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I am interested in programming for games. I am currently building an iphone game with Shiva using Lua as the scripting language. After that, I am not sure what I should do or what languages I should learn. My goal is to keep building games but I also want to build my own game console. Of course, that won't be for years but I need to learn something right programming now. I know that programming games vs applications is totally different and that's why I need some help. What languages or things do you recommend for me to learn? I also want to be able to create applications but programming applications and programming games is a whole different thing.
The first game I ever wrote was a snake game written in Turbo Pascal. I was fiddling around and managed to get (using a series of dots) a line moving across the screen. Once I did that I made the line change direction. I hooked that up to the arrow keys and got excited. Two hours later i'd gotten a different coloured dot as 'food' up on the screen and it was a game of snake. Each game I wrote pushed me further and forced me to learn new things (ideas tend to roll on from one another.)
Try and stick to arcade style games. Breakout, Pong, Snake, etc. The amount of time it will take you to build Halo doesn't bear calculating!
Don't worry about which language you learn. You will learn many over the years. Right now is the time to ask which is easiest to start writing games with. If you already have the basics of C, then that's your answer straight away.
If you have no idea where to start, start doing animations instead of games. Ideas will come once you get used to your tools.
Write a program that draws a smiley face in the middle of the screen. Changing screen modes and using big graphics engines might be overkill for this. Keep it simple. Get that smiley face to move around, change it's colour, make it an unhappy face, etc. Before you know it you'll pick up some good momentum.
The question to ask is how do I write a smiley face on the middle of the screen instead of just on the next line in the console. In my first snake game, the answer was to write a load of space ' ' characters until i got to where I wanted. The better answer, apparently, is ncurses. If you are on Windows XP then the MingGW compiler is free you can get the (non-standard) conio.h library. That's what I used in my second snake game and it will get you started very quickly.
Good journey!
Look into modding.
I found QuakeC (how Quake1 mods were made) to be really easy to pick up, and you already have a very rich base of game content to use so that you can focus on gameplay and such. I found it a lot easier to stay interested when you're starting with a fun game and adding your own twist to it, rather than starting out making 3d box demos or other overly simple but needed low level programming steps.
Quake1 is pretty old but has the upside of pretty much everything involved in it being open source and free to extend. You could just as easily start modding any of the newer games out there.
A lot of todays big name game shops got their start making Quake or Halflife mods.
Having worked in the industry for several years, this is the best summary I can find:
http://gamesfromwithin.com/so-you-want-to-be-a-game-programmer
My advice:
Learn C++ inside and out. Program in it every day. If you're already set up for iPhone development, learn OpenGL. It wouldn't hurt to learn Direct3D as well if you have access to a PC ( also have a look at XNA ). If graphics isn't your thing, make sure you know how pathfinding (A* algorithm) or collision detection works.
Keep building your own projects, and find a good online community that can support you if you have questions. Employers want see that you are smart, but more importantly, that you are dedicated - game programming is very hard, don't let anyone tell you differently.
You can download free development tools for Windows here:
http://www.microsoft.com/express/download/
The one you want is Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition.
Perhaps check out some of the game programming links here: http://lazyfoo.net/SDL_tutorials/index.php
Those tutorials assume C++ which is used a lot in games programming so may be worth learning.
Or you could check out this tutorial if your interested in Java http://www.cokeandcode.com/node/6
Adam
You should check out Unity3D website. They have now a free version (named Unity) for personal and commercial use. You can use scripting with C# (possibly any .NET language), JavaScript, and Boo.
XNA would be a good fit too.
When you're just starting out, C, C# and C++ might be a bit complex to start with. If you're serious about game development, you will probably need to learn C++ eventually, but if you just want to quickly get some things done, you're already on the right track with lua.
Javascript is another language which is very similar to lua in many ways (and very different in others). One advantage of javascript is that everyone in the world has javascript installed on their computers. Another advantage is that it's very easy to learn. There are disadvantages too, but they are not nearly as bad as most "serious" programmers think. Javascript gets an undeserved bad rap.
Here is a very good tutorial for learning javascript:
http://eloquentjavascript.net/
It does not cover games programming, unfortunately- But it does cover concepts that are relevant to both games programming and application programming.
Here is a tutorial for javcascript that does cover games programming:
http://billmill.org/static/canvastutorial/index.html
you will need a web browser in order to follow that tutorial. This does not include internet explorer, so you will probably want to use safari, firefox, or opera.
