Hi,

I am a fairly experienced java enterprise developer (4 years) and I have been playing games for over 20 years. And I always wanted to create a game and now that I feel I have learned the basics of object oriented programming I am wondering how I should start.

I want to write a simple 3D space-ship game which moves around in 2.5D (meaning you can move freely in X,Y axis but only limited movement in Z axis).

Since I know Java should I try and pick up some Java 3D engine and play around with it? Or should I go for a full fledged tool such as 3D Game Studio or Irlicht and learn C++?

As I Java programmer I really dont want to spend too much time creating a 3D engine but rather reuse as much as possible from what already exists so I can focus on the game mechanics (and not the 3D mechanics).

Also Im artistically challenged so I have no idea how to design pretty 3D objects and right now mostly interested in creating a skeleton game with ugly ass models with no textures or anything or reuse existing models if possible.

Since you have said you have a good knowledge of Java I would actually recommend looking into C# and the XNA framework for creating games. You will find the syntax of C# very close to Java. There are a few things in C# that are not in Java. For one there are properties that take the place of get and set methods. With properties you can easily do validation on the values passed in. There are other differences but the biggest difference will be the difference between the .NET framework and the libraries/packages of Java. Another great reason for C# and XNA is there is Visual C# Express which is available at http://www.microsoft.com/Express and XNA is also available free to use for game development, even for commercial games.

I would not recommend with starting with a 3D game though. 3D games add a layer of complexity to the creating games. Starting out with a few simple 2D games will be a better choice. I would recommend reading this pinned article here at DIC as it has a lot of excellent advice on getting started with game programming.

I understand about creating game resources. I'm totally in the same boat. There is a great thread here at DIC for game resources. Check out this pinned thread.

Good luck with your game programming adventures.

Thanks for the info and I will definetely check out C#.

The reason I want to create a 3D game is that I want to start incrementally and in the end have a full fledged 3D game. So I thought I use an existing game engine and create something very small like just an empty space with a controllable 3D object that moves around in 2.5D space and then move on from there.

If I make a 2D game I feel like I will just throw that away since that is not what I want to be creating.

I understand about wanting to work with 3D and build incrementally so you don't feel that you are wasting your time. It is a good idea to build incrementally if you are writing 2D or 3D games. There is one thing writing a couple 2D games will help you out with and is something that a lot of beginners don't do and that is handle game states. I have a basic framework that I use that handles the state of the game. When I'm talking about states I mean things like is the player in the main menu, a high score screen, playing the game, etc. Since you are going to try 2.5D that pretty much takes the Y-axis out of the equation and will simplify game creation. I'm sure you are familiar with 3D space but the X-axis runs from left to right, the Y-axis up and down and the Z-axis toward you and away from you when you are looking at the monitor.

I would highly advise against skipping 2D game development.

For someone that has no prior game programming experience, 2D games introduce you to a bunch of concepts required for games in general without the added complexity of 3D math.

You won't be creating anything that big to be considered a waist of time.

Lol 2.5D

check out Java Monkey Engine
http://www.jmonkeyengine.com/screenshots.php

Its a really good OpenGL scene graph for java. I personally think its really good if you dont want to re-invent the wheel. if you want to program in 3D low level you could always use LWJGL like myself.