slicksk8te

I am an intermediate c++ programmer and I was woundering if anybody could give me a few ideas that would help me become a better programmer while giving me a useful program that I can use.

Any ideas would be greatly appriciated.

Sane

A useful program that you can use? Or a useful program that you can write?

I will assume you meant write, in which case... what are the kind of programs you can make? Graphical? Simulation? Games? Algorithms? Networking? What haven't you made? What are you interested in? These are all very important questions. Sure, someone here could tell you to implement an exponential-time SAT algorithm, but that might not be relevant for you.

slicksk8te

well I have made some small graphics programs and a couple of text based games. I am interested in doing things like graphics(no APIs), simple games, some alogorithms. I have tried to make simple games such as sidescrollers but the problem is that I do not know how to put it together. I mostly want to find an idea that I could do in about a week that can give me more practice programming. I guess I am looking for an idea that would give me a bit more experience.

Sane

Why not a game like tic-tac-toe? There are many aspects you could focus on to challenge yourself.

Algorithms: Make an unbeatable artificial intelligence. You can never lose Tic-Tac-Toe (only tie) if you play perfectly.

Graphics: You could also work on making a very flashy and pleasing graphical interface.

Realtime Events: Add a time limit for each player to make their turn. Making the game display a realtime countdown would add the element of event handling, which is important for making almost any game.

Modularity: You could challenge yourself to write good, modular, code, by separating the game into distinct modules and writing OO code.

Gamplay / More Algorithms: You could try implementing more options:

• AI difficulty levels 0-9
• Play on a grid. As opposed to a grid. Info Here.
• The above two items in conjunction would be extremely difficult if you wanted to really challenge yourself.

As you can see there's everything from novice-expert here. I am sure there are many more things you could do to turn tic-tac-toe into a challenging and fun programming problem. But that is just one suggestion; I would wait until hearing from others.

slicksk8te

thanks for the idea. I will defintely do that.

lectricpharaoh

Why no APIs? Unless you're writing games for DOS or something, where you have raw access to the hardware, you're going to need to use some API. Which API depends on your skills, choice of language, and target platform(s). All of these will factor in heavily.

Some examples of APIs used in graphics include DirectX (for Windows), OpenGL (for various platforms), GDI/GDI+ (for Windows), and SDL (various platforms). This is by no means an exhaustive list.
Like Tetris? It's a rite of passage for any would-be game programmer. You can do text-mode or graphics-mode Tetris, depending on your mood.
What do you mean? You didn't know how to handle the gameplay, or you didn't know how to manage the scrolling? Basically, all you need to do is redraw the screen each refresh cycle, taking into account the new position of game elements, such as the character, monsters, etc. Many side-view scrolling games are made up of tiles, which makes it rather simple, as you build the scene up out of smaller blocks. Even some more or less modern games use this approach, though sometimes the tiles are rhomboid instead of square (isometric games like Diablo, for example).

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slicksk8te

The reason that I say no API's is because I would like to learn what they do for me so that I can truly appreciate their use.

Tetris does sound like another good idea but I am not quite sure how to implement it.

On side scrollers it is not the scrolling but the basic layout of the game engine and some of the gameplay. I usually get to the point where I can draw things to the screen through a function that also double buffers but I do not know where to go from there.

Shivan

To be really acomplished try and if you go to school, try and make a calculator that can mimic a graphics calculator or even more. That would be nice, and it would help with your homework too.

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slicksk8te

what?

Shivan

Well what I am trying to say is that making a calculator using MFC, would be nice. A calculator that can do most functions that a graphics calculator can do. It can be helpful for school and many other things. A Graphics calculator can: store and solve matrices, solve polynominals with 2 or more unknowns, and also it has its own basic language to create programs.

It would be a nice goal to accomplish, don't you think?

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