Sorry your browser is not supported!

You are using an outdated browser that does not support modern web technologies, in order to use this site please update to a new browser.

Browsers supported include Chrome, FireFox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer 10+ or Microsoft Edge.

Geek Culture / How did you become a TGC forumite?

Author
Message
nonZero
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 10th Jul 2011
Location: Dark Empire HQ, Otherworld, Silent Hill
Posted: 15th Feb 2014 10:57
Link
I was wondering this for a while. How did all these diverse folk end up here? I mean some people clearly aren't game devs (anymore?) while others could write an OS kernel. So what's your story, if you feel like sharing. What brought you here and what made you stay?

Formerly a cat
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Quik
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 3rd Jul 2008
Location: Equestria!
Posted: 15th Feb 2014 11:11
Link
I knew since 3rd grade I wanted to be a graphical game designer, in about 8th grade I started looking into this, tried lots and lots of different crappy engines and by chance, found "FPS creator" - tried that but didnt really like it. DBPro was way too hard to understand for me. Found out about the "3d forum" on here and started hanging out there and then managed to find Milkshape 3d.

And that's basicly how I got stuck here =P



Whose eyes are those eyes?
Back to top
Profile PM
The Next
Web Engineer
16
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 3rd Dec 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 15th Feb 2014 12:17
Link
Started off interested in game design not sure if it would be for me, turns out it isn't. At the time I was already doing a lot of web development work but hadn't got interested enough to actually make a living of it or do it outside of the place I worked much.

Once I started with FPS Creator and DBPro as a bit of fun I was hooked and would head back each day just to read pots and see all the cool stuff people make.

Now I am here doing the web stuff and it all works out nicely I get my bit of TGC and do the web stuff I enjoy.

Windows 7 Pro, Intel i7 3.8 GHz, 16GB DDR3, NVIDIA GTX 780 4GB Superclocked

View the beta TGC forum progress at the url below View beta forum
Back to top
Profile PM
The Zoq2
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 4th Nov 2009
Location: Linköping, Sweden
Posted: 15th Feb 2014 13:08
Link
I started out making 3d models in anim8or but had no way of using them for anything so I started looking into some game making tools and found FPS creator which I used for a while. After using FPSC for a year or 2 I got interested in learning programming and figgured DBP would be a good place to start so I used that until AppGameKit was released. I used AppGameKit T1 for around a year until the bugs in the lanugage got to annoying. Since I want to work with programming in the future I figgured I might aswell learn C++ and start using AppGameKit T2 which is what im using now.

As for the forum, I started out mostly looking around in the FPSC section and eventually went out to the rest of the forum. It's a great community which has taught me a lot of things about game development.

Say ONE stupid thing and it ends up as a forum signature forever. - Neuro Fuzzy
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Kevin Picone
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 27th Aug 2002
Location: Australia
Posted: 15th Feb 2014 14:20
Link
After coming out of retirement (from programming), found myself building a drumming site. The site was being dynamically built using Amos running through WinUAE at that time, a mate of mine mentioned he'd seen a Amos like language for PC, so figured it'd be an easy port.. Nope, it wasn't!

One of the first things I used DB for was a permutation chart builder (Pic at the bottom), still have nightmares about running into the infamous Point() implementation. Way back in the DB1.06 days.


Convert PlayBASIC To Machine Code
Back to top
Profile PM Website
Phaelax
DBPro Master
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 16th Apr 2003
Location: Metropia
Posted: 15th Feb 2014 20:03
Link
I came here because RGT/LLRGT was gone and darkbasic.com pointed me here.

http://zimnox.com
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Libervurto
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th Jun 2006
Location: On Toast
Posted: 15th Feb 2014 20:59 Edited at: 15th Feb 2014 21:00
Link
I was summoned here by a blood sacrifice.

I bought a book about Dark Basic programming and it mentioned the forums.
I actually spied on here for about a year before I posted anything. How times have changed, now I will post any old crap!

