Giygas learns the art of C++

After finding that Data Structures are very useful ( and very easy ) to use, I have moved onto my next concept- Which just happens to be an expanded version of Data Structures, the Class. Yay!

I found the best way for me to use and abuse classes to learn about them, by using them in a very short, 3-5 room text adventure game. It's going well so far!

It actually works better than I though. Originally, I thought I was going to have to write out commands that checks if you wrote "examine pencil" or "take paper" as a whole, but later realised that having it check for take, examine or use as the first word and then the second word being the object you interact with works better, and was easy. Actually, I figured it out by mistake, but whatever.

gj

great job ^^ a very inspirational topic imo. you're learning so fast too!

i took two C++ classes in college, so if you need some help then I will try to help you as best as i can =)

Thank you, and thank you Lightning. You have been quite helpful!

On the topic of that little 3 room adventure game, i'm almost done. I just need to add some extra lines of text ( For when you do things other than what you need to do ) and it'll be mostly done, unless I find some gay bug in the process...
It's a pretty small game, with about 4 rooms actually. All you do is:
take pencil; take paper; go east; use pencil&paper; go west; use paper; go north; use keycard
Then you're pretty much done. However, i'm proud of it, and it's my first "bigger" C++ 'game' with about 256 lines of code right now.
Any suggestions on what to tackle next in terms of what to learn?

Something you may want to look into is vectors. Vectors are essentially arrays with no limit:
http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/stl/vector/

In case you didn't know, strings are vectors. std::string is a vector for char.

Back on the trail and heading towards Dynamic Memory.
I actually remember being annoyed at how I couldn't do something like that in game maker and it made it seem really limited.
:s

Keep in mind that you should choose the structure that's best for the job, a vector provides is quick for accessing a particular object, but adding objects quickly is slow because it needs to resize the array it stores internally when it becomes to small to fit those elements. A linked list is slow for accessing a particular element as you need to irritate threw each element until you get to the one you want, but adding elements is fast because each element has a pointer to the next element and so on and so forth.

So I finally found a good use for arrays. \o/


Tic Tac Toe :O

Really lazy right now, maybe i'll change the 1's and 0's to X's and O's, but I really need to find a goo way to do AI.
Right now, the AI just checks if 1 is marked yet, then 2, then 3, and marks the first one thats not marked. Pretty much impossible to lose... Got to find a good way that will make your tricks not work every time, but also not make it impossible.

I actually had to check some uh... "Inspiration" C++ videos, like some games people made and showed off with it. It really helps knowing that eventually, I could do something like that. :3

Considering you're well accomplished at this point, you should probably check out SFML. It's extremely easy to use, and great for 2D graphics and sounds and stuff. It even supports networking and HTTP.

I'm assuming you're using Code::Blocks, yes? It will work with any compiler, although I found C::B to be the easiest for Windows.

This post has been edited by RetroXYZ on Oct 14 2009, 08:20 PM

Not really :c

Then, what are you using? :/

Dev-C++? Visual Studio?

Dev C++ :o

code-blocks is so bamf

Dev-C++ is a little outdated. I would consider upgrading to something more recent such as Visual Studio(What? OniLink suggesting Proprietary Software?!) or Code::Blocks.

SFML is a great tool. It uses OpenGL, which will move all(or most) graphical functions to the Graphics Card, significantly improving performance for those with a Graphics Card. This also allows great additions to your games such as Pixel Shaders, which are little programs for your Graphics Card to manipulate the screen and add cool effects.

I'd recommend against Visual Studio

If your plan is to only write software for Windows (which isn't a good plan in general), I think Visual Studio is unbeatable as an IDE.

I use Eclipse CDT as a cross-platform IDE. It's usable, but it doesn't really stack up to Visual Studio. I can't recommend Code::Blocks considering it hasn't seen an official release since I tried it last fall and it was broken in several ways. Your mileage may vary.

I only recommend it because most software development companies use it, and it wouldn't hurt to know the Interface.

It's important that if you want to be a coder that you push yourself to work on this stuff whenever you have a free moment, always try to do the stuff you're not sure you can figure out and you can be great. Also, when you have a decent (academic) grasp of it, you should open up Unreal Engine 3 or some other game engine and mess with their scripting tools, see if the code doesn't confuse you, it likely will actually appear legible

at the very least, the compilers MSVC uses aren't very good, and underneath it all that's what actually matters