Working with the Dink developers
Hey guys do you know how one could work with seth robinson and the crew, online if possible, on developing the dink engine as an internship? Thanks.
P.S. I'd appreciate it if the game masters gave me some advice as well.
P.S. I'd appreciate it if the game masters gave me some advice as well.
You can like e-mail him and ask? seth@rtsoft.com I believe it is.
The Dink code is more than a decade old and no longer actively developed. You could contribute to FreeDink ( http://www.freedink.org/ ) or similar projects. If all else fails you could also develop your own engine as a learning project.
If you want to know more about creating games, I can recommend www.gamedev.net.
An engine takes care of all functionalities that are needed for the game. So when writing an engine, you'd need to write components that take care of graphics (loading graphics files, displaying them, etc), sound (loading sound/music and playing them), network (for multiplayer games) and usually a scripting engine that can read scripts (like the DinkC scripts) so the in-game events can be modified easily.
It's likely not the easiest project for beginners as it involves knowledge that's spread over various computer science courses (that is, if you were to write everything yourself). However, there are also libraries/engines that can take care of things. For example, you could take an existing 2D or 3D graphic engine and modify that to your liking (adding things, etc).
But the above considers a game similar to Dink. If you have little to no experience, you could create a game like Tetris or Pacman as these games contain all the elements that 'big' games also have: a game loop, graphics, sound, a score, a menu, etc.
In another thread, you mentioned that you're looking for a job in the industry. If you want to become a game programmer, you should work on your programming experience, preferably something that can be shown to companies. For example, I know of someone who got an internship at a game company by creating his own physics engine with some fancy stuff. The gaming industry cares more about a demonstrated ability to do things than a claimed ability (i.e., by formal education but no real experience yet).
It's likely not the easiest project for beginners as it involves knowledge that's spread over various computer science courses (that is, if you were to write everything yourself). However, there are also libraries/engines that can take care of things. For example, you could take an existing 2D or 3D graphic engine and modify that to your liking (adding things, etc).
But the above considers a game similar to Dink. If you have little to no experience, you could create a game like Tetris or Pacman as these games contain all the elements that 'big' games also have: a game loop, graphics, sound, a score, a menu, etc.
In another thread, you mentioned that you're looking for a job in the industry. If you want to become a game programmer, you should work on your programming experience, preferably something that can be shown to companies. For example, I know of someone who got an internship at a game company by creating his own physics engine with some fancy stuff. The gaming industry cares more about a demonstrated ability to do things than a claimed ability (i.e., by formal education but no real experience yet).
