Hi there! I'm a 19 year old software engineering student from sweden who developed a passion for java a couple of years ago. Since then I have dabbled with many kinds of languages (the latest being erlang) but always fallen back on Java. I would recommend for starters to do something really trivial like snake. Just to get the skills to draw graphics in Java. The only book I have ever used has been Learn Java in 21 days which got me started with java. From then I've just been reading stuff on the internet and studied the API. When i have felt the need for something I've just used google or asked at some forum is google wasn't enough. Many of the difficulties you are going to face are not specific for Java but for all programming languages and so google becomes even more handy :) I have heard nothing but good things about Brakeen's book but haven't had the opportunety to look into it yet.

I'm an 18 year old unemployed oxygen sponge who lives with his parents. I started programming Java when I was about 15, and since then have developed a bunch of games here. I'm learning C++ now, but I have fond memories of Java... decompiling obfuscated code, reverse engineering, recompiling and signing the resulting applet... ah yeah I miss those days =o| hehe

Java in 21 days might be a good place to start- thats where I got started. It is pretty basic, and learning more than the book provides will require an extra effort on your part- searching the net, looking through big thick reference books that weigh a ton- but its pretty gratifying work.

Personally I would stay away from game programming books, they tend to assume you know the language already. And once you know the language, it should be pretty clear how to write a game without someone telling you. After all, a game is just an application; takes input (say, keyboard), responds to input (updates your characters position in the game world, for examply), generates output (draws your character on the screen), etc.

It would be useful to know- how much Java do you know at the moment? What kind of stuff have you done so far?

na, java isn't that complicated... depends on how much you work with it...

as written before, start simple. aim at your tamagotchi game in java with graphics... let it be ugly, write some ugly code, just make it work... use google, use java.net, java.sun.com, and especially http://www.galileocomputing.de/openbook/javainsel4/ ... you're german as myself, so you can read this... and it is good... there you get your basics for java...
download yourself eclipse (eclipse.org) if you haven't got it already and start... just start, and don't think about how it could be done in c or something else... use google, use the book or ask here...
if you have done all this you can start optimize, cleanup, learn real java coding...

to brackeens book:
as written in another thread, that book is awesome, if someone can understand... me myself thinks it is one of the best written, best understanding books ever... maybe i am subjektive because i do java all day long (uh, damn, i have to work ^^°), but when you have finished some basics, read some chapters from the book, you will understand brackeen and his ideas...

so, if there are anymore questions, go on, ask...

If you haven't already done so, you should do the entire "The Java Tutorial". It will give you a good grounding in Java. You can also try some of the short courses list too. After that, you should start small. You have already taken the first step with your simple games that you made. Move onto the next step with an arcade style game such as Tetris or Space Invaders. These games feature constant action, which is the next big milestone. After that if you want to move into more advanced graphics, you can look at LWJGL, which gives you direct access to OpenGL from Java. OpenGL is not just for 3D either. You can quite easily make 2D games with it as well. Then your 2D game will have the advantage of hardware acceleration.

Don't be afraid to repeat a step either. ie if you made Tetris and you don't feel you have learned enough, start from scratch and make it again or make Space Invaders or Asteroids, etc...

The only way to learn the stuff you are reading is to constantly program.

One last thing. When you try to make anything like Tetris or bigger, you should write down a little outline of what it is going to do. It doesn;t have to be a huge 200 page design doc, just a couple of paragraphs or pages that visually describe what is going on.

Quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
captain, you seem to know what you're talking about. Would you like to write a webpage for the javagamesfactory we could use as a "Where do I start writing games in java?" page? We've got other bits and bobs that we'd need to merge in as well, but perhaps you could seed it?

Alternatively, if you'd like to have a go at something more extensive, with only your name on it, you could write an article answering that question...

(www.javagamesfactory.org)

I'll have to think about it. I am pretty busy right now, trying to help out with LWJGL.