Creating a card game program

Hi Zombeese,

I'm a game programmer by trade (and I believe Rick is, too). Rick has pointed you in some good directions. Let me add a bit to what he said.

First off, you could also program in C#. This is Microsoft's answer to Java.

Here are some advantages and disadvantages to each language:

1) Java is free and well supported. There are many good tools you can find for it, and you won't have to pay a cent. Also, if you go this route, I can point you to some beginner's tutorials that take you from knowing absolutely nothing to writing simple games. Also, I'd be available for consulting :).

I make no secret that this is my personal favorite choice, but I'm biased.

One problem with Java is that Microsoft has tried to block it by not including it in the latest version of Windows, so many people will have to install something to make it work on their machines. However, many people have already done this (it's pretty painless), and even more encouraging, the courts recently ordered Microsoft to support Java directly. This means that Microsoft's website will once again make Java available for download and easy installation. Overall, Java's future is looking up.

Flash is another good choice. It will set you back about $500 (if I remember correctly). It is installed on almost every Windows machine out there. I personally find Flash difficult to understand, but I've heard that it's gotten much better over the years. Actually, it's "Action Script" programming language is supposedly a lot like Java.

C#, mentioned above, is a full-on programming language like Java. It's *not* free, nor are the tools. I have no experience with it, but the people I know who use it like it quite a bit. It's greatest advantage is speed: Java isn't the fastest language out there. C# is much faster (as is Flash). This means that arcade-style games will work better in C# and Flash than in Java. You card games should be fine in any of these languages, though.

If you want to ask more in-depth questions, feel free to PM me or send me email at kreitler@sleepinggiantsoftware.com.

Good luck with your games!

Mark

Vassal and several other engines that are more targeted to board games than straight card games are all listed on the fourth link that I listed, I think. Vassal is probably the best of the board-game specific engines, but look through all the links I sent, and you'll find different tools for different reasons.

If you use one of these engines, however, read their licensing information to make sure that you'll be able to distribute your game and make money off of it, if that is your goal. As long as the licensing matches up, you are probably gonna have an easier time with a pre-made engine than programming from scratch.

Java ain't a bad choice overall, but I do find that it is inferior in most ways (look, performance, etc.) compared to natively compiled applications.

Performance is definitely an issue -- but that shouldn't matter too much for a card game.

Look should be comperable -- unless you're relying heavily on animations (which gets back to the performance problem).

The big disadvantage to natively compiled code is getting it to run within a web browser -- which I thought was one of Zombeese goals (could be wrong on that, though).

Personally, I like reinventing the wheel, because I learn more and I can make any kind of wheel I want. That may not be appropriate here, though...

If your goal is to make a downloadable version of your card game as quickly as possible, you probably want to invest in one of the card game packages mentioned above. If your goal involves either learning to program or creating a browser-based game, Java is probably a better choice.

Mark

My vote goes for Java, too. I am a programmer as well, and if you check you'll be convinced that the virtual machines (runs as an interpreter, similarly) run quite fast on today's hardware (2G+), for any 2D application you won't see too much of a difference really, only that your java code will be much portable to any platform where there is a VM for.