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Coding Savvies, how hard it is to develop a game like Flappy Bird?

lol first post. Can't lie I thought same things when that story made the rounds earlier this week. Who don't want 50k-a-day son.. Its a timely thread

Hey OP, I'd like to do a procedural racing game myself. Was gonna cop dat free unity engine soon to mess with it. Did not know of code school either, like that there is a css tutorial.

you already know these threads?
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=762578
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=491431

d9b said:
CODE:


random copy bird {

go to 100 : {

make { = 50.000 $ / day


........................

You're welcome.
Click to expand...
LOL
 
I was working on one for Candy Jam using Construct 2. Hell, it's one of their starter templates so no real coding required. Gravity, collision detection, all the hard stuff is already done. You just have to provide textures and a means of keeping score.
 
This is by far one of the easier things to do. You might have issues working on gravity but collision detection and events declaring you touching the touch device should be pretty easy... All you is flap....
 
it would take a bit longer from scratch without an engine and such, but id imagine it wouldnt take that long. perhaps a day or two max
 
As far as the actual game goes (as opposed to the mobile interface and money-making stuff) with the right 2D engine you could probably make it without having to write a single bit of code yourself. The random factor is the only thing that could have some complexity (as in you might have to actually write some code).
 
PolarGamer said:
The game is simple and fun. Amazed at the amount of envy.
Click to expand...

I don't really see envy just people pointing out its easy...
And I had to download the game due to hype... It's worse than bad. Uninstall record 4 minutes. Angry birds is AAA compared to this, even the controls are horrendous
 
Bluenova said:
lol first post. Can't lie I thought same things when that story made the rounds earlier this week. Who don't want 50k-a-day son.. Its a timely thread

Hey OP, I'd like to do a procedural racing game myself. Was gonna cop dat free unity engine soon to mess with it. Did not know of code school either, like that there is a css tutorial.

you already know these threads?
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=762578
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=491431


LOL
Click to expand...

I literally found the Indie Game Development Discussion Thread right now. Thank you! I just started reading tutorials right now. Im gonna do this on my free time instead of wasting it doing other not important things.
 
Not hating on the guy's success, but I have full confidence in the ability of anyone with one year of informal coding experience and familiarity with GameMaker (or other hobbyist game engine) could put together a similar game in a few hours.
 
Pretty easy. A day or two, probably. It's one mechanic, after all. The procedural pipe generation is the hardest part, which isn't even that difficult.
 
This guy has pretty good Game Maker tutorials

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn7FE3Tx391g1tWPv-1tv7Q

It takes patience to learn coding, and a penchant for problem solving, if you lack those qualities, you'll have a hard time learning to code.

Edit:

Also, this book helped me a lot. I had taken a Visual Basic and an intro to C++ class like a decade ago, had a very basic knowledge, but couldn't program my way out of a box. After reading the book and following the code examples, my understanding of coding really took off, everything just clicked. It covers C#, which is similar to Java and C++. The basics of C# are the basics of any programming language, really. Once you have the core of any language down, its just a matter of adjusting your syntax and learning the little extra details.

Another good book is Headstart Java. Each section has you building a small game as you go along.
 
I have ambition, so I'd say that a game like this one making such an amount of money a day surprises me in a kind of negative game. However I'm glad for him and I hope that with the money he takes a bigger risk with his next project. If I had to do the game I want to do, i'd need a small team and a lot of coding, plus animation, plus modelling, etc. And I would probably make 1/50th of what he's doing a day at most.

Simple and addictive.
 
With 100s of games releasing on mobiles every week , the hardest part is getting your game to go near the top so it becomes viral. In this day of millions of apps/games, coding is not the hard part. It's all about marketing. I don't know how flappy bird got to the top so fast as I don't think the dev did any marketing? Was it word of mouth? Social media?
 
The logic is pretty easy. There's no variance just some numerical equations and physics. Example, the gravity is "1". You have a counter for the bird that drops .10 every 100ms. But if you touch the screen you add .70 to that counter which moves the bird upwards in the axis and against gravity. If the bird counter drops to 0 the bird dies. At least I'd do the gravity part this way or similar to it.


Collision detection isn't an issue as well. Its simple. The tubes have patterns you can program a loop to select certain patterns as long as the game continues, have an integer that adds a 1 to the global point counter each time you pass a certain value, etc. Its easy to do.
 
oxidax said:
First off, i have no knowledge of game development or app development even tho i would LOOOVE to learn but i just dont know where to start. But lets say im half way done with learning how to develop games for either Android or iOS, how hard can it be to develop a simple touch game like Flappy bird?

