next »

[fish]

am i the only non-coder here?

i could program a microwave to save my life.
black magic, all of it!

i cant be the only one, can i?

[Guert]

No you're not!
I'm a fake coder! If I must, I can do it but don't ask me to code anything elaborated

[rey-o]

i guess all of us lvl 1 forum guys are non coders:-)

maybe someday, but for now i'm content to just make pretty pictures:-)

[fish]

you're level 0.
but you do have 23 posts.
23.
nice.

not being able to code is often the bane of my existence.
id be such a fucking unstopable powerhouse.

but eh, i can do pretty much everything else.

[rey-o]

lol, i didnt even notice that...

man, now i gotta go and slay some rats to get more xp

[Guert]

Fish, I here ya load and clear!
Once in a while I think to myself: "Hey start to code again!" I boot up my editor, type in two lines and give up... I just plain don't like coding! :D

Luckyly, I'm coding a bit in simple languages so I can develop quick prototypes without much hassle.

[fish]

well, atleats you can code something.
i really dont know anything about code.
i dont underatdn it.
i fear it.
it hates me.
etc etc.

[shinygerbil]

I'm a bone fide Non-Coder, although I plan to leave that elite club this summer with the help of a book or two.

(Well, I say non-coder, the last program I made was a commandline brute force Su Doku solver, just to see if it was even possible for me to understand C. Commandline input of a Su Doku puzzle sucks.)

[sega]

I haven't tried to learn a proper programming language yet, but I have tried learning torquescript.  I could do some simple stuff, but eventually, I'd hit a brick wall.  Then after a week of tearing that wall down, I found another brick wall pressed up against it.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

I think my main problem is that all these scripting languages are based on C in formatting.  At least with torquescript, even though TGB was made for people who can't code, all tutorials and documentation assume you already know how to format your code.  I've learned a lot through observation, but once it gets to the fancier stuff, like cycling through objects under a point, adding an object at that object's location, then taking control of the original objects found when cycling... well, let's just say the variables don't end up working like I thought they would.  I have to learn these formatting and syntax rules in detail before I can get deeper into scripting.

I do plan on going after it again in a couple of months, after I finish my current game (of which a friend is programming).  I'm able to prototype my simpler ideas, but I have a lot more designs backed up that I'd love to prototype.

When I was 12, I programmed 6 games or so in BASIC on my Commodore 64.  They were mostly text based, but I did make a UFO catcher game.  I'd love to see them again, but my father threw out my computer.  I just wish I had those disks at least.  They probably wouldn't still have their data anyway, huh.

[fish]

when i was 12 id just make myself myst-clones with hypercard on my mac classic.
dad tought me just enough so i could link stuff together and trigger special events and stuff like that.

[ravuya]

I made stuff in HyperCard on my old Mac too, with just button links and such. Then I learned to program much later and life was good.

I wish I had known more about programming when I had HyperCard; HyperTalk is actually a really advanced scripting language and you could make some pretty advanced games in it.

[Chris Whitman]

Coding is fundamentally extremely easy. I'm really more of a math guy than a computer guy, but I became fairly proficient in C/C++, Java and a couple types of assembler without putting any particular effort into it.

The secret to learning how to program is just an intuitive understand of what is going on. Concepts like memory management and object oriented programming can seem daunting at first, but once you really wrap your head around the process, the entire thing becomes very simple. If you find it difficult, it's probably because you either approached the concepts assuming they were too difficult for you (which they aren't, trust me) or you started off trying to do something with required a base level of knowledge you didn't possess.

Coding is a skill, and like any skill, what it requires most is a time investment. It's really not as far beyond the abilities of the average person as most people seem to think it is. Just make sure you start with the extreme basics, and I would also recommend steering clear of anything with a title like 'Learn to Make Games Now!' I have flipped through those books, and they are almost universally useless: they tend to do the same song and dance number of walking you through elementary OpenGL/DirectX using poorly explained examples and then conclude with "Now you have made a game. Hurrah!"

[Impossible]

I am not a coder, I just pretend to be one so I can get paid.

[RohoMech]

I am not a coder, I just pretend to be one so I can get paid.

I can back this fact up, he's very good at pretending.

[Guert]

I am not a coder, I just pretend to be one so I can get paid.

I know people who are not artist but pretend to be one so they can get laid...