Formerly OBese87.
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Dark Java Dude 64
Community Leader
13
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 21st Sep 2010
Location: Neither here nor there nor anywhere
Posted: 15th Feb 2014 21:59 Edited at: 15th Feb 2014 22:01
Link
When I was 11 or 12, I became quite interested in computers. I found this lovely little programming language, called Phrogram. It was object oriented and was designed for children to learn (it was renamed Phrogram from KPL, or Kid's Programming Language). Well I learned that, and got sort of okay at programming in it. It had its limitations though, and so I wanted something that would be even easier, and less limited.

That led me to DBPro. When writing a hello world program in Phrogram looked like
seeing DBPro's
looked pretty amazing.

I don't know how long it was after I discovered DBPro that I came here, but when I did, it was no going back.

Back to top
Profile PM Website
nonZero
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 10th Jul 2011
Location: Dark Empire HQ, Otherworld, Silent Hill
Posted: 15th Feb 2014 22:40
Link
Wow, pretty interesting. People's reasons for being here are really as diverse as they are. This place is kinda like the setting for a sci-fi prison movie. "Heh, new kid, we all got our stories". Pretty funny as it makes me think even more on the fact that I really didn't belong here.

I'd given up coding because technology shot ahead of me due to my country catching up with the world and technology's pace. Overnight, DOS couldn't run in graphics mode on windows and I knew nothing of DOS emulators. Basically, the world was just suddenly moving too fast.
Years later I stumbled on a point 'n click RPG making dev kit. I thought it'd be fun (to make a windows game and not the crap I was doing years back) so I wrote a script for an RPG along with maps, stats, etc. But then, when I was done, I decided my tale was too epic for an unstable, horrid little gamedev kit. I happened on DBP after some painful others and, seeing it was like Qbasic, went Banzai and, seeing I could write my own plugins I was like a kid again. So I taught myself the basics and wrote a test game as my self-tutorial. Well I piblished my test game about 8 months after obtaining DBP (game took about 6 months) and I only joined the forums to post links to my game asking for feedback (it being a solo project). I took a scolding for it because it was an adult game, lol. No clue why I started hanging around the halp board after that but I did. Eventually got caught up in things. This place helped me discover lots, even outside coding. Picked up lots of music because of stuff posted here and I would never have watched MLP if it weren't for my thinking "Gawd, lessee what all this darn fuss is about". I learned some nifty coding tricks here, too and helping others solve technical problems has helped me learn. I even stayed in touch with technology at certain times only because of being here.

I lost my RPG script in the process, along with almost my entire life's woks, but plan to get it back.

Irony is, if I'd never stumbled upon that crappy RPG-making software, I'd never have gotten back into coding. But I'm sure glad it happened the way it did coz this place rocks.

Formerly a cat
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
BatVink
Moderator
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 4th Apr 2003
Location: Gods own County, UK
Posted: 15th Feb 2014 23:32 Edited at: 15th Feb 2014 23:33
Link
I had an idea for a fundraising game. I trialled the concept in VB using terrible sprites and in 2D. As bad as it looked, the idea worked fantastically well.

Then I started looking at DirectX and what I would need to make a good job of it. I Blitted a couple of sprites and my heart sank, the dream was over, it was too hard .

A couple of weeks later I picked up a PC magazine and there was a double spread feature, on whether to try Blitz or DarkBASIC for your bedroom-coding dream-maker app.

A couple of hours with DarkBASIC classic and I was hooked. About a week later I had my VB 2D concept as a working 3D concept in DB. It also had a Heli-Cam, I was so impressed! Today, it looks terrible, but as a first attempt it had me totally immersed in DB.



ten-net consulting limited
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Ortu
DBPro Master
16
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 21st Nov 2007
Location: Austin, TX
Posted: 16th Feb 2014 07:32 Edited at: 16th Feb 2014 07:36
Link
I bought a box copy of dark basic classic from a local CompUSA store, it was a random impulse buy and i knew nothing about DB, never heard of it, but I had played around in qbasic a bit in school and had a whim to get deeper into programming. I actually used it for more than a year before even knowing these forums or TGC existed. it came with a printed manual and I learned the basics from that, flipped through it so much nearly all pages had come loose from the bindings. I stumbled upon the forums basically by accident while googling for better information on something I couldn't figure out on my own.

it was kind of amazing to find this whole hidden community of cool, helpful people that I never even suspected were out there

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Seppuku Arts
Moderator
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 18th Aug 2004
Location: Cambridgeshire, England
Posted: 16th Feb 2014 22:36 Edited at: 16th Feb 2014 22:37
Link
Basically I discovered a program called Klik n Play a long time ago, my parents bought it for me and I got hooked to game creation and I later upgraded to The Games Factory from the same people (Clickteam) and they developed a 3D game making program called 'Jamagic' and I played around with the demo, didn't have much of a clue what I was doing, but sadly, there was a big price tag - at least for a 13 year old (£70).