And when i say simple, i mean theres not really much to do in the game.
Click to expand...
First, flappy bird is not a standard for a successful game.
Secondly, learning to program is like learning to write. There is a long way to write a successful novel beyond knowing grammar and spelling.
For an experienced programmer it's shouldn't take more than a few days to make one like it including testing.
 
Coding? Not particularly hard, more time consuming that you would expect, though?
Coming up with an idea/design for a game that will sell thousands/millions? Infinitely harder.
 
Anybody with rudimentary understanding of programming would be able to come up with a way to make the game.
 
I have a simple game idea that I'm hoping becomes a hit. It's almost as stupid as flappy bird.

I have java experience. What's the best way to tackle this? Programming, drawing spirtes, and creating music?
 
Saganator said:
This guy has pretty good Game Maker tutorials

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn7FE3Tx391g1tWPv-1tv7Q

It takes patience to learn coding, and a penchant for problem solving, if you lack those qualities, you'll have a hard time learning to code.

Edit:

Also, this book helped me a lot. I had taken a Visual Basic and an intro to C++ class like a decade ago, had a very basic knowledge, but couldn't program my way out of a box. After reading the book and following the code examples, my understanding of coding really took off, everything just clicked. It covers C#, which is similar to Java and C++. The basics of C# are the basics of any programming language, really. Once you have the core of any language down, its just a matter of adjusting your syntax and learning the little extra details.

Another good book is Headstart Java. Each section has you building a small game as you go along.
Click to expand...

Dude thanks so much for that. So i should go with C#, move my way to Java and then Learn C++? I always thought that the C language was all the same as of C,C+,C++ etc etc etc. i guess i have a lot of reading to do.
 
Linkhero1 said:
I have a simple game idea that I'm hoping becomes a hit. It's almost as stupid as flappy bird.

I have java experience. What's the best way to tackle this? Programming, drawing spirtes, and creating music?
Click to expand...

Prototype it in Game Maker, see if its actually fun. If you know some Java, you can figure out GML. Read the help files, they're actually pretty good. Game Maker has a pretty simple yet effective sprite editor. For music, I'd probably figure that part out last after you have a functional'ish game.
 
Saganator said:
Prototype it in Game Maker, see if its actually fun. If you know some Java, you can figure out GML. Read the help files, they're actually pretty good. Game Maker has a pretty simple yet effective sprite editor. For music, I'd probably figure that part out last after you have a functional'ish game.
Click to expand...
Thank you. I'm going to look into it over the next few weeks for fun. I too aspire to be a 50k/day CEO.
 
Right now i am interested in just learning. I will obviously think about marketing and all that later on when i have the knowledge and the practice. I know how hard it could be to promote something and specially with all the games coming out almost on a weekly basis. I know that if i start with the right foot and learn, someday i might create a cool game that a lot of people will like... but never something like flappy bird LOL

I see flappy bird as a goal. If i learn to make a touch game like that, i can move up to the next challenge and do something better and so on. I see it as copying to practice privately. That's pretty much how i taught myself to do graphic design and renderings. The only thing is that i didn't have to learn a language for that.
 
Gonna make a game called flappy turd, you have to navigate a turd through a pipe and not clog the toilet. I'll invite some of you guys to my island after I hit it big.
 
oxidax said:
Dude thanks so much for that. So i should go with C#, move my way to Java and then Learn C++? I always thought that the C language was all the same as of C,C+,C++ etc etc etc. i guess i have a lot of reading to do.
Click to expand...

The cool thing about programming languages is that once you know one pretty well, you know like 70% of every other language, except some of the more obscure languages. Programming languages are more like dialects rather than totally separate languages. C, C#, and C++ are all very similar and a person who knows C++ should have no problems figuring out C#, and vice versa (although the jump from C# to C++ is a bit steeper). You can't really go wrong starting with Java, C#, or C++. You can use JavaScript or C# in Unity. Game Maker has its own language, GML, which similar to Java. I don't recommend learning to program with GML. Learning to program on GML will give you bad habits which you'll eventually have to break once you move on to something like C++. Get a good foundation in C#/Java/C++/whatever, then move to GML.

I picked up C# because the book Joes2Pros, Unity, and my previous and very little experience in C++. I rented the book for free, read the first few pages and decided I wanted to code along with the book, so that was the start of me learning C#.

