Allegro.cc - Online Community

Allegro.cc Forums » Off-Topic Ordeals » Abandoned Projects

This thread is locked; no one can reply to it. rss feed Print
Abandoned Projects
Paul whoknows
Member #5,081
September 2004
avatar

Hi!

I created this thread in order to post: binaries, screenshots, art, videos, or any other related things about our abandoned projects. I'll start with mine:

B.R. Project:

I started this project probably in 2007, using Allegro 4, then I moved the project to AllegroGL and in the end all the graphics related code was just pure OGL.

As my skills improved I realized the core code was a fine piece of crap, then I decided to start from scratch using my own framework, but lack of time and motivation made this never happen.

Somehow I managed to break the old code, and it won't compile again so there are no working binaries and the only thing remaining are the assets(not sure about this) and these videos:

video

video

____

"The unlimited potential has been replaced by the concrete reality of what I programmed today." - Jordan Mechner.

verthex
Member #11,340
September 2009
avatar

I haven't abandoned any of my projects, well except for all the ones I'm not currently working on. I have no screenshots either only text output of random things like memory addresses of pointers, array element indices, and basic debugging junk.

LennyLen
Member #5,313
December 2004
avatar

I started writing a reply to this thread, then abandoned my attempt halfway through.

Trent Gamblin
Member #261
April 2000
avatar

I wrote a Zelda-esque game maybe 6-7 years ago, and abandoned it for the same reason as the OP: the code was out of control. It was my first C++ program (coming from C background.) It was a half decent engine feature wise. You could walk around, interact with stuff (pick stuff up, attack, special attacks, dialogue, triggers, doors, etc) but it reached a point where it was too hard to add new stuff because it was a big ugly blob.

I still have the code in a backup, but don't ever plan on looking at it again. Oh, and the toughest part was graphics... I suck at drawing and this game had 8 directional movement, so I had the character animated but there were too few frames and it didn't look great, and I needed a lot more graphics. Also, I made a WYSIWYG map editor where you could place entities and stuff, give them properties and all that, but the GUI "library" was total crap so it was getting really difficult to program the editor too.

james_lohr
Member #1,947
February 2002

Somehow I managed to break the old code, and it won't compile again

That's a piss-poor excuse. Unless you've managed to mislay code, it can't be that hard to get it compiling.

One good way to not give up on a project is to make sure it's useful and maintainable from the outset. Then release it as open-source, and you'll have people nagging you about bug fixes and feature requests ever after. This way you're not only letting yourself down, but you're letting others down too. ::)

Matthew Leverton
Supreme Loser
January 1999
avatar

{"name":"605345","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/0\/4\/04c246f6dcdfa598029525f0ad0f1c7d.png","w":642,"h":426,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/0\/4\/04c246f6dcdfa598029525f0ad0f1c7d"}605345

Not really abandoned, as I do still occasionally load it up for giggles. But I don't expect to ever finish it, so I guess it qualifies.

I think the biggest demotivating factor for me is that I hate all C IDEs on Linux, and I don't really feel like booting into Windows just to work on it for 30 minutes here or there. The project is complex and without a good debugger, it's hard to remind myself of how everything is working after I've been away. :-X

Dario ff
Member #10,065
August 2008
avatar

I abandoned Arkab on purpose because I got bored of the gameplay in the end and couldn't think of new ways to spice it up. :P It just was trial & error at its core. Some casual players I've tried it with liked it, but I didn't end up liking it later. It was quite a relaxing game tho.

video

video

It was quite a big help on learning shader language tho, which originated my next, more interesting project. 8-)

TranslatorHack 2010, a human translation chain in a.cc.
My games: [GiftCraft] - [Blocky Rhythm[SH2011]] - [Elven Revolution] - [Dune Smasher!]

Bob Keane
Member #7,342
June 2006

I started a simple Battleship game, but gave up when my hard drive crashed. I don't have the time to revive it, but as soon as I hit the lottery, I will.

By reading this sig, I, the reader, agree to render my soul to Bob Keane. I, the reader, understand this is a legally binding contract and freely render my soul.
"Love thy neighbor as much as you love yourself means be nice to the people next door. Everyone else can go to hell. Missy Cooper.
The advantage to learning something on your own is that there is no one there to tell you something can't be done.

james_lohr
Member #1,947
February 2002

Turns of War

Here's my dead baby (I added some MM8 music to make it less dull to watch):

video

I abandoned it because it was all written in plain C, lacking even basic object orientation. I was a bad programmer at the time.

