Programmers, advice please!

[okulele]

Hello all programmers.

I know nothing much about programming, but I am considering creating a very simple video game. What would be a relatively easy language to start with, to get going with this? Would it be possible with bash/python?

Thanks in advance!

[Arthur]

I think Python is a good start. You can also make simple games using Javascript in the web-browser. 

If you want to go deeper with game dev, you can try Unity engine/framework. You can work with the framework using C#, which is also a managed language that doesn't have pointers.

Honestly though, game development is not what people think it is. Unless you are a designer doing 3D models or writing scenarios, you are actually doing plane programming. So, if you want to become a game developer, you should ask whether you like programming in general. Most of the stuff you will be doing is plane programming and not the flashy game stuff you might think. Working with a complicated game engine is a million lines of code with a complex hierarchy of classes and vector math. It's not really fun unless you into this sort of thing, in which case, you like doing hardcore programming in general.

[okulele]

@Shiva @Arthur Thanks, guys.  I have very modest ambitions so far, and I think Python will be a good start.

[non_nothing]

On 11/17/2018 at 10:42 PM, okulele said:

Hello all programmers.

I know nothing much about programming, but I am considering creating a very simple video game. What would be a relatively easy language to start with, to get going with this? Would it be possible with bash/python?

Thanks in advance!

Go google V-play, thank me later

[martins name]

@okulele Game Maker!! Don't bother doing things from scratch. Use a nice editor instead.

[martins name]

@okulele Hotline miami was made in gamemaker. But if you wanna transition in to a professionall programmer later, then don't use it.

[non_nothing]

14 minutes ago, martins name said:

@okulele Game Maker!! Don't bother doing things from scratch. Use a nice editor instead.

Nice one. Tbh It was my first programming environment. But I highly recommend checking out V-play

[Principium Nexus]

@okulele I recommend going for Javascript or C++/C# and use the Unity Game Enige

Python is a great entry language, its based on readability and used a lot, you want to use pygame module when you got a hang of using it. A downside of python is that it is less optimized and can give slower FPS compared to C++/C# which will give you the best performance in games. 

Edited November 23, 2018 by Principium Nexus

[saffron]

Python

[okulele]

Thank you all! Any tips on how to best get started? (let's say I go with Python)

[non_nothing]

2 hours ago, okulele said:

Thank you all! Any tips on how to best get started? (let's say I go with Python)

think about something you want to do, go dig straight in and ask questions when you stuck regarding how would you do it

[Toby]

https://www.pygame.org/
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pygame+tutorial

[LJZ]

If you are programer I recommend you checking out eos blockchain. Former activision ppl made Mythical Games and going to build on eos. 

Its C++

[okulele]

Hi again, everyone!

So I created a basic prototype of my game in Python. It is a text based game, but I would like to add some graphics to it. It will stay purely text based, but I would like to make it kind of comic styled...

kind of like this.

Anyone knows what plugin or tool I could use to easily add images to my Python game and make my text appear on top of that?

[smtlaissezfaire]

@okuleleI think that's a good search for google + github. Also you might want to join some python based mailing lists and/or irc if you haven't already.  

[integral]

I highly recommend starting off with haskell, a stage yellow programming language. Not going to go into details, haskell is the pinnacle of programming languages, the entire industry is simply regurgitating the same imperative OOP dogma. It takes real hard work to escape the OOP paradigm programmers are indoctrinated in by software culture. Only after someone truly suffers within there paradigm and works endlessly to improve does one escape the bubble. 

 

Sounds like the path to software enlightenment. 

 

 

[Commodent]

@integral Haskell is definitely interesting. I'm not sure how useful it is for game development though.

[electroBeam]

22 minutes ago, integral said:

I highly recommend starting off with haskell

 

 

hahahahah stage yellow programming language!

 

Let me tell you, the people who love haskell are much more bluey-dogmatic about their precious language.

[electroBeam]

On 28/12/2018 at 8:15 PM, okulele said:

Hi again, everyone!

So I created a basic prototype of my game in Python. It is a text based game, but I would like to add some graphics to it. It will stay purely text based, but I would like to make it kind of comic styled...

kind of like this.

Anyone knows what plugin or tool I could use to easily add images to my Python game and make my text appear on top of that?

have you heard of a sprite sheet?

you can display images in python very easily. I'm not sure how to do it in pygame but im sure its a one liner.

for example just say to display an image you do this:

cv2.imshow("images/image1.png")

so a sprite sheet is a collection of images: 1.png, 2.png, 3.png, 4.png

to display a different image, you simply change the python argument:

cv2.imshow("images/1.png") or cv2.imshow("images/3.png)

now imagine that 1.png is an image of a guy walking left, 2.png is an image of a guy walking right, 3.png is an image of a guy walking forward 4.png is an image of a guy walking backwards.

so in your game, when you press the left/a key, all you do is: cv2.imshow("images/1.png") then when the right/d key is pressed, you do cv2.imshow("images/2.png") you get the drift?

 

this is what a sprite sheet is. Play around with doing this sort of thing. When you get good at it, you can add more and more images so that the person looks animated.

[integral]

@Commodent The ecosystem is underdeveloped do to lack of adoption, this will change in the future when people move away from software as a craft and begin real software engineering. Building software the way we build rockets. 

 

@electroBeam Maybe your perspective will change after years of working as a software lead and the pain that involves. Even then as explained to escape the bubble is not easy. 

I've applied integral thinking to software and the result are these insights. Seems unwise to dismiss my perspective so easily. If you have questions about the subject we can dive deeper. But its possible you have done the same and can see furter, in this case please show me what you see. 

Edited May 26, 2019 by integral