5 ms·

Why play when you can code? MakeGamesWithUs helps the new generation make games

73 points by jvrossb 14y ago

evo_9 14y ago
Link to game making website: http://www.makegameswith.us/ http://www.makegameswith.us/ Unfortunately it's Facebook login only to sign-up and use this currently. Does anyone from makegameswith.us know if they'll be changing this anytime soon?
- jvrossb 14y ago
  Yup, removing the login wall is on the TODO this week. Account creation will be Facebook only for the time being, but you soon won't need an account to browse the site's content.
  - evo_9 14y ago
    Thanks - That's great to hear and something I'm sure a lot of HN'ers will appreciate.
    - jvrossb 14y ago
      They'll only let us rest once there are alternatives to Facebook login but this is a step in the right direction I'm sure :)
      - evo_9 14y ago
        Haha, true... sorry to be one of those harping on you to get this done... I could create a throwaway account but I'd rather use a 'real account' for something like this that I'm actually really interested in. Looks great, everyone here appreciates your hardwork!
        hkmurakami 14y ago
        For every comment, there are probably at least 50x more people who echo those sentiments but choose to stay silent. Count me as one of those people (who didn't post in this thread the first time I read it) who absolutely refuse to use Facebook authentication even though I'm very interested in finding out about Makegameswithus. (I use Grooveshark instead of Spotify on my desktop for the exact same reason)
        jvrossb 14y ago
        They make their voice heard through upvotes, we notice when the top voted comment every time we turn up on HN is about FB login.
  - ekianjo 14y ago
    Are you also going to support Android in the future, or even desktop gaming ? Not everyone is interested in iOS. :)
    - jvrossb 14y ago
      Desktop gaming I don't know. Android yes.
      - ekianjo 14y ago
        Good to know. I assume you may be interested to do tie-ins in the future with the other YC-funded company, Humble Bundle :)
  - quaz3l 14y ago
    Will it be possible to disconnect Facebook? I made a throwaway FB for only MakeGamesWithUs, because I wanted to join.
Munksgaard 14y ago
Slightly off topic, but the title intrigued me. I love coding. For me, there is nothing more satisfying than sitting down with a project, identifying problems and trying to solve them, and emerging victorious some time later. It can be something as small as writing a parser for a fictive language (with the hopes of writing a compiler eventually): The rush when I can finally run "parse sampleProgram.prog" and I get the desired AST is amazing. However, coding is something that takes considerable time, not to mention the large amounts of mental energy needed to work on even small projects, and sometimes I simply don't feel like I would be able to complete anything of significance. How many times haven't I sat in front of my computer at 10pm, knowing that I should head to bed in an hour or two, with plenty of coding projects I want to work on, but knowing that starting probably wouldn't lead very far, simply because of the investment of time and energy needed to produce anything. Those are the times where I resort to games, movies, TV-shows, books or similar. Lately I've been trying to focus more on reading books, since they almost always leave me with a more lasting feeling of satisfaction, but in the past most of this time has been spent playing games. I want to get better at coding and I want to work more on some of my projects (I am notoriously bad at finishing stuff, something else grabs me and I lose interest, or maybe it's because I get demotivated every time I encounter something hard), so I wish that I could get more stuff done in those late hours. Have others experienced the same, and how have you dealt with it? I realize that sometimes your brain needs to unwind, but I feel like I'm not getting enough out of my evenings. Does anyone have any suggestions for cool programming projects or exercises that could be worked on when you're a little bit tired at the end of the day? How do you motivate yourself to work on those little pet projects when all you want is to kick back and watch a silly movie?
- acuozzo 14y ago
  > Have others experienced the same, and how have you dealt with it? I'm experiencing the same and I'm not dealing with it very well. You're not alone! My current solution is to work on my second hobby: Digital Video Post-processing. Dirt/Dust-cleaning doesn't require much in terms of mental resources, so it's possible to do well even when tired. My problem is that I never get around to hobby programming anymore... I don't even want to imagine what it'll be like when I have kids.
- 14y ago
allsystemsgo 14y ago
I haven't looked too closely at their tutorials. Last I looked they seemed pretty simplistic. Do they actually teach you objective-c? I saw maybe 3 or 4 pages of actual teaching, and then saw a link to some example, at that was it really... Maybe I'm wrong?
- jvrossb 14y ago
  We assume you know some object oriented programming and we do teach you all the Objective-C you need to know to make an iPhone game with Cocos2D. Our last tutorial/project involves making a one-level Angry Birds clone. All of our games (https://app.makegameswith.us/ https://app.makegameswith.us/) so far were built by students who learned through our tutorials. Nobody had touched a line of Objective-C before we got to them as far as I know.
  - allsystemsgo 14y ago
    That's cool. I'll take a closer look at it. I appreciate the response. Good luck with your firm!
gagege 14y ago
I don't mean any offense to MakeGamesWithUs by asking this, you guys seem cool, but this is an honest question: Why are developers, especially game developers it seems, so enamored with iOS? It seems like you'd get a bigger user base and less proprietary-API and marketplace-acceptance induced headaches if you developed for Android, Windows or browsers or something. What is the draw? Is it just the thought that you might make more money on iOS?
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73 points by jvrossb 14y ago

evo_9 14y ago

Link to game making website: http://www.makegameswith.us/ http://www.makegameswith.us/ Unfortunately it's Facebook login only to sign-up and use this currently. Does anyone from makegameswith.us know if they'll be changing this anytime soon?

