New TGB Tutorial on TDN

#1 I'll check this out by the end of this weekend and provide feedback when I'm done. I'm still pretty early in the learning process for TGB, so I just might be around your target group. I've finished the Feature Tutorials, Fish Demo, Fish Game and Wack-a-mole tutorial so far, as well as messed around a bit on my own, but that's about it. I'm starting to get a bit of a grip on scripting, but it still mostly baffles me. Also, I'm on a Mac. I gather you're on a Windows machine since you mention Torsion. As far as that goes, if they ever get a Mac version, I'll happily buy it and start using it.

#2 Great Collin, thanks!

If you follow the tutorial, the game should build and run on a Mac with no problems - however - the example project I have linked to seems to crash TGB on the Mac.

I appreciate your time and any feedback you can provide.

Thanks,

Patrick

#3 Sorry to leave you hanging there, but this weekend was insane. I will get to it as soon as I can though.

#4 Thanks Collin, busy weekend for me too - wouldn't have been able to get to making any changes anyway.

Some other users reported that the game doesn't stack properly after completing the tutorial and I still haven't found a typo...

#5 I just wanted to bump this thread as I've been answering quite a few questions in the forums lately that are addressed here.

If you are looking for a place to get started with TGB, I think this can really help you out!

or...

If you're more experienced and want to give me a critique, that would be hugely appreciated as well!

Thanks all!
`Patrick

#6 Thanks for making the tutorial available on your personal site. Hopefully TDN will will be up and going eventually. Along the same lines of thought, does anyone know where other TGB tutorials might be. More specifically, the ones found on the TDN. Again, thanks Patrick for making this obtainable.

#7 Glad to help!

Please let me know if you have any feedback.

Patrick

#8

Quote:Along the same lines of thought, does anyone know where other TGB tutorials might be. More specifically, the ones found on the TDN.

Well, outside of the tutorials that are included in the SDK, most of the TDN tutorials were written in TDN. Which means if the site is down (and it appears to be at the moment) then unfortunately you'll have to wait till it is back up again to access the tutorials there.

#9 Word.

#10 I just got finished reading the Stacker tutorial. Overall it was a helpful introduction for someone like myself who's never turned on the TGB or read any documentation on it. I liked:
1. The interesting choice of game.
2. The chosen game was simple to understand and play.
3. The friendly and unobtrusive tone of writing.
4. The useful and well documented/cropped screenshots of the user interface.
5. The time you put into making this.

I have a few things you may want to consider for revision:
1. I didn't see any apparent instructions on how to play the game. I only figured it out part way through the tutorial. This made it very hard to understand what exactly we were doing with the code.
2. Definitions may be in order for some terms, since you said the reader may not need programing experience (in actuality they really do need at least an Intro to C++ 101 college course level knowledge since you are not explaining the syntax).
3. There are many cases where grammatical errors made it difficult to read.
4. Perhaps a simple game design document (including a gameflow chart) at the beginning to help outline what our goal is before we begin getting our hands messy with code.
5. Along with the GDD, a psuedo-code layout would have been very helpful to assist the reader in wrapping their brain around why we were doign exactly what we were doing.
6. A list of required functions and variables, and the reasons why we're going to make/use them so we know whats to come.

#11 First of all, thanks so much for the feedback. Very concise and constructive! I'm going to implement most, if not all, just as soon as I get a chance.

To be honest, when I began the tutorial, I started it off much like a GDD - or any code doc - but ended up changing it to more of a narrative in the hopes to keep it a little more easy to read, but I think you're right, a supplement with definitions and a roadmap is in order.

Again, thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!

Patrick

#12 An example of some required definitions would be what a callback is. After looking into it, I think a callback is similar to Flash Actionscript's event listeners, where you write a script that waits for an event such as a button click, collision detection, keyboard stroke, mouse movement, etc. Maybe you can think of some real world metaphors accompanied by diagrams to use when explaining it as well (visual examples always help me learn more efficiently).

Also a definition for when you use the :: operator would be useful. After reading into this a bit more it seems its used to dynamically add functions to class objects (since its not object oriented I don't think it'd be called a method even tho its related to a class object), since objects are not pre-constructed like in C++.

Goodluck; you have a great start and I'd like to see you perfect it =)

#13 I would have liked to check it out, but the site is offline and no other download location is given.

#14 Sorry about that John, I've contacted my web host about it. In the meantime, you can email me and I'll send you the tutorial files directly.

patrickadesso /at/ gmail dot com

#15 The site's back up. Thanks John!

#16 I have a question about this tutorial.. after following all the instructions I am encountering two issues.

1: parse error on line 40 of stacker.cs, which is within the CheckUserInput() function. Specifically:

if(playLight.currentRow == $rows – 1)

2: This is on compile, if I select the option to continue the game loads - however, upon hitting the "s" key another error appears that states "cannot find function start()".

This one is boggling me completely, as I am not able to figure out why it cannot find start() (which is in stacker.cs) I have gone through the tutorial step by step a couple of times now to make sure that everything is typed in correctly, and not seeing any issues.

Anyone else seen similar, or have any ideas as to what might be going on?

Justin
(continuing to investigate)

#17 Hi Justin.

Generally in TGB when you get an error on a line, the line immediately proceeding it is where the error actually occurred.

I'd be happy to help if you post your code here or you can email me the project.

Also, if you choose to continue when you get a compile error, it loads the last good compile so any code you added since won't be in there, which in your case is probably the start() function.

Patrick
patrickadesso - a t - gmail dot com

#18 Thanks - that explains the issue with the start function not being found then. :)

Not at my desktop right now, but I can tell you that the line the error is on is the first line in the CheckUserInput function. The code is EXACTLY the same as what is in the Stacker Clone download - had both side by side - and then copied to rule out any typos. Odd thing for mn is that one works, and one doesnt :)

Will follow up later...

Justin

#19 OK - I just restarted my computer for the heck of it - and now it compiles and runs just fine. Go figure....

Justin

#20 Hi there.
Is it possible to change it to mouse click event?
Appreciate your help. Thanks! (: