It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Code

[Mister Mumbler]

So since I've decided to actually work making games (and by extension, code), wanted to open up a genergy discussion about coding; what are you coding now, fun bits of code you've done, coding horror stories, share tips, etc etc.

So as I mentioned in the 'What I learned (in boating school today)' thread, currently following along with indie developer Tom Francis' no experience Unity series. I've got my weapon script mostly working properly again (with the exception that burst fire is still a little wonky, as it currently operates as a full auto, IE you have to hold the mouse down to fire the whole burst) and am mostly happy with it (besides the aforementioned burst fire shenenigans),
but now I've moved on to making the enemy behaviors and that has been a lot of fun actually. I've currently set up a 3 stage alert system with corresponding color status and started working on a central 'Overwatch' type to guide the various enemies/raise or lower the overall alert status.

So what is everyone else up to?

EDIT: Also, does anyone know the ZP episode with the man who yells at his computer screen one shot, and then is still screaming the next shot but with a baby face over his mouth(I want to say it's one of the Witcher reviews but idk, it's at least a review of a computer game)? Want to set the thread cover to that.

 

[SupahEwok]

I've done some work in Python and Matlab for school, and I've had many programmer friends for a long time now, so I have a toddler's understanding of programming.

I really need to get better at Python and Matlab for professional reasons, but self-study is hard to make myself do. I also want to create a game, and will probably use Unity, but working on hobby projects is also hard to get myself to do.

 

[Neuromancer]

I can't code for the life of me. I did a few courses over the years on C++ and Java, but by the end all I got good at was parroting existing code, not making my own. Making an actual program feels brain-melting.

 

[Mister Mumbler]

I've done some work in Python and Matlab for school, and I've had many programmer friends for a long time now, so I have a toddler's understanding of programming.

I really need to get better at Python and Matlab for professional reasons, but self-study is hard to make myself do. I also want to create a game, and will probably use Unity, but working on hobby projects is also hard to get myself to do.

I can't code for the life of me. I did a few courses over the years on C++ and Java, but by the end all I got good at was parroting existing code, not making my own. Making an actual program feels brain-melting.

Yeah, I've only taken a C++ 101 course during my only semester of community college (which, funnily enough, was the only course I both did good in and passed with more than a C/D letter grade) and have a C++ For Dummies book that I've barely used since getting it before getting in to it so there's been a bit of a learning curve to get all this nonsense I'm writing in Visual Studio to do what I want, but it definitely has been rewarding.
Also Ewok, if you are interested in making games in Unity, try out this no experience Unity series by Tom Francis(the indie developer of both Gunpoint and Heat Signature).
It has been quite helpful to me and my current efforts.

 

[Gordon_4]

I tried several times to learn coding, Javascripting mainly, and I was fucking inept every time

 

[Drathnoxis]

I've tried learning to code about 3 times, and I always start getting bored and stop doing it when I'm about 70% of the way through the basics.

I really do want to learn one day, though.

 

[Mister Mumbler]

I tried several times to learn coding, Javascripting mainly, and I was fucking inept every time

I've tried learning to code about 3 times, and I always start getting bored and stop doing it when I'm about 70% of the way through the basics.

I really do want to learn one day, though.

Yeah, thinking about, I think the reason why coding is so difficult/mind numbing is that it's this weird combination of straight math functions and logic chains/puzzles.

Project report (I have a strong feeling this thread is gonna devolve into me talking about my current endeavors, or as Yatzhee would put it, 'stroking my pleased-with-myself stiffy' but who knows, maybe my rather inept smashing of code and cubes together inspires others): caught up to the last video in the tutorial series I'm following so I spent my weekend flipping between making my weapons more complex looking than straight up rectangular boxes and getting my basic enemy behavior working properly, which I'm fucking stoked about. My enemies now operate on a 3 tier alert system, going from blue (idle), to yellow (moves to last known player position) and red (actively pursuing player), and they return to their starting location if they can't find the player again. It's not 100% done yet, as I still need to try and make my enemies go from 'blue' to 'yellow' if they see the player but not for long enough to trigger the 'red' alert, and make it possible to give them longer vision cones when chasing the player, but as of right now is at a point where I'm happy with it.

Next on my list is either going back and fucking around with my weapon behaviors again or moving onto the more advanced enemy behaviors, such as moving along a predetermined route, turning to look at various targets (think camera/sentry), and the big one, the enemy command structure (basically a system for individual enemies to report to, currently calling it 'overwatch' after HL2).

 

[Drathnoxis]

Yeah, thinking about, I think the reason why coding is so difficult/mind numbing is that it's this weird combination of straight math functions and logic chains/puzzles.

I didn't stop because it was difficult or anything. I just stopped because something else caught my interest and I never really got back to it.

Same reason I'm not very good at the piano, despite starting when I was about 6. I practice lots for about a month, and then I get bored and move on to something else for a year or so.

