[NyCEE]

Good day everyone, I'm an engineer recently graduated in space engineering, and i decided to start the development of a videogame with a group of friends.

I'm not new to programming in general (as i have an extensive experience with Matlab coding), but I am reguarding videogames programming.I'm looking for the best and easier instrument to develope the videogame we have in our minds: a 2D game beat'em up style (a la castle crashers).
The final idea is to make this a hobby of mine with a product to sell if it turns out to be good enough.

At the moment I was looking at C++, as it is one the most known around, and it would also help when presenting a personal CV to eventual companies. The problem is in C++ I have absolutly no experience, and an extensive tutorial would help.

Obviusly if you have suggestion and tips, or advices on other development tools to use instead, they all are welcome.

Thanks!

ps: i wrote this post will i was giving a look around on the forum as it was one of the first things displayed immediatly after the registration...

[robostealth]

C# using the XNA Framework is very easy to use and you can pop your game into the xbox live indie game marketplace (for a small fee). I absolutely love coding in XNA, have been for almost 3 years now

[tony12095]

Well, C# is a great language for games as a result of the graphics and the XBox compatibality, but if you want to create a game for a computer, I would have to say use Java. It is a moderately fast language, and it can work on multiple operational systems, basically anything runs Java, so it would be a good choice.

Another option is maybe using a Game Engine of some form. It won't require you to know how to program, and all you have to do is draw the images, set the operations, and export the file as an application or game in most.

Either way is good.

This post has been edited by tony12095: 20 February 2013 - 06:49 AM

[NyCEE]

Mine problem with external game engines is that i dont want to start to learn to use them to discover midway that i cant find a way to do what i have in mind (when it is completly free) or i have to pay huge bucks to avoid limitations (when basic options are free (but the whole package is not).

Java would be ok, it was one of the chioces: still have to figure out the pros/cons of both of them.

[modi123_1]

Quote

Mine problem with external game engines is that i dont want to start to learn to use them to discover midway that i cant find a way to do what i have in mind (when it is completly free) or i have to pay huge bucks to avoid limitations (when basic options are free (but the whole package is not).

That is why you would map out your game's requirement specs before you start and then you can see what you need and what you don't need. You know.. that whole "look before you leap".

[ButchDean]

Also, I wouldn't recommend going with XNA for the following reasons:

1. It is now obsolete in not being supported in Windows 8.
2. If that is the case, I doubt the new Xbox that will be out at some point in the near future will support it either, so that kills any chance of placing your XNA game on the market.

[sparkart]

Based on your experience and end goal I would recommend you take a look at http://yoyogames.com/gamemaker

It will take you time to learn C++.

[print('username')]

sparkart, on 20 February 2013 - 12:28 PM, said:

Based on your experience and end goal I would recommend you take a look at http://yoyogames.com/gamemaker

It will take you time to learn C++.

+1, I also would recommend that. It is as simple or complex as you need it to be. It has built in particle effects and can even do some basic 3d.

[Nekroze]

If you are interested in only 2d work and possibly using C/C++ then I would suggest SDL or alternatively SFML if you want hardware acceleration straight away at the slight price of less tutorials etc.

There are a great deal of tutorials for SDL and it is used almost everywhere but it can be a bit slow for complex games, however with your game it shouldn't be a problem. SDL has also been ported to a bunch of different languages because it is a C library.

SFML is a newer spin on something like SDL and uses opengl for hardware acceleration out of the box and is fully OOP using C++ although it does have a C port as well which has prompted some porting to other languages.

Both have built in support for things that you will find useful for developing a game and really defining how it all fits together rather then putting your art into a magic box, which some people like and that's fair enough too.

Some google searches for either of the two will yield a good deal of information and tutorials although like I said a little less so on the SFML side because its newer and not as widely in use but picks up the slack on some of the shortcomings of SDL.

As each has C bindings, SDL natively so, they can be used from many other languages other then C/C++ and the knowledge of use in one language can be transferred to and from another if you decide to change language later... Although many ports (for example pygame the python port of sdl) may not be 1:1 ports but you will still understand the library rather well.

I wish you the best of luck and I hope you have fun and learn lots!

This post has been edited by Nekroze: 20 February 2013 - 02:37 PM

[Kryptofan]

further to the SFML suggestion:

check out UDemy. They have a Learn C++ Game Development series that uses the SFML to create a game from scratch.