[RampantCoyote]

About a year ago I did an article for GameDev.net entitled, "How To Build a Game in a Week From Scratch With No Budget."

It was based on a dare, actually. I'd been bragging too much. But I decided to go the extra mile and do the even more improbable, and make it an RPG.

The results were... well, we'll say it's not gonna give Final Fantasy a run for its money anytime soon. But I've made the source code available for free - and of course the article might be a somewhat useful read, too.

If'n you are curious, everything is available here:

http://www.rampantgames.com/hackenslash.html

I ended up coding it all up in PYTHON - mainly for speed, and the fact that it was FREE (I took the "zero budget" thing seriously). Python's a very powerful language if you haven't tried it. It may not be quite as easy as building an RPG with an existing engine, but it's very flexible and much faster to develop in than C++.

And it can be compiled into a distributable for end-user machines, which is a big bonus. So far this only exists in Windows that I know of - if you are developing for multiple platforms you'll have to come up with another distribution solution.

Anyway - just thought I'd point out the resource if anyone is interested. And I apologize in advance for the sorry state of the source code - but I had to come up with all of it from scratch in only 40 hours! :)
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Tales of the Rampant Coyote - Old-School Game Developer talks Indie Games, RPGs, and the Games Biz