Whats the best language for game development?

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15 comments, last by jpetrie 10 years ago


I will say it again. There's no perfect language: It's a personal opinion. This thread opens up a can of worms, and I'm going to message the mod so it can be locked.

I agree across the board. There is definitely no perfect language and is a matter of personal opinion. Hardcore programmers who favor one language over the other will recommend their language. The most common languages that I see recommended are C, C++, C#, Java, HTML5, and Python. Tools recommended are usually Unity or GameMaker. I'm primarily a C++ programmer, but I know how complex the language is so if you are familiar with a language then get good at that language before going to another language.

Isn't Lua also recommended via LOVE?

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I will say it again. There's no perfect language: It's a personal opinion. This thread opens up a can of worms, and I'm going to message the mod so it can be locked.


Don't report problems by private messaging one moderator. Please use the Report button so multiple mods can review it. Personally, I see no reason to lock this.

-- Tom Sloper -- sloperama.com

Turbo Pascal.

They all have pros and cons. As a beginner, languages like C# or Python are a good start due to: simple syntax, lack of ridiculous tricks and loopholes regarding basic usage of the language(good ol' C++,) and usually a lot of other people in the same boat as you having asked many of the same questions you'll probably have. That last one you can kind of get with any language but since beginners tend to gravitate towards easier to pick up languages your answers might be more frequent and the same skill level mindset you have.

Personally I always recommend C# for a few reasons: Easy language to work with. Most of its syntax is similar to languages like Java and even C++, so its a good candidate for building ground to move into other languages. It also has a great IDE(visual studio express) which is free, and very consistant since it has modules for working in a lot of popular languages, so on and so forth.

But really its not that big a deal, even C++ is doable to start with, I'll just be the first to say that C++ or a language like C++ often tends to have a lot of problems associated with languages that have spanned generations of software, and also has a lot of convuluted rules and fine print on how things behave when you put them to code.

Considering you mentioned knowing a bit of each of these languages, I say to just stick with one.

In order to become successful game developer you have to master more than single programming language. For example, majority of AAA titles use C++ for their rendering engine, some scripting languages like Lua/Python for game logic/scripting AI behaviour - basically majority of high-level performance-independant tasks, and Java/C#/C++ for server side.

Regarding your question, I would say stick with C# and use Unity - it is extremely popular atm, tho a bit expensive once you want to publish your games on mobile platforms. Also you might be interested in CryEngine or UnrealEngine special offers for indie game developers - recently they became ridiculously cheap.

I personally use AS3 atm - it is similar to JavaScript, hence very simple, but thanks to some libraries, is highly performant on mobile devices and you can make desktop/mobile games with it just fine (2D ones). Additionally, I am learning Java - because our server is written on it.

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Engrish!

But seriously, you should just use whatever you're comfortable with, if you can write pseudo-code you should be able to pretty simply transfer the pseudo-code to whatever language you need it in or at least be able to write any language with a reference book. Certainly with the number of languages out there that have sprung up in the short amount of time some languages have come to prevalence it seems to me that learning any specific language as your primary is somewhat worthless as no doubt languages will continue to advance and becomes better/easier to program in. So it's far more important in my opinion to know the logic than it is to know the language.

This has been discussed ad nauseum before. Please use the forum search functionality.

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