jvrossb 14y ago
Yup, removing the login wall is on the TODO this week. Account creation will be Facebook only for the time being, but you soon won't need an account to browse the site's content.
- evo_9 14y ago
  Thanks - That's great to hear and something I'm sure a lot of HN'ers will appreciate.
  - jvrossb 14y ago
    They'll only let us rest once there are alternatives to Facebook login but this is a step in the right direction I'm sure :)
    - evo_9 14y ago
      Haha, true... sorry to be one of those harping on you to get this done... I could create a throwaway account but I'd rather use a 'real account' for something like this that I'm actually really interested in. Looks great, everyone here appreciates your hardwork!
      - hkmurakami 14y ago
        For every comment, there are probably at least 50x more people who echo those sentiments but choose to stay silent. Count me as one of those people (who didn't post in this thread the first time I read it) who absolutely refuse to use Facebook authentication even though I'm very interested in finding out about Makegameswithus. (I use Grooveshark instead of Spotify on my desktop for the exact same reason)
        jvrossb 14y ago
        They make their voice heard through upvotes, we notice when the top voted comment every time we turn up on HN is about FB login.
- ekianjo 14y ago
  Are you also going to support Android in the future, or even desktop gaming ? Not everyone is interested in iOS. :)
  - jvrossb 14y ago
    Desktop gaming I don't know. Android yes.
    - ekianjo 14y ago
      Good to know. I assume you may be interested to do tie-ins in the future with the other YC-funded company, Humble Bundle :)
- quaz3l 14y ago
  Will it be possible to disconnect Facebook? I made a throwaway FB for only MakeGamesWithUs, because I wanted to join.

Munksgaard 14y ago

Slightly off topic, but the title intrigued me. I love coding. For me, there is nothing more satisfying than sitting down with a project, identifying problems and trying to solve them, and emerging victorious some time later. It can be something as small as writing a parser for a fictive language (with the hopes of writing a compiler eventually): The rush when I can finally run "parse sampleProgram.prog" and I get the desired AST is amazing. However, coding is something that takes considerable time, not to mention the large amounts of mental energy needed to work on even small projects, and sometimes I simply don't feel like I would be able to complete anything of significance. How many times haven't I sat in front of my computer at 10pm, knowing that I should head to bed in an hour or two, with plenty of coding projects I want to work on, but knowing that starting probably wouldn't lead very far, simply because of the investment of time and energy needed to produce anything. Those are the times where I resort to games, movies, TV-shows, books or similar. Lately I've been trying to focus more on reading books, since they almost always leave me with a more lasting feeling of satisfaction, but in the past most of this time has been spent playing games. I want to get better at coding and I want to work more on some of my projects (I am notoriously bad at finishing stuff, something else grabs me and I lose interest, or maybe it's because I get demotivated every time I encounter something hard), so I wish that I could get more stuff done in those late hours. Have others experienced the same, and how have you dealt with it? I realize that sometimes your brain needs to unwind, but I feel like I'm not getting enough out of my evenings. Does anyone have any suggestions for cool programming projects or exercises that could be worked on when you're a little bit tired at the end of the day? How do you motivate yourself to work on those little pet projects when all you want is to kick back and watch a silly movie?

acuozzo 14y ago
> Have others experienced the same, and how have you dealt with it? I'm experiencing the same and I'm not dealing with it very well. You're not alone! My current solution is to work on my second hobby: Digital Video Post-processing. Dirt/Dust-cleaning doesn't require much in terms of mental resources, so it's possible to do well even when tired. My problem is that I never get around to hobby programming anymore... I don't even want to imagine what it'll be like when I have kids.
14y ago

allsystemsgo 14y ago

I haven't looked too closely at their tutorials. Last I looked they seemed pretty simplistic. Do they actually teach you objective-c? I saw maybe 3 or 4 pages of actual teaching, and then saw a link to some example, at that was it really... Maybe I'm wrong?

jvrossb 14y ago
We assume you know some object oriented programming and we do teach you all the Objective-C you need to know to make an iPhone game with Cocos2D. Our last tutorial/project involves making a one-level Angry Birds clone. All of our games (https://app.makegameswith.us/ https://app.makegameswith.us/) so far were built by students who learned through our tutorials. Nobody had touched a line of Objective-C before we got to them as far as I know.
- allsystemsgo 14y ago
  That's cool. I'll take a closer look at it. I appreciate the response. Good luck with your firm!

gagege 14y ago

I don't mean any offense to MakeGamesWithUs by asking this, you guys seem cool, but this is an honest question: Why are developers, especially game developers it seems, so enamored with iOS? It seems like you'd get a bigger user base and less proprietary-API and marketplace-acceptance induced headaches if you developed for Android, Windows or browsers or something. What is the draw? Is it just the thought that you might make more money on iOS?

deleted 14y ago

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