[Terry]

Well hey, you guys are lucky. I take it instead of learning to program, you've taught yourself how to produce music on a computer (something I'm hopeless at, despite being an alrite guitar player) or how to make pixel art (something I'm just hopeless at, full stop).You don't really *need* to be able to code to make games. Believe me, it's like, the least important part of the whole thing.

[bigbossSNK]

If you really have absolutely no experience in programming, yet you'd still like to prototype something really quick, you can always try Scratch. You won't build any parallax scrolling platformers with it, but you can serve a Pong clone within the first two hours. :D

[sega]

Well hey, you guys are lucky. I take it instead of learning to program, you've taught yourself how to produce music on a computer (something I'm hopeless at, despite being an alrite guitar player) or how to make pixel art (something I'm just hopeless at, full stop).You don't really *need* to be able to code to make games. Believe me, it's like, the least important part of the whole thing.

Unless you are lacking so much in coding knowledge that you can't even get your art to interact with anything.  Music and graphics are awesome and all, but it doesn't go far when prototyping.  You can make a program where you move a red box, interacting with blue boxes, with no music, and still have a game.  If you draw and animate 100s of awesome characters, with 40 tracks of top notch music, yet still can't get them to show up in any interactive form, you have no game.

I'm just saying that a little bit of coding knowledge may go a long way, but that doesn't make it the least important.  Most scripting languages do assume some coding knowledge.  Anyway, I consider scripting a TYPE of coding, even if it's made to simplify the process.

It sucks that I've failed in the past to get to that basic level of skill/knowledge to illustrate the majority of my simple 2D game ideas.  I plan on trying once again to fix that soon.  I don't consider myself stupid, and I always was ahead of the rest of the class when learning maths in my tiny high school, but I guess I've been going about things in a wrong way or something.  Or I expect myself to pick it up more quickly than I am, so I move too far ahead of myself too quickly.  Whatever it is, it wasn't working in the past.  I'm going to try a different plan of attack this time.

[Alex May]

I have to agree that the fundamentals of game coding, especially at the level required for most indie (or whatever, freeware) games, should be a feasible goal for anyone here. You can segue into it by starting with basic stuff (even BASIC) and moving up. I'm self-taught. You know? Start with Game Maker or something. some scripting... luaplayer maybe...

It's just logic. If the player hit this thing then kill the player. reduce number of lives. if lives equals zero it's game over. if game over then run this drawing routine (draw a gravestone) instead of the game drawing routine. and play the solemn music. it's just logic. yes, I have been drinking.

[Impossible]

This is pretty much a problem for everyone.  Every artist wishes he could code, and every coder wants to be a better artist. Although the positive self improvement people will tell you "anyone can learn anything!" not everyone actually wants to or can put in the time and effort required to learn. While I do think everyone can become a competent artist and learn a little programming, the amount of time and effort it takes to become an expert at either one is restrictive.  As someone that has done both I don't understand people that say "I just can't draw" or "I just can't understand programming" IMO they're just not trying hard enough, but that also probably means they don't want to put forth the effort either.

As a lone developer it sucks to be a great coder and have zero artistic skills, but like Sega said, at least you CAN make a game.  Someone with art or music skills and zero coding ability can make mockups or soundtracks (which usually have much more emotional impact than some programmer's shitty game... but that's another thing), but has no ability to create a working game, which I imagine is a worse situation than creating games with shitty art. Once you have some minor coding abilities programming becomes much less important as Echo mentioned.  Many of the best indie games are made by people that are good artists with some minor technical skills.  As long as you have some method of moving your images on the screen you can make a great game.  People (for the most part) will respond much more favorable to simple games with great artwork than the same game with bad, abstract or minimalist art.  Being a great coder with tons of technical knowledge doesn't empower you much more because doing anything complicated takes a ton of time, and you usually can't produce content to feed that technology.  Considering the quality of tools out there you don't have to have amazing technical skills to make a great game.  There are no such equivalent "easy art tools" of that quality that exist for programmers. 

While I'm a better artist than many coders, I generally get "wow, your programmer art is great!" which is funny, because if I was just an artist with no programming ability I guess I'd just be a bad artist. At this point I'd swap my programming skills and art skills in a heart beat. As a pretty good artist and a mediocre programmer I imagine I could make much more appealing games than I do as a mediocre artist and a pretty good programmer.