What advice would you give someone that wants to begin the long road to game programming and doesn't really know which programming language to start with. I read the intro that's on the site and it suggested c/c++ but I heard tell that openGL was much easier for programing for crossplatform gaming. Now my question is, would it be wise to start with that, if that's my goal, or to stick with c/c++ untill I get to a 'point of understanding' that will allow a smooth transition to openGL. Suggestions? reasons? Thanks PJ

Open GL is a graphics API, you still need to use c/c++ in tandem with it.

OpenGL is not a programming language, it is an API (application programming interface). In this case the OpenGL API provides you with an interface to the graphics hardware of a PC (though OpenGL is not restricted to PCs, it also doesn't have to be run unsing hardware accleration, but this doesn't matter as the interface is the same). You would use OpenGL from within a programming language such as C or C++.

As for where to start, I'd recomend choosing something other than C++, Python in conjunction with PyGame (which is a library for Python which provides an interface for various things related to games, such as sound, input, video etc) is pretty good. It will allow you to get things up and running quickly.

You may also want to take a look at a games basic such as BlitzBasic if you don't like the look of Python.

Understood. I'm on the same page now. I'll take a look at BlitzBasic and Python.

Thanks for the info and the advice.


cheers

PJ