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[Bebop]

Since forever I've wanted to try myself with programing. Each time I start with good intentions but they always finish in my imaginary dumpster.
I've tried to rent books aboutit but they always speak about stuff you don't know. I've tried website but I can't find any interesting ones. I am a mighty ultra noob.    I would like some suggestion about how i could learn programing without getting lost.

This topic may help someone in the same situation as me. Idon't even know if I like programing but it's worth trying.

[PoV]

Wait... lets turn back time for a moment.  Did you just say...

I've tried to rent books about it but...

You did!  Books can be rented!?  Whoa. 

I've been far away from anything remotely related to teaching for a long time, so I don't know any instant programming magic.  But you might be able to go somewhere with Blitz Basic, some other game making scripting language, or maybe even XNA for the PC and Xbox 360.  You should be able to find tutorials on the net for XNA or Blitz.  Start small.

[Bezzy]

My tip for ultra beginners is to find the source of a simple game, learn how to get it compiling, and then just fiddle with it, even if it's just the speed of a your bullets, or the value of gravity - it's instant gratification from trial and error.

Read their code, modify it, and eventually you'll start wondering how you can make your own stuff from scratch.

It's a long road, is the thing, and no-one gets there overnight. Don't bite off too much at first. Just get comfortable with "playing" with someone else's code, and let the intrinsic joy of that play bring you toward deeper understanding of it.

[lowpoly]

check out Blitz. Great community, tons of source code to dig through and try out, engine is plenty powerful for anything you'd be heading into.

The key is to keep it small, simple, and manageable. Don't try to make your dream game off the bat. Instead, dick around with small ideas and tests to figure out how things work and build off that. Most importantly tho, if you're impatient and easily discouraged, you'll never get anywhere with it.

[Abadox]

dude, Game Maker.
I know people shit on it all the time, but it's actually pretty cool. You can totally make a good game with it. The Game Maker forums are terrible though.
Shit on them. Word.

[ravuya]

I generally recommend Python and PyGame. It's just as easy as Blitz, but it's not proprietary, and is used in industry a lot for scripting (as well as outside the game industry).

As another plus, it works on pretty much any platform out there.

[Derek]

Can people give examples of good games made with each program?  Example: for Game Maker I might mention Seiklus and Knytt (that's a GM game, right?).  I'd like to start a thread that has all the options written down in it and stickied.

[Inane]

I asked a few programmer friends about Pygame, and they all reacted with horror and disgust.

[lowpoly]

off the top of my head, Platypus and Jet Set Willy Online were made in some flavor of Blitz, both of who's makers are members here... Also War Angels, if Hamish ever finishes it.

[BenH]

Can people give examples of good games made with each program?  Example: for Game Maker I might mention Seiklus and Knytt (that's a GM game, right?).  I'd like to start a thread that has all the options written down in it and stickied.

Knytt is a Multimedia Fusion game I believe!

[Derek]

Ah, you're right.

[Terry]

An interesting (and fairly recent) choice would be to use FreeBasic. It's a bit like Blitzbasic except (a) it's totally Free, (b) it's Windows/Linux cross platform, with a Mac port on the way, (c) it's designed to be compatible with Qbasic, so it's really easy to use and there's a lot of documentation out there, and finally (d) it supports all the standard C addons, like SDL, OpenGL, Allegro, and all that.

It's only been around for about two years, but there are at least two good examples of Freebasic games out there - Lynn's Legacy and The Griffon Legend.

[edit: Oh my! I'm sorry, that's like totally not what you were asking, was it?]

[Oddbob]

Jet Set Willy Online is BlitzMAX, although really there's little reason why it couldn't have been written in any other language - its just thats the one that Stu's working with right now.

Which is pretty much the key with topics like this - you ask this question and everyone has a different opinion of whats good, whats not so good and the simple truth of the answer is - there's good and shite games made in everything, you just have to find the one you're comfortable with - and don't let anyone say "dude, you shouldn't write <x> in <x> because <x> is soooo better".

My advice - try everything. Try every demo of a language or dev package you can be bothered with, one of them you'll find easier to wrap your head round then stick with it. When you hit a wall, don't leap to another language because doing that won't patch the holes in your knowledge and when the next wall comes - what then? Do you keep jumping ship? Find one you like and stick with it.

I've been sticking with GM for ooh, 4/5 years ish now and its paid me back in spades since 6.0/6.1 as now, there's little I'd need to do for a 2d game I can't do with some time and effort. The same goes for pretty much all the other packages. Its the sticking with it that pays dividends. If you want 3d, then I'd probably choose anything other than GM - not that it can't be done, but you'd be busting a gut for something that other packages are better tailored to.

Oh yeah, and as a wise man said in another topic round these parts - finish something. Doesn't matter what it is, how shite it is - finish it. Even if its only a pong clone, its something and a start.

I think Dereks idea of collating a "good games made in" list is a good one, if nowt else it'll show off what folks can achieve and might do a nice bit of myth busting.

[DrDerekDoctors]

Blitz 2D - Cybernoid 2.

[Derek]

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=49.0

It's a start.

Any kind of feedback and info from people familiar with these programs would be much appreciated.  I'll talk about Allegro, PyGame, and stuff, too.

And Adventure Game Studio... that's a popular one.

[Johan Peitz]

Feel free to leak stuff from here if you need to. It's a year old or so but that might be irrelevant.

[Terry]

Nice Here are a few more links for the FreeBasic bit, seeing as I brought it up and all.

Freebasic Wiki: Has links to good tutorials, plus a full manual for the language.

Qbasicnews: A popular community site that's mostly FB stuff these days.

QB Express: A monthly magazine put together by the community. Hasn't been updated in a while, but I hear it's coming back soon.

[Matt Thorson]

I'd definitely recommend Game Maker as a starting point.  It introduced me to programming back in grade 10, and now that I'm in college I'm leaps and bounds ahead of most of my fellow first-year students, as I already understand syntax, the usefulness of OOP, etc.

I make all my games in it.

Great place to start.

[axel]

I've used GameMaker, but I didn't like it that much. The Klik range of software is pretty good for smaller games. The new Multimedia Fusion 2.0 is a really nice tool if you don't feel like learning "real" programming.

Allegro is also an excellent choice for 2D games

[BenH]

I think GameMaker can appear pretty weak on the surface, which is a real shame because it has SO much power behind it that many people fail to recognise.