Emanuele Feronato

Talking about Game development and PROgramming.

Do you think you are a game developer? Do you want to start to make games in any language but you want to test yourself?

This is a list of six games you must be able to make in any language in less than a day.

Every game is a classic you can see on any device, and each of them has a particular feature that will help you growing in game programming.

If you aren’t able to make them… well…

Let’s see them

Concentration – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_(game)

Concentration, also known as Memory, Pelmanism, Shinkei-suijaku, Pexeso or simply Pairs, is a card game in which all of the cards are laid face down on a surface and two cards are flipped face up over each turn. The object of the game is to turn over pairs of matching cards.

Why you must be able to make it: It’s the simplest game ever… just an array. Come on.

Tic Tac Toe – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic-tac-toe

Tic-tac-toe, also spelled tick tack toe, and alternatively called noughts and crosses, Xs and Os, and many other names, is a pencil-and-paper game for two players, O and X, who take turns marking the spaces in a 3×3 grid, usually X going first.

The player who succeeds in placing three respective marks in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row wins the game.

Why you must be able to make it: This is the simplest example of artificial intelligence. The CPU player must never lose a game.

Minesweeper – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minesweeper_(computer_game)

When the game is started, the player is presented with a grid of gray squares. If the player clicks on a square without a mine, a digit is revealed in that square, the digit indicating the number of adjacent squares which contain mines.

By using logic, players must deduce that certain other squares are mine-free (or mine-filled), and proceed to click on additional squares to clear them or mark them with flag graphics to indicate the presence of a mine.

Why you must be able to make it: You will get familiar with arrays with multiple values, and there is an interesting implementation of the flood fill algorithm

Sokoban – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokoban

Transport puzzle in which the player pushes boxes around a maze, viewed from above, and tries to put them in designated locations. Only one box may be pushed at a time, and boxes cannot be pulled.

Why you must be able to make it: It’s another array game but this time you will handle keyboard interaction, and you have to be able to check for more complex rules to determine whether the player can push a box or not.

Snake – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_(video_game)

The player controls a long, thin creature, resembling a snake, which roams around on a bordered plane, picking up food (or some other item), trying to avoid hitting its own tail or the “walls” that surround the playing area.

Each time the snake eats a piece of food, its tail grows longer, making the game increasingly difficult.

The user controls the direction of the snake’s head (up, down, left, or right), and the snake’s body follows.

The player cannot stop the snake from moving while the game is in progress, and cannot make the snake go in reverse.

Why you must be able to make it: Here it comes the timer… unlike previous games just waiting for the player to make a move, this game requires time handling.

Tetris – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris

A random sequence of tetrominoes (sometimes called “tetrads” in older versions) – shapes composed of four square blocks each – fall down the playing field (a rectangular vertical shaft, called the “well” or “matrix”).

The object of the game is to manipulate these tetrominoes, by moving each one sideways and rotating it by 90 degree units, with the aim of creating a horizontal line of blocks without gaps. When such a line is created, it disappears, and any block above the deleted line will fall. With every ten lines that are cleared, the game enters a new level.

As the game progresses, each level causes the tetrominoes to fall faster, and the game ends when the stack of tetrominoes reaches the top of the playing field and no new tetrominoes are able to enter.

Why you must be able to make it: Don’t understimate this game, this is quite complex… it features timers, events, “physics”, inputs… once you’ll manage to make a clean Tetris game, you’ll definitively be able to make complex games, it’s just a matter of time.

Do you have other games in your “must do” list?