Once you are comfortable making games in an easy language like javascript or lua, then it will not be quite so hard to learn to make games in a hard language like C or C++.
On the other hand, you might be happy just making games in the easy language, and that's okay, there's no rules that say you have to learn C or C++ to make good games. Good games come from good ideas, not difficult programming.
Priority Order for a game programmer.
Any subject that needs Analytical thinking and Logical Problem Solving.
Necessary knowledge in the following domains.
Mathematics
Data Structures
Computer Graphics
Physics
Artificial Intelligence
Computer Networks
Web Technologies
Related
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Does anyone know ways to use GML programming skills to find or make work, such as freelance work using Game Maker?
I was thinking of doing freelance game prototyping work for people looking for a quick mock-up and getting the feel for their game, that can be done within a week or a few days.
If anyone has an idea, could someone please help me out? Thank you.
Personally, I started out using GameMaker as a hobby, and I've worked on some small projects for other people, but I eventually got hired as a website and database programmer rather than as a game programmer.
Unless you find a team that is already using GameMaker for its project(s), your experience with GML may not count for much on its own, as the language is only useful inside GameMaker itself. However, understanding GML means that you also have basic programming skills, and once you know one way of programming it goes much quicker to learn another.
GameMaker made programming easy and interesting for me, but other languages gave me the tools needed for non-game projects.
A company may not hire you based on the fact that you know GameMaker specifically, but it may hire you because you know programming. It could be wise to research other programming languages and learn the basics of how they work.
If you are to sell your skills to a client, they will likely care more about the end result than the exact road you took to get there. For example, if the job is to make a game that works on Android phones, that is something GameMaker can do, and by extension it is something you could do.
If GameMaker doesn't seem like the tool for the job, use what you learned from GameMaker to help you understand a different program/framework. Even if you focus on GameMaker, you may need other languages if you are to set up an online game server or scoreboard.
A lot of successful games have been made with GameMaker, so it's definitely possible to make a living by using it. The Showcase section on the official homepage shows us games like Hotline Miami and Undertale - big hits in the Steam store.
This article from GameMakerBlog.com lists a few people who's made it big. Most important, I would say, is "True Valhalla", who gives the community running updates on how his business is going. You can find his blog linked in the article. He has written a book about how to make money by selling apps and games, which could be well worth checking out.
If you wish to focus on freelance work using GameMaker alone, then make sure to understand the ins and outs of the program so that you can be as flexible as possible. Make sure that you understand how the movement functions work, how to do collision checking, how to work with data structures, how to work with views and surfaces, and so on.
The technical skill doesn't need to be perfect, but you need to have an idea of what to do and how in order to realize your ideas within a reasonable time frame. Practice until you feel comfortable taking a game from concept to demo in a short time, and build a collection of examples and engines that could be useful to you. If you can reuse a script, that's a lot better than writing it from scratch for every new game you make.
Finally: Marketing yourself. In order to become attractive to potential clients, it helps to demonstrate your expertise by publishing your work online. Make yourself visible. Post screenshots, videos, and playable versions of games you've made. You could blog about game development, or build up a small profile by helping people online and getting credit for it.
Any project you can point to and say "I worked on this" makes you a more credible developer. If you are just starting out you may not have any projects yet, so one suggestion would be to make a small mini-game and publish it in an app store. You may even publish it for free. For your first games, exposure could be as valuable as sales.
I have been programming in a "learn-by-doing" fashion for almost 2 years now and I consider myself fairly good however, I really wish to build a good foundation of Computer Science/Computer Engineering and most people recommend I start off with SICP. (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs)
I wished to know
Is this the best way to go about it?
I know how to code a matrix-multiplication in OpenMP and MPI and I know college level math, is this sufficient to read and appreciate SICP?
Instead of this, can I just spend all my time working on Project Euler instead?
A personal experience: Like you I am trying to learn programming by self-study and I started off with SICP. As I am a ancient historian and archaeologist, I have no background in maths, engineering or real computer science (just good knowlegde in stuff like LaTeX, HTML and CSS). My last lessons in math are now 15 years ago. Although I am working through SICP with a math book at my side the explanations given in SICP are really sufficient to understand the stuff. I really appreciate SICP, it is demanding, but great fun. I also would recommend to buy it as a book, I prefer that from reading on screen.
