Do you find game templates/starter kits helpful?

Game Engine Game Engine Support and Discussion
1

I just want to know what people think of these, I know we have Social’s well known FPS template.

I had a mini-golf demo from someone on this forum for some time now, just one hole, but if I was to make a mini-golf it would help. Even though it wasn’t the most complete, but I knew enough to add penalty strokes, score carrying from hole to hole, and variation in pars. I added some logic to the ball and added some carry over python scripts for this, also made an adaptation of the set location script to reset the ball where it was if it falls off the hole. So I basically made it more complete and able to have multiple holes.

What do you think about game templates.

2

Before I go on I would just like to say, I think it is nice of you to share.

What do you think about game templates.

I think they homogenize games, and keep people from learning how to do things for them self.
Rather than taking the time to learn game development, they just hack together a bunch of scripts.
Look at 3Dgame studio site, and you will find lots of half baked games, because the kids just used the templates that come with it rather than learning C#.

I think it is great to have working examples… just not templates. We have way too many “cookie cutter” games out there as it is.

It is much better for kids to just learn from scratch, otherwise they miss out on a lot of good knowledge.

3

I totally agree with that:yes:

4

In a way, yes, but they do provide a nice solution when people ask “OMG how to make FPS?!?!???!?! thanx”. Many of them refuse to learn anyway, and just come whining back with easily-answerable questions every time they need something. For these people, I think the templates are a nice way to keep them quiet until they lose interest.

5

Templates are only useful to a point. If you just add content to an existing template, you’re probably not going to feel very happy about the work. If you create the engine yourself, and add snippets of code for some more difficult functions, then you still feel good, because you’ve done something. Simply slapping together someone else’s work just doesn’t cut it in my opinion.

6

templates are usefull for many reasons. They make extremely good learning tools. They also demo the capabilities of the engine.They advertise blender and contribute to it’s development. If anything, they incourage you to learn so you can figure out how they made it work.

I don’t think worrying about a few people who slap templates togethor in order to make games is worth bothering about. You can only get so far with doing that. Not only games are being made with the engine, so for simpler tasks for example like architectural walk throughs or art projects, they are essentail to someone not wanting or needing to learn the full complexity of a game.

I’m grateful for all the templates that have been posted. I may modify the templates to suit my needs or they often give me great ideas for my own projects. Without them I would know far less than I do now. They even helped me to make a start at learning to program. They even inspired me to make templates of my own. So thanks to all the people who take the time to post this useful learning resourse! :wink:

7

I think they are useful. I learn better by creating/following so, I find it more helpful to read how-to or tutorials and build knowledge from those.

8

Like with the Mini-golf example, I had to do some work on my own to actually make it decent, I had to add the penalty strokes, the hole score and global score, tweak the physics of the ball, change some variables slightly to prevent the club from showing when the ball rolls out from under it on slopes. It had a lot of the basics, but wasn’t complete, so I completed it myself, thus I had to put some of my own work into it to make it a true game because the creator didn’t come back to making it a truly complete system.

Hey, what I think, if there’s an engine you can use, use it, but to make it unique you need to change some of the logic and code yourself.

9

In my opinion, while templates are good, they should be kept at the bare minumum of styles, textures, etc. This forces other game makers to use them almost like a module instead of an actual template. As for compleated games thoungh, I think it would be a great learning tool for n00b to be able to play around with and disect them to learn how to make games of their own. I have learned the most when I look at someone else’s work. It alows me to get a different perspective on how to make a game.

10

Templates are good for learning or for those who don’t want to learn too in depth. They’re too restrictive in most cases.

11

I’m not a big fan of using templates because I don’t learn. I often take the easy way out and then get stuck and end up with a bigger mess than I started. While I’m still a newb in 3d modeling I base my experience with other mediums.

For example, I’m building a CMS for my website by hand. I know there are plenty of content management systems out here but I don’t know how they work. If I ever want to add a feature it doesn’t have I’m going to be lost because I didn’t learn the basics.

When I started using linux I tried out a lot of distros and fell flat on my face because a lot of them basically did things for you and left you in the dark. I ended up using Slackware which is pretty basic as far as features go and learned quite a lot. I’ve since upgraded to a distro with a much better package management system, ie a package management system.

