Demonstrates how to create a simple dungeon map of room rectangles for use in top-down games. Press SPACE to create a new map, every map will be different from the next map and you can change the number of rooms and map size easily to allow for creation of larger or smaller maps. This is used as the base for a more advanced tutorial with image tiling and players. View on Github
Approximately 4 months of solo development and about 350-400 hours of coding 39,000 lines my first decent game Mr Snuggles Dungeon Adventure is on Steam and there is a demo that you can play for free as well . So, if you are bored at least try the demo, it works on Steam on Windows as well as on Steam for Linux via Proton and is also on itch.io if you prefer, where there is a native Linux demo and a native Linux version of the game as well (though actually second game, the first game being more of a test run to see if I could do it and is not really very good).
Demonstrates simple top/bottom, right/left sidebar, center and pop-up menu/windows. The colors can be changed and the menu positions can be changed by clicking in the relevant boxes of the sidebar window and the top/bottom menu/window. The center window can be moved by left mouse clicking and holding and the camera zoom and colors can be changed in the sidebar item list. View on Github
Demonstrates drawing of a simple horizontal scrolling Go logo as well as an animated Raylib logo using images textures stored in a slice. SPACE key to restart the animation. View on Github
Demonstrates a simple method to create an effect of chain lightning, when one rectangle (enemy) is impacted by a bullet rectangle then a chain of lines is drawn between the centers of all enemies on screen. WASD keys move player, left mouse button to shoot and up arrow key to change zoom. The Player Bullets example can be used a starting point for this example. View on Github
Demonstrates how to create player bullets that will travel to a point determined by a mouse click on screen. This method works with a camera, using the screen to world position of the mouse click therefore the zoom can be changed. The player can move and the bullets will be destroyed when hitting the border rectangle. This can be used for both player bullets as well as enemy bullets, for enemy bullets the mouse click center point is substituted with the player center. WASD keys move player, left mouse button to shoot and up arrow key to change zoom. View on Github
Demonstrates how to check for collisions of moving rectangles against other moving rectangles as well as border rectangles. This method uses rl.CheckCollisionRecs and creates a duplicate rectangle which is then moved to the next position of the moving rectangle. If this next rectangle collides then the direction is changed. Checking for collisions with the next movement position, as opposed to the moving rectangle itself, prevents problems with rectangles intersecting. When using the moving rectangle itself, when the collision is reported as having happened, the rectangles are already intersecting which can cause problems. View on Github
So, my favourite genre of game is probably roguelite/roguelike and I have played quite a few. These are games that random (procedural) levels which are different every time you play making them good value for money. If you are a already a fan of the genre, or maybe are looking for some lesser known titles to play then these are all recommended and should keep you busy for a few hours.
When I was growing up, Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book series was one of my favourite reads, which I re-read many times. If you haven’t read it and are a fan of sci-fi and/or humor then definitely something to put on your reading list. Anyway, the books are very famous and quite good, though re-reading them as an adult I will admit some of the magic is lost, however they remain entertaining.
When I got older and had nothing to do one evening (or afternoon), I decided that I would write my own tribute to Douglas Adams famous book series, which I did. Though (probably) not as good, though not bad, and still requiring a huge amount of editing, I did eventually manage to complete this rather daunting task that I had set myself. I wrote and edited three books in the same sci-fi/humor style as Douglas Adams and self-published on Kindle Direct Publishing. It took a lot longer than expected (maybe 4-5 years in the evening in my spare time), I gave up once during the process and then restarted, managing to find all my deleted work again in an backup I had forgotten to delete.
Source code is available on GitHub
I have been messing around for about 4-5 years in my spare time (I have a day job) learning Go to use for game development (more about that here) which is not a language generally used to make games. However, Go is easy to learn (in my opinion) and can be typed pretty quickly, meaning that you can get a lot done pretty quickly. Whilst 4-5 years is not quick, bear in mind this is only doing 1-2 hours a day in the evening after work and learning Go from scratch. For my use, Raylib was the best option for displaying the game graphics as it is easy to use and powerful enough for my requirements.
Anyway, after all this time messing around and feeling like I was not really getting anywhere, I have finally made my first game with Go and Raylib and it is freely available so you can download Bitty Knight on Steam if you want to try it out. Just note that it did not take 4-5 years to make Bitty Knight, learning Go and Raylib for game development took 4-5 years, coding Bitty Knight only took about 3 months. The game is short, only 6 levels and I made it free so anyone can play it, as it not a game that is good enough to charge money for. It was completed as more of project to prove to myself that I could make a (very average) game using Go without any real previous game development experience.
What have I learned? Well, that it is much, much more difficult to make a game than you think, unless you have previous coding experience or have lots of time to learn then you really need to make time everyday to sit down and get stuck in. Don’t give up, and try and try again would be phrases that I think would be important to bear in mind. I lost count of how many attempts I made at other game ideas prior to this one, most were overly ambitious, many were much better in concept, however as a solo developer (one guy), setting such massive tasks with no experience always proved too difficult. For this reason, eventually I decided to make something much simpler, although I have the skill to make a much better game, that requires much more time and dedication, though this is planned for the future. Anyway, if you want to play it, download for free Bitty Knight on Steam