| Make your own Dizzy Game : Part 2 |
After the planning and designing comes the
actual creation stage.
Programs and Languages
This section explains a number of the possible programs and languages you can use to
create your own Dizzy game.
The Games Factory / Click & Create (Multimedia Fusion Express) / Multimedia
Fusion
These packages were created by Clickteam and are
very popular when it comes to games creation.
These programs are event-driven which means that rather than writing code, you add in
events using a drag-and-drop interface. This makes the programs a lot easier to learn than
a programming language. However, it does result in some limitations although they will
almost certainly be powerful enough for any Dizzy game you wish to create.
The three programs, The Games Factory (TGF), Click and Create (CNC) and Multimedia Fusion
(MMF), are all based around this concept and are very similar. However, TGF is the least
advanced, CNC more advanced and MMF the most advanced. Click and Create was re-released as
Multimedia Fusion Express. The two are almost completely identical.
A more detailed comparison of the three can be found on Clickteam's site. In general, I
would recommend getting the most powerful one you can afford (they are all fairly cheap).
TGF does have the advantage that a shareware version is available.
Engines are programs which implement basic game functionality (e.g.
moving, inventory, etc) and can be built upon to make your own games. Various game
creators have made engines using the programs described above. A good place to find
out about these is the Fan Projects forum at the Community Forums. For example, AndyUK's engine
is available at http://www.create-games.com/download.asp?id=5082.
Other methods
Obviously, there are lots of other programmes and languages which could be and have
been used for Dizzy games. The following are a few examples:
DizzyAGE is a very
useful set of tools for creating Dizzy games. Check out the site for more
information.
RPG Maker 2000 has been used for Dizzy RPG. Newer versions of RPG
Maker are now avaiable, for example RPG Maker XP. As the name
suggests, it's designed for creating Role-Playing Games rather than adventure games.
Jamagic
This is a 3D game creation package from Clickteam. It uses code (Jamascript - similar to Javascript)
rather than events which makes it more powerful but also more difficult to learn.
ZZT
A number of Dizzy games have been remade in ZZT.
ZZT is a DOS-based game creator. Games created with ZZT require ZZT to run.
It is designed more for puzzle games and RPGs and so is not ideal for a game like Dizzy
(for example, it's top-down and uses ASCII characters rather than graphics for its
characters and objects). However, it is a nice little program and, although I
wouldn't use it for Dizzy, I do use it quite a bit myself.
Reality Software Construction Kit was being used for Wonderworld Dizzy, an Amiga
fan game.
Dreamworld Dizzy is
being written using the programming language C.
A number of online Dizzy games use Macromedia Flash.
Testing
Don't leave all your testing until the end: test it as you go and you'll save yourself
a lot of headaches! However, you may want to release an almost-finished version (a
"beta version") to the general public for them to test for you.
Read on for the last part of the article: Once your fangame
is finished.
An older version of this article was available at Yolkfolk.com before the
site was redesigned. Most of that article was written by me anyway... |
