Gameboy Development Forum

People don't owe you any answer, video tutorial, or anything. Everything that they do is on their free time because they want to. Creating a video is an example, it takes a long time to do and they just don't want to waste their time that way. And, if you are annoying, people won't want to help you.

If you can't follow the instructions to use ZGB or similar maybe you shouldn't be using them, just saying.

npzman wrote:

I just want to make a gameboy game that I can sell. It is what I have always wanted to do since I was 5 years old . You should know that I won't get any closer to my goal if you don't answer my email , questions on this forum and/or Twitter. I won't let anything stop me from making my own dream Gameboy game.

If you won't let anything stop you from making your own Gameboy game, maybe you should start thinking and resolving problems by yourself instead of waiting for others to do it for you.

I'm not saying that we don't want to help, if you have problems that I can answer I'll be glad to help. However, while I haven't used it, the ZGB tutorial seems well explained, and if people doesn't answer you it's either that :
- they don't have the answer,
- the answer is so easy you could find it by yourself if you took some time

Also, not wanting to sound harsh, but seeing you on the forum always complaining about X not responding to your mails, about Y not helping you enough is sometimes really irritating.

gbjosh wrote:

Other people may not have as much free time as you think they do so it is a good idea to exercise patience when asking for help. From looking at some of your posts it seems like you aren't spending enough time with the materials you're asking about to understand and apply the concepts they explain. Learning how to develop things takes practice and time so try to spend more time making and learning things on your own.

Acting aggressive towards people and constantly asking them why they aren't answering you will probably make them less likely to help.

To be honest aside from what I done to a cat in the forums I never been aggressive to anyone before ?

@gbjosh do you know how to use ZGB ?

Does anyone want to help me make a dream gameboy rom

By replying to my emails and forum post in this site ?

I'm probably going to be harsh, but I'm not a native English speaker so I might write things I didn't intend to mean. Plus even in my native language I tend to do that anyways.
But you want an answer so badly, so I'm going to give mine away. Please note that it took me nearly my whole afternoon to try making the most complete answer I could make. My state of mind also changed while I was typing this, so sometime's I'm really salty, sometimes I'm softer. It was an effort to produce this huge post.
I also included nice little "tl;dr"s after each paragraph if you want a résumé.
You also need to understand I don't owe any answer to you. I did this to be nice. Don't be rude at me, okay ? If you aren't, I'll try helping you the best I can.



On how to make your help requests more appealing :
Maybe you should try being more precise on what bugs you. You can't be stuck on two whole chapters. There has to be something precise that doesn't work. Sample reasons :
- I don't get what writing to register [????] does. Can anyone please help me on this ?
- Why does function [????] not do [thing you were expecting] but instead it does [thing it actually does or seem to do] ? [Precise in which context you're using it]
- The explanation on how function [????] works / is intended to be used makes no sense to me. Can you please try explaining it differently ? (Then, on the new explanation you're given, you can pinpoint where your brain locks up)
- I'm trying to use function [????], but for some reason the compiler throws error [????] at me. Has anyone an idea of why ?
Something I can tell you from helping a lot of people - and I'm 18, so I just graduated from being a kid - is that just saying "it doesn't work pls help" can give reactions ranging from "Oh boy, I'm going to spend ages trying to find out what doesn't work in the first place. I don't want to go through this pain, but let's do it to be nice." to "Fuck it, I'm not spending ages on that. His insisting is really getting on my nerves.".

Example of appealing ask : http://gbdev.gg8.se/forums/viewtopic.php?id=435
- Shows the code that may be wrong
- Shows what he gets (screenshots are ALWAYS a plus because humans are lazy)
- Explains what he gets when trying different ways
- Explains what he expected to get
And he got a very quick answer. His problem was simple enough, sure, but I guarantee if he had said "My sprites don't work in my Pong game" without the screenshot, he wouldn't have been answered so quickly.

tl;dr : Explain what is wrong, tell, as precisely as you are able to, what you need help for.


Also stop saying everybody is ignoring you.
You got an answer from AntonioND telling you he can't help you for the same reason as I. Note that you asked him a precise question ("Do you use ZGB ?") and he answered. Remember the above paragraph.
Also, from the experience I had with him, I'd say Antonio is someone very nice and patient. More than most people.

tl;dr : You're not ignored by everybody. Just by those you wanted help from, because you turned them away from wanting to help you


Also stop using "im a kid" as an excuse. Being a kid is NOT an excuse. Use this, you being ignored, try to understand why (I hope this post gives you enough answers), and change your way of being so people will answer you.
That's what growing up is. Learning and trying to change yourself. You can't expect people to adapt to yourself, you have to change, too. I had a hard time accepting that, yet I'm trying to do it.

tl;dr : Make some effort, don't do none because "I'm a kid, so you have to do efforts, not me."


I read some of the threads you asked things in, such as http://gbdev.gg8.se/forums/viewtopic.php?id=381&p=1
You aren't polite at all.

npzman wrote:

https://github.com/Zal0/gbjam2016
can you teach me how to compile this

step by setp

Corrected version :

npzman_v2 wrote:

Hey Zalo, could you please help me compiling this ?
https://github.com/Zal0/gbjam2016

I don't understand it, could you please go step by step ?

