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[The-Imp]

I haven't made a game and I almost have 3000 posts.

I feel compelled to do so. As the title says, I need a good game programming tool, user/noob friendly, nothing too complicated (Reading lines of C++ for me is like dipping my own brain in acid, minus the physical pain.).

I would like answers based off personal experience, and ease of use.

Thanks!

[Movius]

what sort of game are you wanting to make?
what skills do you have already (coding or otherwise)?

[The-Imp]

Well, I'd like to make arcade-ish games. Platformers, maybe even a shmup. Hell, I've been interested in making an RPG similar to the Mario Brothers RPG's (handheld).

The only real programming knowledge I had was the tiniest bit of gamemaker. TINIEST. Only some basic stuff.

[Jason Bakker]

Not too sure myself these days... I first started doing stuff in actionscript, then Java, then did some stuff with Torque before moving to straight C++.

Java's a good language to learn programming practices in, but can be a bit slow for games, and of course it isn't tailored for making games like something like Gamemaker probably is.

I'll keep thinking about it, but anyways, good stuff Just remember to take it slow and easy, and don't stress if you don't understand something, just keep plugging away at it and eventually it will dawn on you. (I'm still doing this after 5+ years of programming )

[george]

The only real programming knowledge I had was the tiniest bit of gamemaker.

so I take it you don't like gamemaker? Construct, then, maybe?

[YagerX]

Flash with flashdevelop and flixel is nice?

[moi]

I haven't made a game and I almost have 3000 posts.

Give or take 700

I feel compelled to do so. As the title says, I need a good game programming tool, user/noob friendly, nothing too complicated (Reading lines of C++ for me is like dipping my own brain in acid, minus the physical pain.).

I would like answers based off personal experience, and ease of use.

Thanks!

Take a look at construct. If I were to start again from scratch with the same knowledge I wouldn't waste my time rewriting a framework and reinventing the wheel. There are soo many artist friendly options nowadays it's crazy.

[nihilocrat]

Unless you are in a programming mindset, or you worry about stuff like cross-platform ability, it's indeed wisest to go with one of the existing game-makers out there.

Plus, I purport that pyglet + python is pretty pimp.

[xerus]

What.  Use Game Maker or Construct or something.  Jumping into programming from nothing can pretty much assure that you wont be finishing anything.

[BlueSweatshirt]

What.  Use Game Maker or Construct or something.  Jumping into programming from nothing can pretty much assure that you wont be finishing anything.

Quoted for emphasis.


I recommend Game Maker. Great program, great flexibility.

[Tycho Brahe]

take a look at small basic, yes its basic, yes its easy, but if you want to make a simple game, and dont want to think about graphics, then its good, as it has very simple, and moderately powerful 2d graphics stuff.

I dont use it myself, and I'm not sure of its speed, and it is distinctly non-portable, however it may be worth a look...

[Eclipse]

I haven't made a game and I almost have 3000 posts.

I feel compelled to do so. As the title says, I need a good game programming tool, user/noob friendly, nothing too complicated (Reading lines of C++ for me is like dipping my own brain in acid, minus the physical pain.).

I would like answers based off personal experience, and ease of use.

Thanks!

Fenix is awesome: http://fenix.divsite.net/index.php?opcion=1&lang=en

It's basically the old DIV, Anthony Flack used it for a lot, he did Bert the Barbarian with that! And it was my first programming language (DIV not Fenix, but it's basically the same).

This new opensource version has support for  Windows, Linux, Mac OS, BSD, BeOS without
even recompiling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenix_Project

sadly the main site seems broken so grab it from here:

http://fenixdocs.com/index.php/Fenix_Wiki
http://sourceforge.net/projects/fenix/files/

Also there are several IDEs available, like Flamebird 2 and others.

I believe performance are better than Game Maker too.

It's very easy to learn as it has very few functions and a simple syntax, but it's quite powerful.

Oh also the interpreter has been ported on a lot of other platforms too, like gp2x, ps2 and dreamcast.


EDIT: ok seems like there's a fork of Fenix called Bennu that's even more powerful
http://www.bennugd.org/ worth a look imo

[Dataflashsabot]

I heartily reccomend Construct. Check it out!

[nihilocrat]

Fenix

Its main feature, inherited from DIV, is the pseudo-parallel programming similar to Coroutines, i.e. it gives the developer the chance of programming different processes (enemies, characters, etc.) separately, and the engine will synchronize them.

Interesting! Thanks for the heads up, might take a look at this one.

[moi]

I did take a look , but it seems a bit too complicated for its own sake.

[Eclipse]

I did take a look , but it seems a bit too complicated for its own sake.

It's like the simpler language for games i've ever seen 

Basically you declare stuffs like a "sprite" routine, it will have a bitmap, a rect, x and y coordinates by default, then you can add functions and variables to it.

It was Object Oriented Programming but strictly for games 

Div Games Studio was ace, it was a complete suite with: a desktop\windows system to manage your files (it was under dos, so having a windows-like desktop was nice), a paint-like program (inside this sort of mini-os), a text editor, a debugger, a doom-like map editor, a 3dish sprite editor, a procedural explosions editor, a cd player, recycle bin and a calculator :D
I remember it used 256 colors max, via palettes, even this sort of os supported only few colors so the gui was almost all blue (but you were able to edit the palette file)
I remember i even used to set it in autorun with my 486...

[moi]

Ah so maybe it's the wiki that is badly written

[imaginationac]

I highly recommend Construct. It's ridiculously easy to make a working prototype in HOURS! You could actually get some sleep!

[Impossible]

I would recommend processing, but I'm biased.

[Jack Gleeson]

Jumping into programming from nothing can pretty much assure that you wont be finishing anything.

I'm against that. I started off programming, C# it was, which is incredibly easy and has beautiful code(I like semi colons.). C# also has Xna, which is fantastic and has a great community. Once you get better at programming, you'll almost definitely want to build an application of some sort and this is a standard language that they're written on for Windows(They can run on Linux and MacOS too using Mono, which is also great.). Also, a while ago there was an engine built on top of Xna for just 2d games, IceCream, I haven't been keeping up with Xna stuff lately but that was in private beta there a while ago, just search for the engine then go to the IRC channel and ask for a download.

So yeah,
 programming > game making software (except for small projects.)