Actually just looking at it is a bit depressing. :(

On the bright side, I've put even more time into my current game, which I'm going to finish or die trying. :)

Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
avatar

If the code for that is even remotely readable, your statement about being a bad programmer at the time is 100% bullshit.

--
Thomas Fjellstrom - [website] - [email] - [Allegro Wiki] - [Allegro TODO]
"If you can't think of a better solution, don't try to make a better solution." -- weapon_S
"The less evidence we have for what we believe is certain, the more violently we defend beliefs against those who don't agree" -- https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/592870205409353730

james_lohr
Member #1,947
February 2002

Well, by bad I mean unprofessional. As I gradually became more aware of best practices and "beautiful" code, the code base became gradually more abhorrent to work with until eventually I just couldn't hack it (pun intended :P).

SiegeLord
Member #7,827
October 2006
avatar

Chronicles of Shaenor

Was supposed to be an isometric RPG thing, but never made it past the basic editor. Was the reason I started using Allegro in the first place. Abandoned for no particular reason, but I'll try to restart it from scratch at some point.

{"name":"605350","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/5\/d5eba14fc4249511e458c1cfd6665536.jpg","w":805,"h":624,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/5\/d5eba14fc4249511e458c1cfd6665536"}605350

{"name":"605348","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/f\/a\/fafefbb4c837031b742fc2d632830da5.png","w":805,"h":624,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/f\/a\/fafefbb4c837031b742fc2d632830da5"}605348

Made a voxel editor for the purpose of making things for it too:

{"name":"605349","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/c\/9\/c93639a4e6fc3daccabd712dccd1be42.png","w":804,"h":623,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/c\/9\/c93639a4e6fc3daccabd712dccd1be42"}605349

"Fly"

Was supposed to be a clone of Klingon Academy. Used Irrlicht for this one... Abandoned it for no particular reason. I think I got around to making weapons + damage modeling.

{"name":"605351","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/2\/7\/2754ca0422d1cd0b88a7645341a3e5d9.jpg","w":956,"h":596,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/2\/7\/2754ca0422d1cd0b88a7645341a3e5d9"}605351

{"name":"605352","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/e\/ee19c65cdf34901bfd33a84db84602a9.jpg","w":954,"h":597,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/e\/e\/ee19c65cdf34901bfd33a84db84602a9"}605352

"For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow."-Ecclesiastes 1:18
[SiegeLord's Abode][Codes]:[DAllegro5]:[RustAllegro]

Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
avatar

I have too many abandoned projects to decide which one goes here. Also I have two rungs of abandoned... "Abandoned and very unlikely to ever resume" and "Functionally abandoned, may yet get back to it, but no idea when".

--
Thomas Fjellstrom - [website] - [email] - [Allegro Wiki] - [Allegro TODO]
"If you can't think of a better solution, don't try to make a better solution." -- weapon_S
"The less evidence we have for what we believe is certain, the more violently we defend beliefs against those who don't agree" -- https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/592870205409353730

Trent Gamblin
Member #261
April 2000
avatar

I abandon stuff a lot less these days. I could list a lot of other games I abandoned. Oh, here's one from high school. I don't even start something that I'm going to abandon anymore. git r done!

Dario ff
Member #10,065
August 2008
avatar

I have too many abandoned projects to decide which one goes here. Also I have two rungs of abandoned... "Abandoned and very unlikely to ever resume" and "Functionally abandoned, may yet get back to it, but no idea when".

Same feeling here. Most of the "won't touch again" projects are just old iterations of my dream game. :P Who knows if I'll ever get close to doing it someday, but it's what's been driving me to learn a lot of stuff over all these years.

TranslatorHack 2010, a human translation chain in a.cc.
My games: [GiftCraft] - [Blocky Rhythm[SH2011]] - [Elven Revolution] - [Dune Smasher!]

Specter Phoenix
Member #1,425
July 2001
avatar

I'm afraid this thread isn't big enough to list the failed projects I have had. Ideas are a dime a minute but I've failed time and time again to make them into final projects (if I got started on them at all).

james_lohr
Member #1,947
February 2002

I'm afraid this thread isn't big enough to list the failed projects I have had.

Then just list the most tragic abandonment (i.e. the project you got furthest with but still abandoned).

