Tool
Author
Hi,
I really want to beacome a lead game designer. I was wondering what tools I need. At the tutorial on this website, it recomended to start off with a tetris spin. What programs do I need to start off with?
Hi Malphonic, welcome to the forums!
Do you know any programming languages? If not, you should learn one before jumping into the next Quake! Head over to this page - Gamedev Start here to get an idea. You don't need to immediately buy books, you can search and learn from tutorials over the internet [google]. You also need a compiler or interpreter, but first decide which language.
If you have programmed before, learn a Window-Management API. I would suggest SDL. Then you will go on to bigger and better things, like 3D API's. But always start with and completely understand the basics.
All the best!
Do you know any programming languages? If not, you should learn one before jumping into the next Quake! Head over to this page - Gamedev Start here to get an idea. You don't need to immediately buy books, you can search and learn from tutorials over the internet [google]. You also need a compiler or interpreter, but first decide which language.
If you have programmed before, learn a Window-Management API. I would suggest SDL. Then you will go on to bigger and better things, like 3D API's. But always start with and completely understand the basics.
All the best!
Author
No, I havn't programmed before. I'd like to learn C++, since that seems to be what people use on platforms. I know I can't jump into it, and make big games. Everything takes practice, years and years of it. But I want to know where to start. The link from this site, dosn't really give me that good of an idea of what tools I need, and a guide about whats what.
Well, you're going to need a compiler, which is a program which takes the code you write and turns it into a form the computer can understand and use (such as an executable or dll on the Windows platform for example).
You'll probably also want an IDE, or Integrated Development Environment to help you out. This is basically a fancy text-editor with syntax highlighting, perhaps a debugger, and some other tools to make programming easier.
If you want something free for C++ you could try out either Dev-C++ or Code::Blocks.
That's basically all the tools you need to get started with programming, along with some material to learn from, such as some good online tutorials and perhaps a book.
As for starting with Tetris, the advice is good that you should start small, but I recommend a few simple non-graphical games first:
- Make "Hello World"
- Make "Hello <user>" (the same, but uses the users name!)
- Make "Guess my number"
- Make a console mode Tic-Tac-Toe
- Make Pong
- Then make Tetris
You'll probably also want an IDE, or Integrated Development Environment to help you out. This is basically a fancy text-editor with syntax highlighting, perhaps a debugger, and some other tools to make programming easier.
If you want something free for C++ you could try out either Dev-C++ or Code::Blocks.
That's basically all the tools you need to get started with programming, along with some material to learn from, such as some good online tutorials and perhaps a book.
As for starting with Tetris, the advice is good that you should start small, but I recommend a few simple non-graphical games first:
- Make "Hello World"
- Make "Hello <user>" (the same, but uses the users name!)
- Make "Guess my number"
- Make a console mode Tic-Tac-Toe
- Make Pong
- Then make Tetris
This topic is closed to new replies.
Advertisement
Popular Topics
Advertisement
