Learning to program games

Trevor O

Hey all,
How would one go about learning to program/design games? I did a good share of C/Visual Basic when I was in college and really liked it. Is there a good course available (preferably in Cork!)? Or can you give yourself a start by self-teaching? Any help appreciated!

WolfgangWeisen

If you're still competent with C you could try using the Allegro games library.

There are tutorials on Youtube.

satchmo

Teach yourself! There are more than enough tutorials around the net.

Are you in it to make games, to improve your coding, to get a job in game development, or something else? You can either try to make them from scratch, or use an existing engine to build them. Depends what you're interested in.

Genghiz Cohen

Unity.
That is all.

fergalr

Trevor O wrote: »

Hey all,
How would one go about learning to program/design games?

First off, those are two very different questions.

There's lots of material out there on the internet.

For programming, start off trying to make simple games. Make space invaders, snake, tetris etc.
Then read other people's source code.

These will introduce you to a lot of basic concepts, about main game loops, loading resources, managing game state, handling input, updates, rendering etc.

After that, depending on where you want to go, start reading books on game programming. There are many. Are you interested in making game engines? Graphics programming? Tools? Physics? AI? etc etc


Game design is an entirely different subject.
Theres a lot of material written on it, too, now.

Actually, one of the most enjoyable books I read, on the subject, was 'the art of computer game design' by chris crawford. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Computer_Game_Design

Game design has moved on a lot since then, but I'd say its a great place for a programmer to start, as an introduction, as its written at a time when programming and game design were much more related than they are now, and its entertaining reading, as I remember.

edit: make sure to get a version with pictures, eg: http://www.stanford.edu/class/sts145/Library/Crawford%20on%20Game%20Design.pdf

CreepingDeath

If you want to learn how to create games/game libraries yourself then it's best to start with simple 2D games.
That will teach you a lot, eg. screen buffering, clipping, tiling, scrolling.

Also it would be worth reading up on the "model view controller" design pattern as a high level design of your game.