Please help a budding game designer.
by Das · in General Discussion · 06/03/2004 (11:39 am) · 4 replies
I have afew questions for all you guys who are more informed thzan i am. First off I am a college student studying programing in school. it is my secoond semester and have done a little c++ and wilol be going into c# soon. Any way pleaseanswer my questions.
1. How do i start programing for games.
2. what languages should i learn. (I was told VB was a good start.
3. Are their any articles I can read to get started learning how to make a game.
Thank you
1. How do i start programing for games.
2. what languages should i learn. (I was told VB was a good start.
3. Are their any articles I can read to get started learning how to make a game.
Thank you
#3
Python jumps out... and pygame is quite cool. It was quite stable when I played with it.
-Josh Ritter
Prairie Games
06/03/2004 (1:12 pm)
I learned programming on my C64 with basic and then assembly. I had to learn C on the Amiga to do anything cool. These days, I would say that an interpreted language is THE way to go for learning. You have plenty of time to learn about pointers, memory management, compiling and linking. Python jumps out... and pygame is quite cool. It was quite stable when I played with it.
-Josh Ritter
Prairie Games
Torque 3D Owner Jay Barnson
2. How about Logo?
3. LOTS
Okay - in all seriousness...
1. Learn a language. Decide on a game to write. Start *SMALL*, for heaven's sake... if you are a beginner you will NOT complete a humongous project, and you are likely to just end up frustrated. A common mistake for beginners and experienced developers alike is underestimating the difficulty of a project. So start small and work your way up. When I say small, I mean something as simple as a graphical Tic-Tac-Toe game might not be out of order!
2. C / C++ are still the primary languages used in game development. But these days, a LOT of different languages will do. Just find one with appropriate bindings to the libraries you'd want to use. Lately I've watching the progress of Python as a potential development language for games with great interest. Java and Darkbasic / BlitzBasic (Blitz3D) also have active game development communities, and Visual Basic & C# have potential, with their DirectX bindings.
3. I found a bunch just by googling "beginning game programming" and variants of the same. There are lots of books out there geared towards beginners as well. Writing games is a BIG, complex beastie though - a single article won't tell you what you need to know, but it may help you get over that initial hump of "where do I start?"
Since I've become a proponent of Python lately, you may want to go visit www.pygame.org. I don't yet consider pygame to be a stable platform yet (it crashes or fails on my box way too often), but it's fairly easy to get simple pong-type demos up and running.