It’s all about the basics and templates to beginners are very dangerous and counter productive. Once you understand a concept then and only then should you be allowed to use templates. Why invent the wheel when someone else already has? Even still, it’s good to mix things up.

I do like templates in the way they give me a heads up and to allow me to learn how others do it. However, I’m usually overwhelmed by what I’m looking at that it doesn’t do me much good anyhow. So I go back to my incomplete, simple work and keep chugging away.

12

Well, I love templates. They have helped me a lot. But I take them apart as soon as I can. But Im like that…

What makes it tick. LOL. I learn best from a book in hand and a keyboard in the other. I like to go fram a to z with examples and the questions.

Sorry, it how I learn most things, even knitting, lol.

But we dont have a book like that for the game engine. So templates help. I would rather see a tutorial in the template, explaining everything.

Because you can learn faster if you dont have to look in a kazillion places to find out what one little statement in pythond does, or whatever, a logic brick or something.

That is what frustrates me the most. I am so used to learning from a book.

When I did the fps I went through each line of the code and made added in comments of what I guessed it was doing.

I think I posted it here someplace asking if it was correct, but never received an answer. I could be wrong about that, I mean not getting an answer.

So that frustrated me too. Sometimes when you are given an example of a script its not that helpful if there isnt a tut to go with it.

For a noob, and sometimes for the expert too. There are soo many ways to code these days, lol, and so many ways to say something or get from A to B, that the only way to follow is to look for the python/blender function be used and figure it out from there.

I wouldn rather use that disecting time to build the game then understand the scripting, etc. Does that make any sense at all?

But I am still very thankful for ANY templates. I wish there were more and they would say in the template if it is ok to use it.

Some blends are posted like that, but I cant tell if you can use them or not and write the author… actually, it would be nice if every said, Use freely, or For learning purposes only, or Keep off, or whatever.

You know, we could have some icons that replaced the words? OK… im can just ramble on and on… sorry

BIG EDIT: I am dyslexic and when I am stressed, sick etc it gets worse, sorry for all the miss spelled words… I am sad and words are very hard for me now… in fact some mean nothing at all. LOL.

13

No. Templates don’t do that.

People do.

Now there’s a thinking man. Yes, this is what templates are for (or should be) mainly.

…omg

Why is it that everyone uses this “Dyslexia” excuse lately? I swear, this is like the 3rd forum I visited today that has some dummy trying to justify a badly written post.

In a situation where you feel worried about “coming off as stupid”, it’s better not to post…

Just my thoughts…

14

…omg

Why is it that everyone uses this “Dyslexia” excuse lately? I swear, this is like the 3rd forum I visited today that has some dummy trying to justify a badly written post.

In a situation where you feel worried about “coming off as stupid”, it’s better not to post…

Just my thoughts…

Ha!

Well I dont agree with Social, Templates promote laziness in my opinion.
They are nice to have around to learn from, but using them for anything else makes the entire community look like a bunch of unskilled wanna-bees.

15

I simply implied that people should take some responsibility for the choices they make (in game development) instead of blaming various tools/constructs/templates, for what is essentially a lack of discipline on their part.

In reference to that point, I fail to see the basis of your disagreement.

…bitch. :smiley:

They are nice to have around to learn from, but using them for anything else makes the entire community look like a bunch of unskilled wanna-bees.
Yes. Using them will do that.

16

…bitch. :smiley:

Haha! Now if that is not wish full thinking…
Please keep the pillow talk for you cell mates, I am a married man :smiley:

17

You’re a man!!??? :eek:

:smiley:

*I am a horrible person…I know.

18

You’re a man!!??? :eek:

Hell yes!!
(except for Wednesday nights when I dress up in womens clothing, and hang around in bars to help make ends meet. USA economy is going to hell :frowning: )

19

Now now boys… keep it clean, keep it clean…

20

I personally do not like templates. I’d rather do it myself and figure it out on my own, it seems like I learn better that way. But if someone likes templates then let them have fun and play with their templates, but I’ll stick to doing it myself. :slight_smile: