Starting out with SMD dev. Best compilers etc?

[POLYGAMe]

Hi everyone,

Obviously I'm a noob here and I'm wanting to get started on game dev for the Mega Drive (with the intention of producing physical carts, further down the line).

I have been developing games for a few years and really want to branch out into older hardware.

I haven't studied up on ASM at all but will probably endeavour to do that at some stage, but until then, what's the best way to go around designing games in C/C++? There seem to be a few options!

Basically whatever's easiest to set up and get running and has good documentation. I downloaded SGDK and have no idea how to install it... lol... any links on how to do this?

Or are there any "one stop" solutions? There are a couple of devkits for Commodore 64 that have sprite editors and music creators as well as code editors. Anything like that for SMD?

Any info greatly appreciated!!!

Cheers,

Karl.

[djcouchycouch]

Hi everyone,

Obviously I'm a noob here and I'm wanting to get started on game dev for the Mega Drive (with the intention of producing physical carts, further down the line).

I have been developing games for a few years and really want to branch out into older hardware.

I haven't studied up on ASM at all but will probably endeavour to do that at some stage, but until then, what's the best way to go around designing games in C/C++? There seem to be a few options!

Basically whatever's easiest to set up and get running and has good documentation. I downloaded SGDK and have no idea how to install it... lol... any links on how to do this?

Or are there any "one stop" solutions? There are a couple of devkits for Commodore 64 that have sprite editors and music creators as well as code editors. Anything like that for SMD?

Any info greatly appreciated!!!

Cheers,

Karl.

There are no do-it-all devkits for Genesis. You'll have to work with parts.

I use SGDK for my projects. I code in Visual Studio as an IDE since I'm most familiar with it. Got some tools menu items setup to run batch files to do compilation.

Installing SGDK you can find on the SGDK page. http://code.google.com/p/sgdk/wiki/HowToUseSGDK

Graphics I do with Graphics Gale, in 16 color palettes.

Map editing I use Tiled http://www.mapeditor.org. You might have to write your own export plugin if the ones included aren't good enough for you. Plugins are C++ using QT.

Music/sound creation is a little iffy right now. The Echo sound engine is currently the best one available, but getting data into it is not straightforward. It's workable, though. You can find it and tools at https://github.com/sikthehedgehog/Echo

Last year I worked on a project called Goplanes. viewtopic.php?t=1090 You should browse it. I wrote a lot about the problems I encountered and solutions. Should be pretty useful.

If you want a leg up on an engine, I've also released a 8-way scrolling engine called Propeller, based on the Goplanes source. viewtopic.php?t=1373

That should get you started!

DJCC

[POLYGAMe]

Cool, thanks for the info!

I just set up SGDK after a lot of head scratching. I'm using Code:Blocks... actually quite nice. I'm used to VS but seems close enough... might try work out how to incorporate it into XCode, too, since I do most of my dev on the Mac.

Got my first "Hello World" app working, so I'll study up on GFX etc. Will check out those links.

Thanks heaps!

[slobu]

Cool, thanks for the info!

I just set up SGDK after a lot of head scratching. I'm using Code:Blocks... actually quite nice. I'm used to VS but seems close enough... might try work out how to incorporate it into XCode, too, since I do most of my dev on the Mac.

Got my first "Hello World" app working, so I'll study up on GFX etc. Will check out those links.

Thanks heaps!

When you feel you've got a good environment set up you may consider packaging it up for other newbs who were in your same position.

[POLYGAMe]

Cool, thanks for the info!

I just set up SGDK after a lot of head scratching. I'm using Code:Blocks... actually quite nice. I'm used to VS but seems close enough... might try work out how to incorporate it into XCode, too, since I do most of my dev on the Mac.

Got my first "Hello World" app working, so I'll study up on GFX etc. Will check out those links.

Thanks heaps!

When you feel you've got a good environment set up you may consider packaging it up for other newbs who were in your same position.

It's easy enough to set up, if you follow the instructions The head scratching was caused by me not reading properly

[kubilus1]

From working on setting up a decent toolchain myself, it seems that everyone has a different set of tools they prefer. Personally I do my development on Linux and have setup a toolset based of instructions by ChillyWilly (https://code.google.com/p/gendev/)

For graphics I keep coming back to the GIMP. I have looked at Tiled for tile mapping and it looks good, but so far I just lay stuff out manually.

The SGDK has been a great resource for a general programming library on the Genesis.

For sound I've been using Deflemask and loading these as VGMs, though I still need to play with doing sound effects and music at the same time.

[POLYGAMe]

From working on setting up a decent toolchain myself, it seems that everyone has a different set of tools they prefer. Personally I do my development on Linux and have setup a toolset based of instructions by ChillyWilly (https://code.google.com/p/gendev/)

For graphics I keep coming back to the GIMP. I have looked at Tiled for tile mapping and it looks good, but so far I just lay stuff out manually.

The SGDK has been a great resource for a general programming library on the Genesis.

For sound I've been using Deflemask and loading these as VGMs, though I still need to play with doing sound effects and music at the same time.

Yeah, I'm using SGDK now. Also have deflemask. I'm gonna build all my levels by scanning in fom text files, rather than using external tools. Easy enough to set up.

I would like to go to Linux, I HATE Windows 8... Maybe I'll just "downgrade" to 7.

[djcouchycouch]

Yeah, I'm using SGDK now. Also have deflemask. I'm gonna build all my levels by scanning in fom text files, rather than using external tools. Easy enough to set up.

I would like to go to Linux, I HATE Windows 8... Maybe I'll just "downgrade" to 7.

It doesn't cure everything, but I use Classic Shell on my Windows 8 machine at work. It adds a Start menu plus a million options.

http://www.classicshell.net

Okay, maybe not a million.

[POLYGAMe]

Yeah, I'm using SGDK now. Also have deflemask. I'm gonna build all my levels by scanning in fom text files, rather than using external tools. Easy enough to set up.

I would like to go to Linux, I HATE Windows 8... Maybe I'll just "downgrade" to 7.

It doesn't cure everything, but I use Classic Shell on my Windows 8 machine at work. It adds a Start menu plus a million options.

http://www.classicshell.net

Okay, maybe not a million.

Cool, I'll check it out. I hate the whole touch screen crap interface and just want my normal desktop from go.

[kubilus1]

Another very handy tool is Imagemagick. You can write scripts, or convert and manipulate images in all kinds of interesting ways. All the tools I've mentioned so far are cross platform and will run in Windows too, AFAIK.

That being said, if I was forced to use a Windows machine for development (It's probably been more than a decade since I used Windows for anything), I would install Cygwin. That way you can run for real shell scripts and other neat tools and stuff.