Prototype code must be ugly, filled with bugs and smell bad – my #7DFPS post mortem

Recently, the 7dfps prototyping challenge got tons of attention. The idea of the challenge was to prototype a 1st person shooter in just 7 days. I participated, sort of. Since 7 consecutive days didn’t fit my plans, I decided to work on my prototype on 7 days scattered around a few weeks of time.

I brainstormed tons of ideas and started doing a multiplayer prototype.

What went right
I used some of my old code, and was able to knock together plenty of things (but not first person… and not shooter… but well, something)

In this very short period of time (bearing in mind 1 day meant few hours of work to me) I was able to put together very simple level loading system, animated character, raknet system for multiplayer (handled movement, animations ok enough) and some other stuff.

What went wrong
What I couldn’t get in shape: playable prototype. The most important part of prototyping is that you do something you can prototype. In retrospect, I can find that the main reason fort not being able to do playable (with some sort of goal, now it was just moving objects) prototype was this:

Using multiplayer library (raknet) meant some hours was spent making it work, and working on my own server-client system. Perhaps too much for a contest like this. It would have been okay, if I had earlier used the raknet library. Now it was too bit much work (for this prototype). Raknet is damn cool, and it made the difference that I even had any network system in place at all. It was hugely easy & fast to implement (just few hours), but for this prototype, it was few hours too much.

Second important thing was that I perhaps wrote bit too classy code. When I code, I nowadays usually try keep the code clean. I try get rid of useless methods, useless classes and keep things tidy. I believe that in all serious projects, that’s the best way to go. I’m too lazy to try clean the code just before the release.

But that’s quite wrong way to go with small prototypes. In prototyping, the code must be ugly, filled with bugs and smell bad. The shittier the code looks, the more copy & pasting you do, the better… as long as the code does the thing it’s supposed to do.

I think it requires talent to write messy code for prototypes. Refactoring & cleaning can come later.

What next time?
What is cool that I managed to try out raknet and even get it to work. That was the biggest thing for me. I could test the code with a buddies in different parts of this planet.

For the next prototype… I can consider writing smelly code, but it might be hard. I’ve spent more than half of my life writing/designing/thinking/doing-something code related stuff, and going back to very messy coding (even for a short period of time) can be difficult.

We’ll see.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 10th, 2012 at 2:03 pm and is filed under Game Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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Bastard traitor zombie, #7dfps and some zoo information

The 7 day FPS challenge has begun. To those unfamiliar with the subject, check out 7dfps.org.

Challenge begun a few days ago.

And so did neighbour renovations. It’s bit strange to sit in toilet, wearing those anti-noise things you put on your head, while the floor is shaking. This took 2 days.

So, this means first 2 days of my 7 day project went traveling. We traveled with kids around the city and I was so exhausted couldn’t get anything done for the project. Well, a bit of thinking happened, but not really much anything.

(Off-topic: I learned that group of 3-5 year old kids in one small place… it’s… it’s like monkeys in a zoo. Except there’s no fences anywhere. It was crazy action. One kid hide under some stuff, one other kid threw stuff around and 3rd one tried to jump on top of the first one. I’m surprised everybody got there alive.)

Anyway, back to the FPS challenge topic.

3rd day: I was about to code, when I got super nasty headache. I believe I have some sort of air pressure meter there. When thunder storms approach, my head hurts. So, 3rd day went there, nothing done. Couldn’t even think.

Now we are in day 4. I knocked together a page for my game (due time constraints I spent about 2 seconds thinking the name), put together some existing old code, threw in raknet and got server & client running there.

So, looks like I have bit of catching up to do… but we are good to go.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 13th, 2012 at 12:37 am and is filed under Game Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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Some of my #7dfps ideas, explained in bit greater detail

There’s a really cool brainstorming & developing going on around twitter hashtag #7DFPS (stands for “7 day first person shooter”).

Since twitter has character limitation, I’ll go through some of ideas in bit greater detail.

Find the hidden human
Online multiplayer. In this game, there’s one zombie player who has bird’s eye view (bit like RTS), and then there’s any number of humans (from 1 to 10 for example). Human players wear bloody clothes and must mimic zombie movement. Their job is for example to go through zombie infested zone in such manner that “zombie commander” doesn’t spot them.