Specter Phoenix
Member #1,425
July 2001
avatar

Then just list the most tragic abandonment (i.e. the project you got furthest with but still abandoned).

Well they all have got to the same point before I start thinking I can't do it and abandon it.

l j
Member #10,584
January 2009
avatar

The last project that I abandoned where there were actually graphics present was a platformer I was working on.

You could jump, wall jump and slide down walls. It could have been a very fun game I think. It was actually fun to play around in the test map, without any obstacles or enemies.

The graphics were really crap though, black background and a red square as a character. The collision detection was also quite broken.

I think I'm going to start this project all over again though.

Dario ff
Member #10,065
August 2008
avatar

Well they all have got to the same point before I start thinking I can't do it and abandon it.

Of course if you think you can't do it you're never gonna progress. Challenging yourself to a new goal is what will get you to learn new stuff that you think of mysterious right now. Even if you don't succeed as you wanted in the end, every little bit helps.

My little side project of doing a level editor for a recently released game, even if a bit that looks like it would never be finished, has got me into trying newer tools now. XML parsing, writing. 3D rendering using Ogre. I never thought I would try something like that when I was trying to figure out how to get double buffering and sprites working, but yet it seems I did. :P

TranslatorHack 2010, a human translation chain in a.cc.
My games: [GiftCraft] - [Blocky Rhythm[SH2011]] - [Elven Revolution] - [Dune Smasher!]

jmasterx
Member #11,410
October 2009

I abandoned a game that was going to use Box2D, Skeletal Animation, and Parallax backgrounds.

video

But I reused a lot of the code for a card game I'm making. (Not Box2D though).

OICW
Member #4,069
November 2003
avatar

I don't even start something that I'm going to abandon anymore.

This pretty much sums it up. Last gaming project I've done is probably ChristmasHack 2007. Other than that I'm consumed by school projects and don't have time and motivation to start anything else.

Anyway, to name at least a few of my abandoned projects:

  • Intruder - this was supposed to be SHMUP, rewrote it probably 4 times. Found out how not to write AI though.

  • Battlestar - this was supposed to be a game where you would control large space ship from above and complete missions. All from the top down perspective.

  • Tactics - failed turn-based strategy. Never got past map generator. Though, I've had complete design document including an implementation plan.

There's one project that I've finished as my semestral work that got abandoned. It was a utility that would load bitmap with height iso-contours and create 3D terrain. User interface was lacking and there was no LOD, but actually it worked. There's even a possibility to return to it - now that I know a lot more about image analysis :)

An obligatory screenshot:
{"name":"594111","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/5\/e\/5ee8e41f88201f6ca8ceb53a5e218650.png","w":1024,"h":768,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/5\/e\/5ee8e41f88201f6ca8ceb53a5e218650"}594111

[My website][CppReference][Pixelate][Allegators worldwide][Who's online]
"Final Fantasy XIV, I feel that anything I could say will be repeating myself, so I'm just gonna express my feelings with a strangled noise from the back of my throat. Graaarghhhh..." - Yahtzee
"Uhm... this is a.cc. Did you honestly think this thread WOULDN'T be derailed and ruined?" - BAF
"You can discuss it, you can dislike it, you can disagree with it, but that's all what you can do with it"

Specter Phoenix
Member #1,425
July 2001
avatar

Dario ff said:

Of course if you think you can't do it you're never gonna progress. Challenging yourself to a new goal is what will get you to learn new stuff that you think of mysterious right now. Even if you don't succeed as you wanted in the end, every little bit helps.

Yeah, it is easier to think I can't do it. I'm a logical person but when I try to make ideas into code it falls apart. Can do simple terminal/console apps but the more complex they get the more issues I have and then throw in graphics and such and I feel overwhelmed with it.

William Labbett
Member #4,486
March 2004
avatar

OICW said:

An obligatory screenshot:

Set as Desktop Background - thanks.

I started on a shmup which I abandoned this last year. Couldn't get the scolling to work.

Also I recently abandoned my main game in favour of a new simpler game which I'm current;y working on - called Pong Ping.

An obligatory screenshot:

{"name":"605353","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/7\/f\/7fcd3292d63441022910219c565fa2d9.png","w":640,"h":480,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/7\/f\/7fcd3292d63441022910219c565fa2d9"}605353

verthex
Member #11,340
September 2009
avatar

What are those weird polygons towards the bottom left side and center of the screen



Go to: