9 replies to this topic

[Kheyas]

Hello friend programmers!
I am a young guy that wants to use his spare time more interesting. I'm at highschool and I'm 15 years old. At school we learn C++ and solve "basic" problems.
I've always dreamed to work in the game industry. So... to the point. Where can i start basic game development? Like... 2D games? Probably using C++.
I tried to find some tutorials for XNA and DirectX, but they seem to be very few of them and I don't feel so confident. I tried sometime to use SDL and Allegro but I had problems installing the files, linkers and stuff like that. So i don't know where to start. Can someone point me in a direction? Tell me what they did...

Thanks!

[Pedro Candeias]

Hey,
My advice to you would be not to rush things. Stuff like DirectX and OpenGL should only be attempted in my opinion after a few 2d games. So my advice would be to try and get SDL or Allegro to work. They are both good tools to get your 2d game going. However, if you just want to practice the project management part you could even try text based games. This tutorial should help you set up SDL regardless of your IDE : http://lazyfoo.net/SDL_tutorials/lesson01/index.php . The tutorials in that website are also a good start to learning how to addle some aspects of game development. Hope it helps.

[Kheyas]

Okay, thanks for the advice! Will try what you said. People can still comment here .I'd like to see everyone's point of view.
btw: i don't want anything more than a very simple 2d game to start with. Thanks again.

[Telastyn]

I started with a simple text based game. roll up a character, give them a name, present them with an unending stream of (level appropriate) enemies to attack/defend/flee, provide experience, level them up. Then I added some simple loot and the ability to save/load games.

Took about 3 weeks in the spare time of my high school Pascal class when the Doom games were full.

[kryotech]

There's a lot of ways to start off. It really depends on what interests you the most. If you want, you can start of with Unity3d, which is mostly a 3d game engine, but it's really easy to get projects up and running. Plus it's got a great in built physics engine. Unity3d is a tool that requires scripting, so I'd say it does require some effort to use, but it is a really great Integrated Development Environment. Another way to start is to dive right in to something like C++, and try to build something simple. This will require perserverence, as even if you know C++, it takes time to build all the required things. Another way that some people start off is with simple drag and drop interfaces, like Alice 2.0, or GameMaker, and they gradually build up from there. It depends on how much of a challenege you want at first, and how much you are willing to do. There's no wrong way to start. The key is getting started.

[Kheyas]

Well, Unity3d may look easy but i want to also practice my programming skills(as I said before, i'm not aiming at more than a simple 2d game/simple text game). I tried Gamemaker but it seems weak wtihout learning GML and i don't wanna do that either at the moment. I will go on the same path as Telastyn and try to make a simple text game as it seems I am not even mastering the functions yet ;). Thanks for your help people.
By the way. Can i keep posting here? Like.. Asking for help with lines of code? If so... How can i use a void to end a program?

[Vfor Vikram]

Khyeas,

I'm also a beginner.. you may think that Unity is easy and you may not learn programming skills.. but that is wrong. By learning Unity3D or UDK you'll improve your conceptual knowledge. Once you understand the concepts you can move over to XNA. You'll start to understand why and how things are done so and so. After you are comfortable with XNA you can drop one level lower to Dx 9 / 11

[jbadams]

By the way. Can i keep posting here? Like.. Asking for help with lines of code?

Absolutely, that's exactly what this forum is here for!
If you're asking a new question you might want to start a new topic for it, and if you need help with code don't forget to show us the code you're working with and tell us any error messages you're getting.

How can i use a void to end a program?

That does't really make sense...

I assume after the above that you're using C++? If you're not using any other libraries (such as SDL) all you need to do is return from the main function of your program, just as you would for the simple problems you would have worked on in class. You'll need to provide some code if you need a more direct explanation than that, as it's hard to guess exactly what you might be doing otherwise.

[Kheyas]

I got it finally. Asked my teacher at school today(I had to use exit(0) to get shut down the program,otherwise it would just keep asking for numbers to get around the menu. ;) ). I really got into the text-based game. I won't stop until i consider it close to something that can be called a game. Thank you all for the support .

[BeerNutts]

Use a conditional to leave a loop. exit(0) really should never be used. You should leave the program by reaching the end of main();

Like this

.
.
.
bool bRun = true;
while(bRun) {
 .
 .
 .
  // The user indicated he wants to quit
 if (Input == QUIT_INPUT) {
  bRun = false;
 }
 .
 .
 .
}

// reach end of main, program ends

Or, you can always use break to exit a loop