Human players have actions: move and then some animated activities. Humans won’t eat dead bodies though… Humans play the game in first person mode.

There’s 30 individuals in the game zone. Zombie commander doesn’t know who are player characters are (their names are not shown, and they look similar to zombies), but he must look at how zombies (real or fake) act, move and try spot humans from AI bots. Zombie player can mark any character as target, which causes nearby zombies to attack him (50% chance).

Traitor among us
Somewhat similar to previous zombie idea, but this time there’s all human controller characters, for example 20 in the game. Each player has been assigned a target. You have been told to shoot one of the players, and you can only know who he is (but you don’t who will try shoot you).

Level is a square with no walls, if you go too near the edge then anyone can push you over the edge. Your goal is to kill your target by pushing him over the edge or by shooting at him. You can only damage your target, not anyone else. You also will get killed if you push wrong person over the edge. The only vulnerable place is target’s back – shooting any other area makes no damage.

Additionally, you have just one clip of ammo.

Saboteur in the nazi house
Requires at least 2 players: one nazi guard, one saboteur. Bit similar to previous 2 ideas, but this time there’s at least one player (nazi guard) who must try find the saboteur (or saboteurs). In addition to human players, there’s 10-20 AI controlled bots in the level. If there’s more than 2 players, then additional players will become part either nazi or saboteur team (as evenly as possible).

The nazi mansion is filled with 20ish nazis and nazi guests. Nazi guards need to investigate and talk to guest and find the saboteur, while the saboteur tries remain undetected.

Nazi guards walk in FPS mode, and can command any target to halt. AI bots will do as asked, and human player must try fake and look as normal as possible to avoid detection…

In case nazi guard wants, he can ask for a passport (saboteur doesn’t have one in the beginning, and 3-4 guests also have forgotten to carry it with them…). During course of game, saboteur can try steal passport from one of the guests.

Nazi guard can also fully investigate any character, this takes longer time (30-60 seconds) but reveals if the person is carrying anything suspicious (like detonator).

Saboteur must find hidden items (like detonator) and make the place explode.

(This idea is similar to Spy Party game, although major differences are that both teams have first person mode and that there can be more than 2 players in the game. In addition, there can be way that saboteur gets rid of nazi guard – which gives him extra time – this way also nazi guards need to try pretend they are AI bots…)

King of the hill – with a gun
Yet another multiplayer, but this time there’s just one gun in the level. Everybody else carries a crowbar. Round lasts 10 minutes. You get 1 point per second you carry the gun.

When person with the gun dies, he drops the weapon.

Everybody except person with the gun is invisible.

Two makes a team
Again multiplayer. This time there’s at least 2 players (coop mode) against bots or 4, 6, 8, etc players against each other (against other teams mode).

In each team, one has gun, other has ammo. Gunman is the only one that can shoot, and the ammo man is the only one who can handle reloads.

If either one dies, then the team loses.

Lead the blind
Multiplayer for 2 teams (or 1 team against bots). Each character is blind (or alternatively, each player can see everything except other team characters), except the team lead.

Team leader has vision, but carries no gun. The leader can place markers on the field that are visible to his team. If team leader is killed, team loses. If anyone else is killed, he is out of the game (alternatively respawns after 30 secs)

The challenge is for team lead to try spot enemy units and place markers, so that other players in his team can shoot.

Make a choice
Everybody versus Everybody multiplayer. When you spawn in the game, you must choose to have either “melee weapon + vision” OR “gun + blindness”. If you choose gun, then you cannot see anything. If you pick melee weapon, you get also vision.

Levels are simple (for example, storage place with 2 levels… and couple of stairs and boxes)

Hit me, I’m blind
Yet another blind multiplayer. This time everybody is blind. When you get hit, you take damage, but don’t die (you have 100 hitpoints and guns do 5-15 damage). As you get hit you gain vision for 2 seconds.

That’s it. Which one you liked most? If you have your own idea, please feel free to share (either here or as #7dfps tweet)

This entry was posted on Monday, May 28th, 2012 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Game Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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