Tryin' to make them video games!

Hello gentlemen and gentlewomen! I am in dire need of your assistance!

Recently, I have been trying to delve into the world of video game programming, and was wondering if I could get some straight-forward advice and step-by-step assistance as to how to get started.

To be brief, I have no experience with programming whatsoever (I'm currently trying to learn the "language" of Java and understand terms such as "variable" and "string" and "double." Is learning terms like these relevant if I were to delve into video game programming or am I wasting time?). I have no background in computer science, whatsoever, to be honest.

Really, all I've got is the desire and a lot of free time to learn. So basically, I'm asking you all what the heck should I be learning!!! Where's the best place to start, and where should I go from there?

Thank you for your time, and best of luck to all of you!

Google "Hello World"

And go from there

Go to college! YEAHHHHHHHHHHHH

When i was at school we started out making very simple programs in BASIC, i had a look online and the easiest language to get started on is PYTHON which has a language designed around readability and ease of use, there are plenty of tutorials which can help you to learn the language by introducing you slowly in to concepts such as strings and variables and will gradually build you up, dont skip steps even if they look too simple, things like the hello world program help newcomers understand the way the language work.

eventually instead of copying the work of others you'll move into creating your own programs, there are websites out there such as project euler which offer "challenges" for you too complete with the knowledge you have gained over the course of the tutorials, things like simple programs listing the mutiples of 3 and 5 which seem basic but are really to test your understanding of how the language handles math functions and display functions.

it will be months before you can even think about making a really basic game if you push yourself but keep going and you'll get it.

I tried to link a game i made when i was in high school with flash and its awful its a mix between lander and space taxi and although i spent about 6 months on it it never worked quite right.

also welcome to the site

Here's a pretty cool interactive website if you wanna learn about programming

http://www.codecademy.com

It's pretty cool AND it's free, so it's a good place to start

All you need to know:

Seriously, though, text adventures. Best entry point I can think of.

There are concepts that that are basic to like all programming languages, so it will be important to learn to program basic things (that are not games) before you can get there.

"hello world" really is the place to start.

Listen, what you are about to embark on is a puzzle game. You will type things up and press run and it will probably not work. And the problem could be anything from your whole approach being flawed to forgetting to put a semicolon somewhere. Don't let this get you down, you and everyone else had and still do have those problems. I suggest you find some kind of community, off or online to help you out when you get stuck, a second pair of eyes can save you a lot of time. This will also be very very rewarding when you succeed.

And once you get a hang of the basics: output/input, loops, arrays, methods, classes. Then you can start to figure out how you will make a game. Its great that you have time, because if you take your time to grasp these concepts then you will be good enough that the a whole new world opens up. I wish you luck, maybe one day I will be playing an original game by Ellio on my ps5.

Personally I've learned BASIC at school, then forgot it, taught myself Actionscript 2.0, learnt Java, html and some other one I forget in a class, taught myself Actionscript 3.0 (there was a decent difference between the two), messed around in different game builders and stuff with their own pseudo code. And other than having a basic understanding of how computers handle logic and maybe some reference terms like variable, string etc that you mentioned learning a new language is no easier when you know a previous one or not. In-fact depending on how the syntax is learning one may mess you up in another.

I would just pick the language you want to use (research which one is best for what you want) and just go from there. I started trying to learn C++ for a bit but didn't have the dedication to stick with that one, nothing I could find explained what I wanted explained properly. I'm thinking about going into C# soon, when I find some time... which will probably just mean I'll continue to put it off. To be honest the Actionscript 2.0 to 3.0 transition sort of soured me on the whole thing. I had a real good handle on 2.0 and could easily make nearly any type of games in flash (I had a multiple platformers, one rail shooter, one point and click adventure and the beginnings of a fighting game going on) then 3.0 came out and fucked me around so much for months, it got me a bit down and made me feel like all that time learning 2.0 was wasted.

In tandem with getting acquainted with programming, I'd definitely recommend trying different game engines (Unity is great for even beginners and UDK is great, but you'll really need to be dedicated to work with that engine, it can get quite intense) if you're specifically looking at the development of videogames.

@ShaggE said:

All you need to know:

That's hilarious and bad.

Hilaribad.