Note that you still got an answer.
Then you asked something else, and Mills answered you.
And THEN, you just asked something completely unrelated. You missed an essential point in being polite : "Thanks Zalo and Mills, now it works !". Or "Thanks ! I can't try it yet, but I will later.".

Skipping a few posts :

npzman wrote:

Well I still need help

Zalo please make a video tutorial on setting it up

1. Your first line is reproaching Zalo he didn't answer you. This is aggressive.
2. Making a tutorial is something quite time-consuming, and a video tutorial is even more time-consuming.
3. The way you ask it is very imperative. You should be more polite, even more since you're asking something which is a heavy time investment.

Zalo wrote:

Sorry, I just don't have time to create a video tutorial. There is all the documentation I wrote on github that I think should be enough to get things working. It still requires a basic knowledge of C and other stuff that I cannot really help too much with

He told you he can't. He gave you an alternate way, which in his opinion should have been equivalent...

npzman wrote:

I am new to gb dev come on please make a video or anyone else if they can

... and you just plain ignore it, just because it's not what you wanted. That is also extremely rude.
Then, nobody owes you anything. You can't say "Come on, make a video !" because nobody has to. You can ask but not force people to do one.

tl;dr : No tldr for this. Read the paragraph, I can't sum it up.


Maybe you are also putting your expectations too high, quote "dream game boy ROM". Try making something that works, first. Then try making something that works and looks good. Then something that works, looks good, and is enjoyable to play. Go gradually, you can't make Zelda Breath of the Wild when you never coded something more complex than Pong.
Also note that other people may be trying to do exactly that, making a dream game, on their own. I'm sure you understand, or at least sense how much time, concentration etc. it takes. Furthermore, the way you ask for help looks like you want every answer spoonfed to you, which takes even more time and is far more frustrating.
Personally I hate doing that (and I think a lot of people in the world do the same, but anyone correct me if I'm wrong here). Plus it takes lots of time, and people I talked about in the previous line maybe don't want to spend theirs doing that ?

tl;dr : Don't make a dream game. Try making a game, first. Then make a good game, and improve it to eventually make it your dream game. Understand that you're not the only one, and everything you go through, the others also go through.


You should also stop thinking that because you need help, help must be given to you. Although I'm probably saying this for the fifth time, but you should maybe realize how important it is, then ?
Maybe Zalo and Mills can't help you because they are busy writing their own code, and you're not on their priority list ?
And I'm not the first one to tell you this :

Imanolea wrote:

npzman wrote:

Can you teach me how to make a game like that

Make some video tutorials please

Teaching Game Boy development trough videos is something that's been on my mind lately. But right now, I prefer to prioritize the development of the projects I'm currently working on.

In any case, fortunately there are already many good tutorials to get started in Game Boy development.

Accept this : sometimes people can't help you because they have to or prefer doing other stuff. Sometimes they don't want to help you because they don't want to, because they suck at explaining, I don't know !

tl;dr : sometimes people that could help you don't want to because they have to / want to do other things. Make your help calls more precise to make them more appealing.
Also politeness isn't something you can not care about. If it exists, it's for a reason.


Also, last quick tip on getting your posts more appealing : use punctuation, and be more polite and gentle.
This :

npzman wrote:

Does anyone want to help me make a dream game boy rom

By replying to my emails and forums posts on this site ?

This sounds aggressive because it looks like you're lecturing the reader about them not answering you.
This will turn off innocent people, because you are accusing them of something they didn't do.
This will turn off people who didn't reply to you yet because they forgot, or because they didn't read your email (maybe it was filtered as junk mail ?), or because they just didn't log in (You know, there are people behind forum profiles, and they have what's called a life. And sometimes a life doesn't allow you to log in to gbdev. Or access the Internet at all.). Again, you're accusing them of something they aren't responsible for.
This will turn off people who willingly ignored you, because they ignore you anyways.

tl;dr : Show you care about the reader. Imagine how they will understand what you wrote - which may be entirely different from what you meant.



Last things I'll say : what you should do is apologize to all people you turned against you, and make suer it doesn't happen again.
Make your own "I need help with ZGB" thread, because other threads can't be dedicated only to helping you. It's not their purpose.
When you don't get an answer, WAIT. Sometimes on another forum, I don't log in for a week, and when I come back I answer someone who didn't get any reply for a week. Maybe because those whould could have just didn't login, like I did.
Try for yourself. If something doesn't work, try something else. Maybe you will fix your original problem by yourself, and either you'll get what was wrong, or you can say "Hey, I did that and it's fixed now, but I don't get why !" and people will maybe want to look into it. This will also come in handy for future people having the same problem, since they will just have get a link to your thread.
Don't spam or flood. When you don't get an answer, you may want to post again in your thread ("bump") to request help. But don't just say "pls i need help", add some info. Otherwise it's plain annoying.