When You're ready to tackle games

Okay can you guys make a list of what a programmer should know before tackling games?

Functions, pointers, polymorphism, inheritance...you get the idea.

What libraries too?

What kind of games? You can write a game after about 30 minutes of practice with C++. But if you're talking about what most people think of as games, you need to know more than just language features and libraries.

If you're at the stage where you understand the concepts you mentioned, I think you're ready to start looking at games. If there are any other tools you need, you'll learn them on the way. As far as libraries go, again, you need to think more about the kind of game you want to make. You'll most likely want to be aware of some choices you have for graphics libraries.

I use SDL (www.libsdl.org) which works in C++, but is geared more towards C programmers. It's useable on a variety of platforms, and also has support for sound, controllers, threads, etc... Very useful. Other popular choices include OpenGL, Allegro, and DirectX. Do a board search, and you'll be sure to find more recommendations and information on each library.

The tenth windows program I built was a graphical game.
I would say that you won't know until you try!

Cool-August but did you use a library or just bitmaps, and other basic graphics? I have attempted a semi-simple game with just bitmaps but the TransparentBitBlt() function won't work for me,even though I linked the library. There's another way for doing that isn't there, as in masks?

I use masks. I have never used TransparentBitBlt() before.

Do you know of somewhere I could read about masks? Or some source that uses them?

And I use this to draw my images:

Code:

---

SelectObject(hdcMemory, hbmMan);
BitBlt(hdc, manX, manY, mw, mh, hdcMemory, 0, 0, SRCAND);
SelectObject(hdcMemory, hbmManMask);
BitBlt(hdc, manX, manY, mw, mh, hdcMemory, 0, 0, SRCPAINT);

---

Make your mask image a black and white image, make the stuff you want transparent white, and the rest black.

And in you main image of your man, make the stuff you want transparent black.


These are some example images.

Ok, I'll give it a shot. Thanks.

Somthing I forgot to add is that unless you make that main image a 16 Color Bitmap, it might not work.