What a great place to start!    ( I am the author ).

You are right, its just over a year old, although I have done a few edits to keep it more current.  I have considered doing a version two of that article, but truth of the matter is, it's mostly still accurate and their haven't been a ton of new developments since.

The exceptions since that article was written:

• Microsoft put an axe in XNA.  That doesn't mean you shouldn't use it, but it certainly does suck, as C#+XNA was the perfect beginner recommendation
  
• HTML5 / Javascript.  There has been a lot of movement in this space over the last year.
  
• LUA.  Lua is having a rocking good time.  There are four major Lua engines and they are a great place to start ( or end! ).

The last one would probably be my biggest change in how I wrote the article, as I *STRONGLY* recommend starting with LUA and one of the game engines ( LOVE, Moai, Gideros or Corona ).  Lua is an easy language to learn, and you can get up and going faster than PyGame+Python, but without the heavy performance drop people seem to express.  

I would also recommend JavaScript but... 1) the language has some serious flaws for a new developer 2) the DOM [browser programming model] SUCKS, and I do mean SUCKS.  There are just two many little headaches when working with JavaScript for new developers.  Hell as a developer with 15+ years of experience ( including many years of JavaScript work ) I still encounter gigantic WTF moments.  That said, the core of the language ( prototype based ) is a wonder to work with.

I'm just going to say thanks for the article, it really did get my foot moving towards the gaming door, and slightly through it.

I've written a lot of Javascript in the last year as I work mainly on web apps. And I agree with you there are a lot of WTF moments, especially with DOMs load order in IE compared to well everything else. JQuery document.ready was my friend in a lot of cases...

I can't say I have any incentive to go for HTML5 yet, as there doesn't seem to be a standard, and headaches between browsers is something for now id rather avoid.

I hadn't even looked at LUA, but with that recommendation I may just go do so, isn't it more of a "Scripting" language?

At the moment I think I am going to stick with XNA and see where that takes me, next step would probably be Java with again your recommendation of Jmonkey

Ben

What a great place to start!    ( I am the author ).

You are right, its just over a year old, although I have done a few edits to keep it more current.  I have considered doing a version two of that article, but truth of the matter is, it's mostly still accurate and their haven't been a ton of new developments since.

The exceptions since that article was written:

• Microsoft put an axe in XNA.  That doesn't mean you shouldn't use it, but it certainly does suck, as C#+XNA was the perfect beginner recommendation
  
• HTML5 / Javascript.  There has been a lot of movement in this space over the last year.
  
• LUA.  Lua is having a rocking good time.  There are four major Lua engines and they are a great place to start ( or end! ).

The last one would probably be my biggest change in how I wrote the article, as I *STRONGLY* recommend starting with LUA and one of the game engines ( LOVE, Moai, Gideros or Corona ).  Lua is an easy language to learn, and you can get up and going faster than PyGame+Python, but without the heavy performance drop people seem to express.  

I would also recommend JavaScript but... 1) the language has some serious flaws for a new developer 2) the DOM [browser programming model] SUCKS, and I do mean SUCKS.  There are just two many little headaches when working with JavaScript for new developers.  Hell as a developer with 15+ years of experience ( including many years of JavaScript work ) I still encounter gigantic WTF moments.  That said, the core of the language ( prototype based ) is a wonder to work with.

I'm just going to say thanks for the article, it really did get my foot moving towards the gaming door, and slightly through it.

I've written a lot of Javascript in the last year as I work mainly on web apps. And I agree with you there are a lot of WTF moments, especially with DOMs load order in IE compared to well everything else. JQuery document.ready was my friend in a lot of cases...

I can't say I have any incentive to go for HTML5 yet, as there doesn't seem to be a standard, and headaches between browsers is something for now id rather avoid.

I hadn't even looked at LUA, but with that recommendation I may just go do so, isn't it more of a "Scripting" language?

At the moment I think I am going to stick with XNA and see where that takes me, next step would probably be Java with again your recommendation of Jmonkey

Ben

 

My question is, like many before me have asked, where should I begin to look at game developing?

 

My first stop on the road was to look at http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2011/08/04/I-want-to-be-a-game-developer.aspx which is about a year out of date, which seems to be a long time in the development circles.

 

A brief on the article says to avoid C++, is this a wise choice for starting out?

 

What a great place to start!    ( I am the author ).

 

You are right, its just over a year old, although I have done a few edits to keep it more current.  I have considered doing a version two of that article, but truth of the matter is, it's mostly still accurate and their haven't been a ton of new developments since.

 

The exceptions since that article was written:

• Microsoft put an axe in XNA.  That doesn't mean you shouldn't use it, but it certainly does suck, as C#+XNA was the perfect beginner recommendation
• HTML5 / Javascript.  There has been a lot of movement in this space over the last year.
• LUA.  Lua is having a rocking good time.  There are four major Lua engines and they are a great place to start ( or end! ).

 

The last one would probably be my biggest change in how I wrote the article, as I *STRONGLY* recommend starting with LUA and one of the game engines ( LOVE, Moai, Gideros or Corona ).  Lua is an easy language to learn, and you can get up and going faster than PyGame+Python, but without the heavy performance drop people seem to express.  

 

I would also recommend JavaScript but... 1) the language has some serious flaws for a new developer 2) the DOM [browser programming model] SUCKS, and I do mean SUCKS.  There are just two many little headaches when working with JavaScript for new developers.  Hell as a developer with 15+ years of experience ( including many years of JavaScript work ) I still encounter gigantic WTF moments.  That said, the core of the language ( prototype based ) is a wonder to work with.

 

I'm just going to say thanks for the article, it really did get my foot moving towards the gaming door, and slightly through it.

 

I've written a lot of Javascript in the last year as I work mainly on web apps. And I agree with you there are a lot of WTF moments, especially with DOMs load order in IE compared to well everything else. JQuery document.ready was my friend in a lot of cases...

 

I can't say I have any incentive to go for HTML5 yet, as there doesn't seem to be a standard, and headaches between browsers is something for now id rather avoid. 

 

I hadn't even looked at LUA, but with that recommendation I may just go do so, isn't it more of a "Scripting" language?

 

Ben