Sometimes you have to cope with some difficulties because language standards have changed (eg. Running SICP Pattern Matching Rule Based Substitution Code) or the authors assume existing functions which are just defined later in the book (eg. How do I get the functions put and get in SICP, Scheme, Exercise 2.78 and on). As a you always will find solutions or hints on the web this is nothing which should bother you.
If you know any amount of programming you'll likely be better off for it, but it's by no means a requirement when going through the SICP. I'm going through it right now (cover to cover style), and I'm up too section 2.3.3. The biggest road block for me has been how maths based some of the problems can be, as it's been a while since I did maths back in high school. For these problems I've resorted to googling an explanation of the problem and solution. Like programming, maths isn't a requirement either, obviously because I'm still making progress through the book, but I feel it could help at times.
The only requirement you'll honestly need, is a computer and a scheme implementation, I'd recommend MIT scheme or DrRacket.
TL;DR
The only requirement you'll need is a computer, and a scheme implementation, everything else can be learned as you go along.
I'm writing to ask for some guidance on choosing a language and course of action in learning programming. I apologize if this type of question is inappropriate for Cross Validated, please advise me to another forum if that is the case.
I've seen thread after thread with questions from newbies, asking, "What is the best language to start with?" and then it always starts a flame war or someone just answers, "There's no best language, it's best to pick one and start learning it." My question is a little bit more focused than that.
First off, I've been programming my whole life, in very limited capacities. My deepest training was in C++. Whilst in my EECS degree program, I resolved to never be a software developer because I couldn't stand not interacting with people for such long periods of time. Instead I realized I wanted to be a math teacher, and so that is the path I have taken.
But now that I'm well down that path, I've started to realize that perhaps I could develop my own software to help me in the classroom. If I want to demonstrate the Euclidean algorithm, what better way than to have a piece of software that breaks down the process? Students could run that software as part of their studies, and the advanced students might even develop programs for themselves. Or, with an Ipad in hand, why not have an app that lets students take their own attendance? It would certainly streamline some of the needs of classroom management.
There's obviously a lot of great stuff already out there for math, and for education, but I want a way to more directly create things specific to my lectures. If I'm teaching a specific way of calculating a percent, I want to create an app that aligns with my teaching style, not just another calculator app that requires the student to learn twice.
The most I use in class right now is iWork Numbers/Microsoft Excel for my stats class. Students can learn the basic statistical functions, and turn some of their data into graphs.
I have dabbled a bit with R, and used Maple in college. I've started the basic tutorials for OS X/iOS development and have actually made good progress making an OS X app that takes a text string, converts it to numbers, and performs encryption using modular addition and multiplication. I sometimes use Wolfram|Alpha to save myself some time in getting quick solutions to equations or base conversions. I know of MatLab, Mathematica, and recently people have been telling me to check into Python or Ruby. I also know basic HTML, and while it's forgotten now, learned Javascript and PERL in college.
If I keep on the path of Obj-C/Cocoa, I think it will have great benefits. Unfortunately, anything I produced for Mac would only be usable on a Mac, so it wouldn't be universal for all of my students. Perhaps then learning a web language would be better. Second, I'm wondering if the primary use is mathematical, then perhaps my time would be better spent learning Mathematica Programming Language, or R, or something based less on GUI and more on simple coding of algorithms, maybe Python or Ruby?
It seems that Mathematica already has a lot of demos for different math concepts, so why reinvent the wheel is also a question I have. I think overall, it would be good to have more control and design things the way I need. And then, if I do want to make an "Attendance" app or something else, I would already have the programming experience to more easily design something for my iPad or MacBook.
The related question to this is what is a good language to teach to my students? In his TED talk, Conrad Wolfram says one of the best ways to check the understanding of a student is have them write a program. But if Mathematica does the math virtually automatically for them, then I'm not sure that will get the deeper experience of working out logic for themselves, like you do when you're writing C, or a traditional procedural language.
I know that programming takes time to learn, but I also know that at this point, my goal is not to be able to make an app like "Tiny Wings." With the app store ease, some of my work may be an extra revenue stream, but I see myself as more of a hobbyist, and now teacher looking to software development specifically for its ability to help me demonstrate mathematical concepts.
I think I will push ahead with Obj-C/Cocoa for OSX/iOS, but if anyone has some better guidance regarding all of the other available stuff, it would be much appreciated. I don't think I would want to go fully to the web (I like apps), but perhaps someone could suggest a nice way of bridging what I produce in XCode to a universal web version. For example, if you come up with an algorithm in obj-c is it easiest to transition that to ruby and run it online, or is there another approach that works better?
