set of code to justify the "end-means" just wasnt fun to me.
3) - TX2D gives a neat GUI folder which allows for set-up of a main menu, they were even cool enough to add the GG logo with fade outs. slick buisness indeed. PSK doesnt include this and it also has a non-friendly way of including a GUI.cs which doesnt like to be touched or altered without having to alter other files linked to this. trying to alter the GUI.cs to not conflict with the GUI folder,...which is connected to about 4 other files to augment, not pretty.
4) - if by chance you do decide to try to implement whats cool in the TX2D with the PSK, and after some time you get these things to work, then you might have to address a main.cs file which cant be made to go away.
IMO, im a designer who purchased the PSK in hopes to use this Dev Kit to build my platformer, but with all that i felt was wrong or missing i ended up disappointed. after spending some weeks digging under the PSK hood, i wish that this be remade using the TX2D as a starter template and built on that, i felt on familiar territory with going through the "complete guide" which mightve made the process more fun and not ending up a chore. or at the very least added a score/health/lives instance for some basic platformer gameplay mechanic and leave its implementation to the designer on whether if they want to include this or not, rather than just leaving it out and leaving the user on their own. if you want to use the PSK to build a platfomer, your going to either need to cater you game design within the parameters of whats already there, or prepare to do A LOT of re-coding.
good luck with your adventure. i wish you the best and hope to see something from you soon. take care.
03/10/2010 (10:30 pm)
hello. issues we had using the PSK:1) - this wasnt created using TX2D, so if youre used to how that layout is, then this would pose a problem especially if you purchased "The Complete Guide to TORQUE X..." book to assist with any tweeking of the PSK. nothing matches and no reference to build upon. meaning between the TX2D and JK's book, this was cake and pretty good learning. the PSK is a separate beast.
2) - doesnt benefit from the above especially if u need a player/score/health starter set-up in the PSK, code has to be arranged accordingly. for example, your Mario-clone cant collect coins for a score. you game character can run through their world and collect items which go toward their life-extention. thats it. i know this was probably done to showcase what could be done using the PSK, but without a set of code to justify the "end-means" just wasnt fun to me.
3) - TX2D gives a neat GUI folder which allows for set-up of a main menu, they were even cool enough to add the GG logo with fade outs. slick buisness indeed. PSK doesnt include this and it also has a non-friendly way of including a GUI.cs which doesnt like to be touched or altered without having to alter other files linked to this. trying to alter the GUI.cs to not conflict with the GUI folder,...which is connected to about 4 other files to augment, not pretty.
4) - if by chance you do decide to try to implement whats cool in the TX2D with the PSK, and after some time you get these things to work, then you might have to address a main.cs file which cant be made to go away.
IMO, im a designer who purchased the PSK in hopes to use this Dev Kit to build my platformer, but with all that i felt was wrong or missing i ended up disappointed. after spending some weeks digging under the PSK hood, i wish that this be remade using the TX2D as a starter template and built on that, i felt on familiar territory with going through the "complete guide" which mightve made the process more fun and not ending up a chore. or at the very least added a score/health/lives instance for some basic platformer gameplay mechanic and leave its implementation to the designer on whether if they want to include this or not, rather than just leaving it out and leaving the user on their own. if you want to use the PSK to build a platfomer, your going to either need to cater you game design within the parameters of whats already there, or prepare to do A LOT of re-coding.
good luck with your adventure. i wish you the best and hope to see something from you soon. take care.
#3
I assume you're talking about the platformer demo project in this case. A Mario clone could easily be scored by collected coins if you made the coins their own derived collectible component and stored them in them in their own inventory slot. You could then get the number of coins from the inventory and score as desired. The platformer demo is just a project to show the possibilities of the kit and give a code reference as to how certain things are implemented. I'm sure it was intended that you create your own platformer project and build up from there instead of building on to the example project which could leave you with unused classes and resources such as the dragon sprite sheets and actor classes.
I personally started with the platformer demo project and slowly altered the objects in the builder and in code to get a feel for how things worked before I started building my own using the PSK.
03/13/2010 (6:21 am)
Quote:2) - doesnt benefit from the above especially if u need a player/score/health starter set-up in the PSK, code has to be arranged accordingly. for example, your Mario-clone cant collect coins for a score. you game character can run through their world and collect items which go toward their life-extention. thats it. i know this was probably done to showcase what could be done using the PSK, but without a set of code to justify the "end-means" just wasnt fun to me.
I assume you're talking about the platformer demo project in this case. A Mario clone could easily be scored by collected coins if you made the coins their own derived collectible component and stored them in them in their own inventory slot. You could then get the number of coins from the inventory and score as desired. The platformer demo is just a project to show the possibilities of the kit and give a code reference as to how certain things are implemented. I'm sure it was intended that you create your own platformer project and build up from there instead of building on to the example project which could leave you with unused classes and resources such as the dragon sprite sheets and actor classes.
I personally started with the platformer demo project and slowly altered the objects in the builder and in code to get a feel for how things worked before I started building my own using the PSK.
#4
03/15/2010 (6:47 pm)
...which basically means that the original poster is still going to have to go in and get his hands dirty with rewriting code. :) The PSK is actually very robust and can be used to allow creators to just concentrate on making games with very little coding effort, even beyond the scope of just platformers. i had fun using it at first, but got stalled out with trying to figure out how certain things were coded in order to then figure out how to change them. i dont think its a bad thing, especially if you either arent hardwired to code yourself, or are maybe just not interested in that aspect of game creation and feel more comfortable with the story-telling/art aspect, that you could purchase a dev kit to do the behind-the scenes functions. 
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