In the Beginning...

I get so many emails asking me development questions that I decided to just start an area where I try to answer them and hopefully the information will help.

Several readers will be commenting and giving their own opinions and viewpoints - but what you read from me is what I believe from my experience.

Here we go!

Total Beginner Programmers

Just today I got this cute email from a 13-year old:

Dear Mr. Romero,
I'm a thirteen-year-old boy who absolutely loves the games that you've made throughout the years, so much that I really want to start programming, however, I don't know where to start.
BASIC seems too small a language to aid me in what I want to do, create the games graphical engine, but C# and C++ seem a little robust for a beginner. What do you think?
I really want to program, and I know that I do want to learn C# and C++, it's just that I'm not sure if they're the best languages for me to start in. I'd sort of like to learn BASIC, but I really can't find any good tutorials online, do you have any that I could possibly use?
Anyways, I hope that you take time out of your busy schedule to reply, but I won't be absolutely crushed if you don't. Thanks.
Sincerely,
Zachary

This was an absolutely great, well-written email with an excellent question. My answer is pretty much the same every time: if you want to learn how to code, you should be learning C. You can learn C++ later but I still believe it's best to go the C/C++ route rather than Visual Basic or some scripting language.

My personal favorite environment is the Visual Studio C++ Standard or Professional Edition. The Standard Edition is around $280 online and has everything you'll need for quite a while if you're a beginner.

visual c++ expressIf you're on a budget, like, a no-money kind of budget, then you should download, for free, the Visual C++ Express Edition product by Microsoft. There's even a nice book for complete beginners on Amazon.com that will help a lot.

This dev environment can get you through PC game development, handheld development (PocketPC anyone?) and with enough tweaking you can get it to work with external compilers for special hardware.

Ratbag Dead

Midway Games just shut down Ratbag, their recent aquisition in August, a game company that had been around since 1993 employing 70+ hard-working game developers and had been a shining star for aspiring game developers in Australia.

Sickening, especially at Christmastime. So many bad decisions have been made at Midway that I either see the end of the road for the entire company or mainly for the executive staff. Something's got to go, and soon.

My executive producer and I were talking about the ludicrous policy of providing a vertical slice of a game at an early stage - it's pure stupidity. Building a game is like building a house; you lay the foundation, work on the framework, then start plumbing, wiring, etc. before hanging drywall and getting the roof on. Requiring a game to have a little of everything (and polished) at an early stage is a recipe for disaster and a sure way to throw development money out the window because you're not developing a game properly anymore - you're jumping through hoops like a circus dog. But this is Midway's method of operation. LOLZ.

Unfortunately, the "redundant" staff at Ratbag is going to be much better off now than working for Midway. Sadly, they'll be doing it without their company they worked hard for and the people they loved working with.

Happy Birthday, Keen 4-6!

It's been 14 long years since our second Keen trilogy but these ended up being the best Keens of all. Unfortunately, we had a publishing deal that forced us to release one of the three Keens at retail thus breaking up the sacred trilogy of games which resulted in lower sales of this second trilogy.

The retail game was called Aliens Ate My Baby Sitter! (it was numbered Keen6) and stood on its own. Then the game duo we called Goodbye, Galaxy! had Keens 4 and 5 in it. Keen 4 took 3 months to develop, then we made Keen 6 in order to get it in the stores for Christmas and that took 2 months to make, and finally my favorite Keen, Keen 5, took us only ONE MONTH to develop. Apogee Software released the duo into shareware on December 15, 1991 while Keen 6 was in the stores.

KEEN TRIVIA:
You can see the second-oldest id Software logo on the Keen 6 box. The oldest id logo was in the help section of the original Keen 1-3 games. The "Lost Keen" came before the two Keen trilogies and was called Keen Dreams and was published by Softdisk in May 1991.

Anyone paying close attention to the Keen series will see some interesting parallels between the two trilogies. Both Keens 1 & 4 take place on friendly planets, Keens 2 & 5 take place docked onto an alien spaceship, and Keens 3 & 6 take place on hostile alien planets.

If you look closely at the Keen 5 title art you'll see Keen running away from a Robo Red but through the window of the space station you can see the secret level on the surface of the planet.

When we were developing Keens 4-6 we were living in Madison, Wisconsin in the freezing winter and worked constantly because it was so awful outside. Cops were frequently busting down the doors next door. It was such a bad neighborhood that we were basically developing our games out of a crackhouse!