Mathematica is pretty awesome for the first part of your question. I've used the interactive mode (Manipulate[]) for explaining things to my colleges (and myself). It makes really nice dynamic figures and is fairly expressive (although your code can end up looking like line noise). It is very powerful, but it does far less for you than you might think. It's pretty intuitive, which is a good thing for teaching.
You could use Scala if you want an "easy" way to make a domain specific language for teaching. Python seems to confuse people as a first programming language. Objective C seems like a completely random choice to me.
Mathematica then. It's worth the price. But anything that is interpreted and has an interactive shell is probably better than a compiled language. BBC BASIC?
Nothing beats Haskell for general-purpose mathematical programming. The wiki's quite extensive and the IRC channel (#haskell on Freenode) is great for asking questions. If you statically link your binaries on compilation, you should be able to run your programs on just about any system (with a few exceptions, e.g., libgmp).
Haskell code reads (roughly) like mathematical notation once you get the hang of it, so it can really help to tie things together for your students who are motivated to write their own programs. The purely functional style can be beneficial, as well, since it focuses less on I/O and the marshalling of data (perfectly useful in applications, perhaps less so in pure math), and more on the actual creation and refinement of functions and algorithms. You can even compose functions just as you would on paper.
If you want to get really serious, you could also look into Coq or Agda, but those might be a bit much for most classes.
For a Haskell program idea for an educator, check out this link.
A nice list of arguments can also be found at:
Eleven Reasons to use Haskell as a Mathematician and the book The Haskell Road to Logic, Maths and Programming
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Where I work we've recently put together what we call the Development Standards Committee which is tasked with improving our procedures, processes, methodologies, tools, standards, and whatever we think would help us become a more effective team.
We've got a spreadsheet of items that we've ranked and are going to start tackling from the top down. We've got things such as better source control (currently on SourceSafe), implement a bug tracker (such as Mantis of FogBugz), peer code review, move to .Net 3.5, possibly move to some form of Agile, do more actual team development rather than single developer per project type stuff, and some other things...
What do you think are some key things that can make or break a development team? What should we add to this list?
Some additional information: We have about 12 people on our windows team, and about fifty in development if you include all platforms. We want to improve as much as possible for everyone, but we're our biggest focus is the Windows team. All of us have been here for a couple of years at least, so most of us know each other and work together pretty well.
The number of people on your team is actually really important here. There are basic things that every team should implement (source code control, bug tracking, etc), but there are things that are different base don team size. Code reviews on a very small team, for instance, can be more informal.
Moving to Agile is a good idea, unless you're particular development environment makes it a bad idea. Also, you'll not be able to do this without support from the people who are using your software.
Consider doing things to ensure that communication between the team is easier and with less roadblocks - do all your members know each other pretty well? Can you work with each other? Do you understand each other's idiosyncracies? Learning to work as a team is much more important than any random process improvements you can make.
Require comments when you check in code (it's great if you can tie commits back to your bug tracker)
Maybe Static Code analysis, like what's built into Visual Studio
Continuous Integration like CruiseControl
Development teams really need good people to start with, that work well together, but this isn't really an item to add to the list. It does however affect my first recommendation, be pragmatic. If you're not encouraging your developers to think about how they work and can drive them selves to improve, it's really hard to lay down a development environment that will do it for them.
Mentor and Training: If you can't do XP, then at least hook up your Juniors with Seniors whenever you can. Not only will you share knowledge but you'll share the context around your projects you own.
Some sort of Continous Integration and regular, tested, working "releases" make wonders for quality.
as better source control (currently on SourceSafe)
If this is Visual SourceSafe -- you need to change this immediately. Try cvs, svn or even something paid like Perforce.
There exists something called Rational Unified Process that deals with your problem (and much more).
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I would like to know How to create a fps-game with SDL lib?
Are there any books that explain with examples?
this wins for most open ended question. You could literally write a book. But lets settle for pointing in the right direction...
Step one, you will need good debugging skills for a project like this. Pick up Code Complete by Steve McConnell. Read the whole thing. The time invested will pay for itself more than anything else you could read/experiment with.
Get your hands on some source code of some game. ANY game. Make sure you see something simple before you see something big and complex, and keep in mind when you look at any game code that they may have had a combined team put WAY more time into it than you will ever have. The point in this is to see code structure.