I did a lot of digging around and came across Dark Basic Classic, which was quite cheap, I didn't join the forums right away, but I did end up joining later with a head full of ideas, but only a newb's understanding of programming and feeling overly ambitious and started a Samurai turned-based RPG project called Ronin...one I *still* have hopes of one day completing. I've tried starting it many times. One day dammit, one day!

What I did find amusing to later find out, Lee Bamber's name is in the credits for some of the example content with The Games Factory, so a small world.

Back to top
Profile PM Website
Airslide
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 18th Oct 2004
Location: California
Posted: 17th Feb 2014 00:29
Link
Quote: "I bought a box copy of dark basic classic from a local CompUSA store, ..."


I bought a boxed copy myself at Fry's Electronics. Dark Basic is probably the reason I program today... I don't use DBC, DBP or FPSC anymore, but I still frequent the forums since I've been around so long.
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Jeku
Moderator
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 4th Jul 2003
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Posted: 17th Feb 2014 10:30 Edited at: 17th Feb 2014 10:31
Link
I was working at EA and wanted a way to make my own games to impress my coworkers. I ended up paying $100 for DBP online and it took about a month to arrive in the mail from the UK. My very first forum post was a WIP


Senior Developer - CBS Interactive Music Group
Back to top
Profile PM Website
Phaelax
DBPro Master
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 16th Apr 2003
Location: Metropia
Posted: 18th Feb 2014 03:53
Link
My first post (and about 3/4 of all my posts back then) was in code snippets. Apparently I made a lot of snippets back then.

http://zimnox.com
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
greenlig
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th Aug 2003
Location: Melbourne
Posted: 18th Feb 2014 23:18
Link
I lived in a very small town in the bush, and found a DBC article in a magazine my dad bought. It had a demo on the CD, so I messed around with it for a bit. A few months later, having saved my pennies, I paid $60 for the boxed version I saw at Harvey Norman. That was in '99. Thus began the adventure. Started on the grey forums just before they died, spent a lot of time at RGT/LLRGT, and eventually ended up here. I spent just about every spare moment I could either running around in the bush or trying to make games. Haaaaven't really stopped.

ZacDuff.com
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
KeithC
Senior Moderator
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 27th Oct 2005
Location: Michigan
Posted: 18th Feb 2014 23:28
Link
FPSCreator brought me here, way back when. Then I got this Mod Badge slapped on my chest, and I just can't seem to pull away.....

Seriously though; great Community full of great people, is what keeps me here.

-Keith

Back to top
Profile PM Email
xCept
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Dec 2002
Location:
Posted: 20th Feb 2014 01:03
Link
I stumbled across DB Classic (when it was on version 1.04 as I recall) after messing around for some time with QBASIC / VB. Up until that point, I hadn't really experienced 3D graphics and still had an integrated video card while making really primitive sprite-based apps in QB.

In fact, I recall discovering DB from a demo WIP of "Cemetary Cat" so long ago, which was linked to from some forum that has long since vanished. It blew my mind, the simplicity of the syntax but powerful capabilities. That was my first inspiration to buy a 3DFX card as my old PC couldn't really handle the 3D content. The Cave Runner demo and Scorpion w/ Ball demo that came bundled with DBC were really amazing to me at the time. Just incredible that in about the same amount of code I was doing to make horrible ascii games in QB could be used to create amazing 3D in DB.

So anyway, I joined these forums before TGC existed--actually the original forums and then another 'official' forum that I can't recall but it was before these came along. Done much since then with many different platforms and languages, but still use DBP for quick prototyping and concepts, though with TGC I mostly use AppGameKit now.
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Back to top

Login to post a reply

Server time is: 2024-05-04 08:48:53
Your offset time is: 2024-05-04 08:48:53