h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Greetings to you, Alf Fly, and welcome to the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy online, or H2G2. I am Vidmaster, an ACE, or Assistant Community Editor. That means that I welcome people like you who are newcomers to the site. I'm here for you to ask questions of, and to get you started in your wanderings of our community.

You mentioned game creation in your intro. As an avid gamer, I have to ask, what kinds of games do you do?

Here are some helpful things to get you started:

The H2G2 Post have made a nice little links page for those of us that don't carry them around in our heads. You can find it at A616718.

For a longer welcome, go to the Welcome that the editors (usually called the Italics, as their names appear in italics in the who's online menu) who keep the site running have written at A317459. It's got a lot of the basic background and how-tos that you will need - it is a very good place to start.

Then, should you desire, you can take the H2G2 Tour at A317459 to see how it all works and become familiar with the system.

If some of the H2G2 terms leave you a little confused, there is a great page about it at A632431.

If you have any questions or just want to talk, either post them in this conversation or drop me a note at my home space over at U185266.

Have Fun, and May your blade remain ever sharp.
Vidmaster

Hello!

Gawd, I really should have replied to this sooner, but I've been up to my nasal passages in, well, stuff for quite some time. Thanks for the greeting, and the links, all of which I'll follow in order to acclimatise myself to this wonderful resource.

My game creation: Well, I can't program, so I was delighted to find a program called Game Maker. It provides you with a multi-purpose game engine into which you add your own graphics, music and sound. On its most basic level, you don't even have to program a single line of code, because you can do all your coding through a simple drag-and-drop interface, but if you take the time to learn the built-in scripting language you can create far more powerful games. I mean, you're limited to 2D stuff (except for one very talented user who's working on a Mode7 style game) but put in a bit of work and you can make some good games.

So far, I've made two Pacman clones; Cacman, which is a very straighforward clone, and Cacman In Grub-Grab Gardens, which adds the challenge of having to chase after food while still avoiding ghosts. I made an Arcanoid clone called Arachnoid, but it isn't that good - the sequel will be infinitely better. More recently I finished a Pang clone called Super Bubble Burst, which I created as a birthday present for my sister, and Skate Daze, an ice-skating puzzle/action game which has been universally well recieved for its challenging old-skool gameplay. All of these will soon be available from my website [Broken link removed by Moderator]as soonas I've got round to updating it again.

Thanks again for your welcome.

Seeyas,

Chris