Hello,

I am currently re-learning PHP for a project I have and I'm having fun doing so. I knew PHP just fine, but I've lost my knowledge of it after a couple of stressful years without spending time on programming. Once I have a solid foundation in this language, I'd like to learn another language to expand my knowledge and to complement my resumé but also to have fun in.

Now I was wondering, I know creating a game when you're just starting out is not a good idea, but lets say that after some time I've gotten comfortable in a certain language and I want to give game programming a shot; what language and what engine would be a good idea to use? Say you'd want to make a 2D rts like Red Alert 2, Age of Empires 2 or Starcraft: What would be your language & engine of choice? Why?

Sincerely,

Denn

When you want to start programming games you don't start off with games like Starcraft or Age of Empires 2 etc. those games are actually quite coplex. You'll want to start with something simple like pong, tetris and things like that. If you doubt me, I've actually have learned the hard way why you should start off simple: The first game I made was a 2D RPG and that dragged on for about 2 years, the engine I wrote for that was a mess and complete crap; I didn't know what I was doing. So basically, start off with smaller projects that don't take a whole lot of time to make, maybe a few months at most.

When it comes to languages and engines, it depends. If you want to create games as a hobby, using an existing engine might be a thing, but I'm not sure if I would recommend it. If you want to work towards a goal, like becomming a professional programmer, I would definately not recommend using an existing engine.

I personally started with C++ (with SDL for 2D rendering), but that's not something I would neccessarily recommend to everyone since it does take a lot of effort to learn that. You could perhaps try something like Java or C.