 

[Baffle]

I'm an okay VBA coder, though I realise that's not a highly sought-after language (but in my line of work it's saved me hundreds of hours on menial tasks). I dabble in Python but I constantly need refreshers because I just don't stick to it long enough for it to lodge in my pathetic human brain. I wrote an awesome (though simple) Javascript program for Indesign once that saved literally weeks of repetitive work on jobs (for other people), but I couldn't do it again tomorrow if my life depended on it.

 

[Satinavian]

I first learned coding gw-basic on our familys first computer, a Robotron EC 1834 (an eastern block clone of an 8086). Because interpreter languages were slow, i moved to turbo pascal later which is also what was used in school when we had informatics. That is also where i programmed my first big project, a video game adaption of the medieval tabletop game Rithmomachy, complete with ai-opponent for DOS. It ran on a 2-86.

Then i studied physics and for my thesis i had to do numerical simulations of equilibrium states of neutron star disks around black holes. I had to probram that as well, but there was ealier code for similar problems to start with. That was in Fortrun and C.

When i later made my PhD, i wrote a program to simulate noneqilibrium thermodynamics of radiation for relativistic quantum systems. But it was not that much code actually as the exampls were quite idolized.

As Postdoc i wrote several years to similare evaporative cooling and laser cooling to achieve Bose-Einstein-Condensates. I used C++ and CUDA, which means, using graphic cards for calculations as well. That was fun.

Because i did not want to move from university to university anymore, i moved intothe industry and work as software developer now. But compared to research-related tasks it mostly boring b2b solutions for custom declarations and stuff. Pay is good enough, collgues are nice and i dind't have to move but the tasks are sooo boring.

 

[bluegate]

Most of my coding, programming, scripting, however you want to call it, is centered around the web in a hobby capacity. That would be HTML, CSS, JavaScript, MySQL and the like. And not unlike Drathnoxis, my attention tends to lapse from time to time, there will be periods where I'm super focused on creating stuff and then there'll be months where my attention gets caught on something entirely different.

I also have a passion for re-inventing the wheel. Rather than using libraries to get stuff done, I like to attempt to re-create their functionality and figure out what makes them tick, resulting in me making huge detours in my projects, often getting side-tracked and giving up on projects all together.

Most of the stuff I have made lately have been functional tools, although I do dabble in re-creating things from games from yesteryear from time to time; I recreated the Window and Text system of an old PS1 era RPG and made good headway in creating a map editor to do along with it, but lost interest and moved on to other things. ( Some day I'll have my web based RPG maker with quick and easy creatable and sharable mini adventures... some day... )

A functional tool maybe worth showing was a 'script' made to help a friend who kept messing up with filling in file paths on one of his websites.

https://dev.luckymouse.nl/explorer/

Mind you, it's just a demo, but pressing the search button should spawn a file explorer-esque window, allowing the user to browse a set of files and select one. It was quite fun to try and get as close as possible to the functionality and look of Windows File Explorer, including stuff not turned on for the demo.

 

[bluegate]

Been toying around again lately and this thread suddenly popped up in my head again.

So since I've decided to actually work making games (and by extension, code), wanted to open up a genergy discussion about coding; what are you coding now, fun bits of code you've done, coding horror stories, share tips, etc etc.

Roughly one year later, how are things going?

Gotten any fun coding stories of your own to share? Any fun projects to share?

 

[Meximagician]

I built a dynamically loaded menu in Game Maker 8, then when I had to switch to Lateral Game Maker and/or Game Maker Studio I found out my code relied on depreciated *deprecated functions. Basically my old code was too old.

That single-handedly killed 80% of my motivation. I hate programming things as abstract as menus (that's why I made it dynamic, the hope was to be able to drag and drop that menu into projects, then change the menu data rather than code) and I REALLY hate redoing things.

 

[Baffle]

I started making a platformer in Unity, and it was actually going okay and (IMO) looked decent, but it was taking so long to get the barebones together and create the assets so I had something to test the code with that I ended up giving up. The main problem was that I tried to do too much with too little knowledge, skill, and time. I'll go back to it one day and try something simpler.

 

[Mister Mumbler]

Roughly one year later, how are things going?

Gotten any fun coding stories of your own to share? Any fun projects to share?

Ok, so I should clarify that I meant "work on" as in a hobby sort of sense, not as a career. And Unfortunately I've had a bit of a rough year and haven't really done any sort of progress since my last post. What's funny was I was actually thinking about my project earlier before seeing this post (the tutorial series I was using has recently wrapped up and all videos available). I want to try and get back into it, as well as start to figure out modeling and such but I'm still in a bit of a funk.

 

[Vault101]

I have a Degree in computer Science!

......

So i can code but I have a lot of insecurity surrounding my abilities (Design and Analysis of Algothms had me pushing at the edges of my brain, as well as those coding tests they make you take for job stuff) for this and other reasons I opted not to go into software development but rather Cyber Security... so like SysAdmin +

Then i studied physics and for my thesis i had to do numerical simulations of equilibrium states of neutron star disks around black holes. I had to probram that as well, but there was ealier code for similar problems to start with. That was in Fortrun and C.

F*** yeah! Fortran77!