noob frustration

[developgame]

Just really frustrated. I just keep hitting walls when developing my game
after months, I am still developing the setup


It is really tough
I have much trouble using framework components such as zone and stock successfully
I follow the steps and then get errors or nothing.

What did you do to work through obstacles?

Thanks for any suggestions you may give

[paramesis]

The best general advice I can give is to see projects from other devs as an example for how to do something, and the documentation as more of a why.

On my first adaptation, whenever I had a feature I didn't know how to implement, I would find an example in another adaptation, then copy it over and swap out variables, referencing the docs to understand how all the arguments work. I currently have read-only access to 19 projects.

Errors are useful. Look at the Console tab in Devtools to see a stack trace whenever a javascript error comes up, and that can help you pinpoint exactly which functions are causing trouble. Most errors I run into stem from objects or arguments not existing or being formatted incorrectly.

[Victoria_La]

Coding is not easy, it usually require a lot of skill including math background. BGA Studio is not a framework for non-experience developers.
But I adire you for persistancy, I would have quit it in days if I cannot get though it enough to enjoy and find another hobby.
Most of it documented already but here is re-cap:
- Read the docs, most of the info is there, If its not there you doing something weird
- Use dev forum to ask question or discord chat server (which is also documented on main page)
- Setup dev env to sync file automatically and do baby steps. Fix one thing and test immediately. Only move on to next step when it working. Never write lot of code and then nothing will even load.
- Put you code on github, commit frequently. If you stuck its easy to revert to previous working version
- Look at code of existing games. There lot of games in studio, check them out - if they do what you need get read only access and look at the code

[PirateKitten]

As mentioned already - I would definitely suggest looking at similar games and taking inspiration from these. There's much the docs do not cover so it is highly valuable to look at how others have achieved the same thing (this isn't plagiarizing, the code is intended be viewable and used across games).

Having used both Zone + Stock, they both have their quirks!

[Tisaac]

As mentioned already - I would definitely suggest looking at similar games and taking inspiration from these. There's much the docs do not cover so it is highly valuable to look at how others have achieved the same thing (this isn't plagiarizing, the code is intended be viewable and used across games).

Having used both Zone + Stock, they both have their quirks!

I personnaly don't use any component because of these quirks.
As others said, looking at others code is usually a good thing, and feel free to ask question on the discord server when you do that instead of wandering in the thousands lines of others...

[Victoria_La]

I personnaly don't use any component because of these quirks.
As others said, looking at others code is usually a good thing, and feel free to ask question on the discord server when you do that instead of wandering in the thousands lines of others...

I don't use them either. With css animation there is no need for any manual js animation. All these do is place object in div and calculate top/left
position. And if you add css animation it will all slide beatifully itself. But if you don't know how to calculate position to put object on ellipse for example - than you can use it.

[tchobello]

I personnaly don't use any component because of these quirks.
As others said, looking at others code is usually a good thing, and feel free to ask question on the discord server when you do that instead of wandering in the thousands lines of others...

I don't use them either. With css animation there is no need for any manual js animation. All these do is place object in div and calculate top/left
position. And if you add css animation it will all slide beatifully itself. But if you don't know how to calculate position to put object on ellipse for example - than you can use it.

why don't you just explain this in the official Studio doc ???
many are really struggling trying to use Components, create animations... as explained in that official Studio doc.

[Inaofr]

CSS animations are standard stuff, you can find documentation and tutorial for it on the net.
BGA studio doc is for all the specific stuff of BGA, it is not meant to document all the standard.

[developgame]

The best general advice I can give is to see projects from other devs as an example for how to do something, and the documentation as more of a why.

On my first adaptation, whenever I had a feature I didn't know how to implement, I would find an example in another adaptation, then copy it over and swap out variables, referencing the docs to understand how all the arguments work. I currently have read-only access to 19 projects.

Errors are useful. Look at the Console tab in Devtools to see a stack trace whenever a javascript error comes up, and that can help you pinpoint exactly which functions are causing trouble. Most errors I run into stem from objects or arguments not existing or being formatted incorrectly.

Thanks paramesis!
checking out how other programmers did something is a great way of learning the framework!

I will definitely check out stack traces for javascript vis DevTools.

Please stay well, and have an awesome 2021

[developgame]

Coding is not easy, it usually require a lot of skill including math background. BGA Studio is not a framework for non-experience developers.
But I adire you for persistancy, I would have quit it in days if I cannot get though it enough to enjoy and find another hobby.
Most of it documented already but here is re-cap:
- Read the docs, most of the info is there, If its not there you doing something weird
- Use dev forum to ask question or discord chat server (which is also documented on main page)
- Setup dev env to sync file automatically and do baby steps. Fix one thing and test immediately. Only move on to next step when it working. Never write lot of code and then nothing will even load.
- Put you code on github, commit frequently. If you stuck its easy to revert to previous working version
- Look at code of existing games. There lot of games in studio, check them out - if they do what you need get read only access and look at the code

Thank you for your response, Victoria_La! and for your encouragement.
I did not know about the discord chat server- good to know!
Thanks for your advice!

Please stay well, and have an awesome 2021