Get a reference for 3D math, doesn't have to be THAT in depth, but you will need to know stuff like dot products backwards and forwards, be able to figure out how to create the matrix for your camera in the world etc. (even if your writing 0% of the rendering code)
(edit) Here's a great book on 3D mathMathematics for 3D Game Programming and Computer Graphics, Second Edition (Game Development Series) This isn't the kind you learn in college, it's more like a cross between trig and more advanced practical concepts: How to create a toolbox for yourself of simple physics, efficient collision detection, etc.
You will need to know something about rendering, and pipelines. SDL gives you a leg up, but make sure you understand the concepts of what it's doing.
Read up about practical system design. Your various systems will have to interlock. Think it out well. Your system can be just a good in C or in C++, it's the THOUGHT that is put into how your data/control will flow that will count, NOT how perfectly you emulate design patterns (though these are very useful as well of coarse)
Fundamentals of AI, not "real" AI, but functional AI; there is a big difference. State machines are great to start with, and sufficient for a simple FPS.
Learn a little about estimation and planning. You will not have time to do everything you would want to do to properly make an FPS. You will have to both triage AND learn how to triage; they are 2 separate things, the latter being mroe difficult. Experience is the best teacher here of coarse. (though the legendary McConnell has book on this as well)
Have a system to insert your gameplay into your level. If it is JUST you as a programmer, then your best bet is to write a plug in for an already existing editing program such as 3DS Max. I would highly recommend Max over Maya for a programmer. Maya script is nice, but it is more geared toward clever non-programmers. I find 3DS Max to think more along the lines of how a programmer would about creating and editing your world.
You can spend YEARS making tools to let you do this right, so you want to do things in such a way that you can edit fast and accurately
If you making your own editor, incorporate it into your game world.
If your world is not TRULY 3D and you want to make lots of level fast you can save your level data as something like this, which will save you a lot of time
Where X is a wall, the other letters are game objects which a dirt simple parser can translate into game objects and world coordinates
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xx..........P..........x
xxxxxxx...........I....x
xR....xxx...........E..x
xx.................0xxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
But it all depends on your game. My point is that you will need to resort to "ghetto coding" how you get your gameplay data into your world is very important and you need to think of something that is both fast for you to implement AND fast with you to work with.
And what it comes down to is what is your goal here? If it's to learn to code something the absolute right way, expect to spend most of your time iterating on code that seemed decent a month ago, but now that you realize what your requirements are, it could really use another pass. Do not be afraid to rewrite, you learn a lot by doing that, but if you goal is functionality, you will probably need to figure out where to hack some things in (like embedding gameplay data nad coordinates into code files) It IS ok to hack as long as you KNOW where you have hacked, and have carefully kept it separate from your good code so you can go back and properly write the code when you get the chance.
The bottom line is, you need to decide what your goal in this is, learning, or functionality and find the happy medium between.
Download the quake 3 sources at fileshack and learn from them.
Although the very long post is valueable in the long run, I feel it doesn't give the proper instant motivation of getting things on screen. Here's some facts, along with my opinion
-SDL is a 2D graphics library, you can't write an FPS in 2D, therefore you have to go with a 3D library, either DirectX, or openGL
-SDL has the ability to "sync" with openGL, using it for graphics, but there's not a whole lot of help online for that topic
I suggest you go to Lazyfoo.net, which is an absolutly amazing beginner's resource for game programming with SDL, it shows you how to draw to the screen, but also teaches you how to apply this to programming games. After going through this, you'll be able to make a tetris clone, or most other 2D type games
After this, you'll be ready for 3D(it's a lot more complex, requires a better grasp of math, and takes a lot more code to do simpler things) if you go with openGL, check out NeHe's Tutorials , they're currently working on a new set, using SDL with openGL, because the older tutorials, although valueable, are coded rather badly and use the windows(win32) API
keep in mind, game development is one of the most demanding, and rewarding programming you'll come across, so good luck
While not SDL specific, the NeHe OpenGL tutorials are an excellent place to start for learning about how to do 3D.
If this is your first game, you'll probably want to aim lower than an FPS. Writing a simple 2D Tetris game using SDL will teach you everything you'll need to know about that library.
Pretty much anything that says in the TItle the "Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus" is going to show you how to make a FPS game. LeMothe loves them.
Edit : forgot those titles.