Linkhero1 said:
Thank you. I'm going to look into it over the next few weeks for fun. I too aspire to be a 50k/day CEO.
Click to expand...

No problem. Its a neat hobby, even if you don't make anything lots of people will pay to play. I really like the problem solving aspect of it. Its akin to defeating a boss/hard area in Dark/Demon Souls for me.
 
oxidax said:
I see flappy bird as a goal. If i learn to make a touch game like that, i can move up to the next challenge and do something better and so on. I see it as copying to practice privately. That's pretty much how i taught myself to do graphic design and renderings. The only thing is that i didn't have to learn a language for that.
Click to expand...
In terms of pure learning exercises for beginners, there are games that would teach you a lot more and aren't that much more complicated. Take a look at Microsoft's own "Platformer Starter Kit", which will teach you everything Flappy Bird would and a whole lot more. It's also open source, and designed to teach people to mimic it while providing an excellent basis for understanding basic programming techniques.

If you're stuck getting started, might I recommend heading over to our very own NeoGAF Indie Game Development thread? Its specifically for beginners of all varieties.
 
dont forget the snipping tool for that screenshot you took in Jnes. An essential part of any mobile developer's toolkit.

I would imagine something like flappy bird would be easy to throw together in an afternoon, aside from the art.
 
Idea: Sensitive ball

You play the game as a bouncy ball, the more you press the harder it bounces, if your ball touches anything except for the ground it pops. The ball bounces automatically to the right.

To make it harder you may add gaps, and moving platforms later on.
 
endless runner template. spawn random pipe set. point + 1 when you pass the pipes.

you can save the time using game maker or even something like construct2
 
Saganator said:
No problem. Its a neat hobby, even if you don't make anything lots of people will pay to play. I really like the problem solving aspect of it. Its akin to defeating a boss/hard area in Dark/Demon Souls for me.
Click to expand...
I don't expect to go far with it. I'm really doing it to better myself as a programmer. I have a lot to learn and I've been teaching myself since graduating.
 
I ain't no coding savvy but when I took a programming class in high school I made stuff on par (not quite as good visuals though).
 
I'll learn how to code and program someday , I'm really interested but I've got no skills

cool thread, I've got an idea that would be decent enough for people
 
Saganator said:
The cool thing about programming languages is that once you know one pretty well, you know like 70% of every other language, except some of the more obscure languages. Programming languages are more like dialects rather than totally separate languages. C, C#, and C++ are all very similar and a person who knows C++ should have no problems figuring out C#, and vice versa (although the jump from C# to C++ is a bit steeper). You can't really go wrong starting with Java, C#, or C++. You can use JavaScript or C# in Unity. Game Maker has its own language, GML, which similar to Java. I don't recommend learning to program with GML. Learning to program on GML will give you bad habits which you'll eventually have to break once you move on to something like C++. Get a good foundation in C#/Java/C++/whatever, then move to GML.

I picked up C# because the book Joes2Pros, Unity, and my previous and very little experience in C++. I rented the book for free, read the first few pages and decided I wanted to code along with the book, so that was the start of me learning C#.
Click to expand...

Sounds good! I ordered the book and im going through a bunch of tutorials just to see what to expect. Thank you very much, man. I really appreciate you helping me out.



ZehDon said:
In terms of pure learning exercises for beginners, there are games that would teach you a lot more and aren't that much more complicated. Take a look at Microsoft's own "Platformer Starter Kit", which will teach you everything Flappy Bird would and a whole lot more. It's also open source, and designed to teach people to mimic it while providing an excellent basis for understanding basic programming techniques.

If you're stuck getting started, might I recommend heading over to our very own NeoGAF Indie Game Development thread? Its specifically for beginners of all varieties.
Click to expand...

I found that thread a couple of hours ago and ive been going through it. I didn't even know there were so many programs! And theres so many people on that thread that are making games. The only program i knew is RPG maker, but i dont think i would like to start off with that program though. Is the Platformer starter kit the same as the XNA framework starter kit?
 
You could probably remake the basic mechanics of it in Gamemaker in less than an hour, with no programming experience necessary. Like someone else said, it was probably harder to implement the in-game advertising than actually making the core game mechanics.
 
ZodR_ARG said:
just for fun, this is my attempt, it took me 10 min to make:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47696818/cuadr/index.html
Click to expand...

Lol, your game is fun dude. It's like Flappy Bird: The Flap and the Furious

MH4PhJe.png
Click to expand...

I'm proud of my score.
 
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