Making another game....

Was thinking back about Bluff and thinking why the Multiplayer aspect failed. I think for Bluff, I was too ambitious right from the start. I wanted to finished all the gameplay aspects first, then worry about the Networking (When I don't have any previous experience in Networking).

In the end, the gameplay aspect of Bluff grew to become so huge that it became impossible for me to keep track of everything that is going at once. Like the saying, "Kill the monster while it's small". Here, I think it's "do the networking part when the program is simple". The gameplay aspects basically exploded with codes flying everywhere and by then it's just too difficult to throw in Networking portion. (Without crashing everything)

Of course a major reason is because I don't have much experience with Java Networking, and yet with Bluff I tried to have 4 PEOPLE send very complicated data to each other, with timer running the background and all sort of complicated actions one could take.

I remember Michael Spicer always said, "Build a toy one first". So this time, I'm going to do a much more basic game. First, I'll worry about how to connect 2 computers together, and actualy make them able to send some meaningful data to each other (like view the same exact screen that will update) first, and then I'll add in the gameplay codes for the game.

This upcoming game is basically a self-learning project about Java-Networking...with just 2 players. My goal is to have the basic foundation up by the end of this week. Say, 2 computers, being able to send very simple game information (like the position of a graphic) to each other. Hope I can succeed~!