Where should I start?
Author
I''m interested in making a 2D game along the lines of the old "Harpoon" series. I have never before made a game other than simple text ones with BASIC when I was a kid. I have goofed around with Visual Basic, C++ and Java some as well, still very much a beginner however.
I''m wondering if there are game creation programs that I could make a Harpoon-like game with, or if I need to buckle down and just learn to program. Can anyone recommend a game creation program or language to start with?
Thank you for any replies!
honestly, i shouldnt answer this post, because something along this line has been asked many times, but i feel idle tonight :-)
ok, well if you really want satisfaction from building your harpoon like game and have it exactly the way you want, you want to learn to code. Its not that hard. Just takes practise. Learn C and C++ if you want, but C alone is good enough and learn a good API like DirectX, this site has more than info to get you pointed in the right direction. If you have money you should buy a book, I recommend Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus by Andre Lamothe
Cheerio
ok, well if you really want satisfaction from building your harpoon like game and have it exactly the way you want, you want to learn to code. Its not that hard. Just takes practise. Learn C and C++ if you want, but C alone is good enough and learn a good API like DirectX, this site has more than info to get you pointed in the right direction. If you have money you should buy a book, I recommend Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus by Andre Lamothe
Cheerio
Python would be a good language to learn. It is easier than something such as C++ and will be perfectly good for making 2D games.
That book that alexdevmaster mentioned is awsome. I''ve been using it and it covers a lot of usefull stuff. I had some problems with the version of DirectX that came with the book, but it was probably my machines fault.
Author
Thanks for your replies all, and yes I had a feeling this question had been asked many times before but I was hoping there might be some kind of tools out there that could make creating something with such simple graphics as "Harpoon" fairly easy. I''d spend the money to get it going.
I do understand that if I want full control I''ll have to program it from the ground up. Java is appealing because of it''s price, I''m thinking it could work but I can''t even get it to compile a pre-written program I got from a tutorial CD, I put the path statement in the autoexec but it''s not cooperating. Tried a few times to get it to work, no dice and a discouraging start.
I digress, what would be the cheapest C compiler I could get?
I do understand that if I want full control I''ll have to program it from the ground up. Java is appealing because of it''s price, I''m thinking it could work but I can''t even get it to compile a pre-written program I got from a tutorial CD, I put the path statement in the autoexec but it''s not cooperating. Tried a few times to get it to work, no dice and a discouraging start.
I digress, what would be the cheapest C compiler I could get?
The cheapest C compiler would be GCC, the windows port of which is MinGW. It''s completely free and open source. A nice IDE for MinGW is MinGW Studio.
Looking at Harpoon (at the page here if this isn''t the game you mean, ignore the rest of this paragraph) it doesn''t look like the most simple game to program. Sure the graphics are basic but that doesn''t make it any easier to program. If you''ve played with VB before then it may be a good idea to use VB to do this as it''s a simpler language that something such as C++ and it''d be far easier to do the GUI in. Alternatively you could check out VB.Net (which is a different language to previous versions of VB despite the same name). You can either buy the offical VB.Net from MS or use Sharp Develop which uses a free VB.Net compiler that MS distribute.
Looking at Harpoon (at the page here if this isn''t the game you mean, ignore the rest of this paragraph) it doesn''t look like the most simple game to program. Sure the graphics are basic but that doesn''t make it any easier to program. If you''ve played with VB before then it may be a good idea to use VB to do this as it''s a simpler language that something such as C++ and it''d be far easier to do the GUI in. Alternatively you could check out VB.Net (which is a different language to previous versions of VB despite the same name). You can either buy the offical VB.Net from MS or use Sharp Develop which uses a free VB.Net compiler that MS distribute.
Author
Thanks much for the reply Monder, very helpful. I think I''ll take your advice and give it a shot in VB, I remember it being fairly intuitive to program in.
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