/prog/ 2012 challenge

Brothers and sisters,

As the end of the year comes closer, and we reflect on what has happened on /prog/ this last year, we have to admit that we did not accomplish very much. Perhaps in our private lives, yes, but here on /prog/ we have spent the majority of the year trolling, meta-trolling, complaining about it and going nowhere in particular. If we look at our community I'm going to say we have very little to be proud of: /prog/ kinda sucks.

I say we change all that. I say in 2012 we band together and prove that /prog/ is better than it has ever been before just by making it so. That we can come to /prog/ with an expectation of lulz and wisdom. I'm willing to make the effort, who's with me?

ITT post your new years resolutions for /prog/, I'll start:

* If I have nothing substantial to say I will sage it.

Sure, just depends on the game.

If it's a beat-em-up, there isn't a whole lot of scripting possibility in the first place, so the ini-file idea I mentioned before could work and be dead-easy for users. Example:


[enemy Jew]
sprite=jew.png
hp=100
speed=5
ai=steal-player-items

That approach might go a long way for games that don't require much customization. If it were a tactical combat game, for example, unskilled users could still have ini-style options like rush-enemies, heal-allies, camp-high-terrain, whereas more skilled users could drop down into whatever scripting language and tweak the AI and give it a custom name for others to re-use later in their own ini-style files.

I'd hope that a modular, customizable game like that would wind up with an ever-growing library of assets from random contributors. So if VIPPER uploads his module with new AI scripts, Anonymous can use them in his module with new art/sfx. Copyright bullshit aside, it could really be a golden age of OC if there were a central collection of these assets (similar to the website for MIT's Scratch software where any user can get at the resources used to make a project - scratch.mit.edu).

Level design could be as simple as guitar-tab-style text files. Here's a simple platformer example that should look something like the start of world 1-1 of SMB1:
[code]

             ?
                           [ ]
 P     ?   #?#?#   [ ]     [ ]
-----------------------------------
[code]
(compare with http://www.videogamemaps.net/maps/nes/supermariobros/World%201,%20Stage%201%20-%20Mephea.png)

A graphical map/level editor would be much better, obviously, and ...probably much easier to make (for a platformer). A beat-em-up level script could be even simpler: scroll this background, at location X spawn Y enemies, etc.