11 replies to this topic

[athlyt17]

I am looking to start programming a game.

I want it to be somewhat like Hero World on Myspace.

I believe this game is java based, but I am just wondering what kind of language I should delve into in order to create a game much like that one.

Any opinions are appreciated, thank you.

P.S. If you happen to know of any good beginners-advanced tutorials on the language, feel free to leave a link. :thumbup:

[Sinipull]

What languages do you know so far?

[chili5]

A good option might be Flash ActionScript.

[athlyt17]

Sinipull said:

What languages do you know so far?

Like I said, I'm pretty new to programming.

But I have a basic understanding of html.

[chili5]

HTML isn't going to be very useful. It will come in handy if you go with Flash though.

Making games with Flash is easy. However, like Jordan said you can make some pretty sweet games with .NET.

Also, it is possible to make some nice games with Java.

If you have the money Flash is great. Otherwise, Java or a .NET based language are really good.

[Sinipull]

I think you have 2 choices.

1) You choose the hard way, you want to be a programmer, forget all about games and start learning real programming, like C, or C++ which sets you right mindset, and eventually gives you everything you need to know about making games or anything else. Probably takes years to learn, but after that you are ready to learn any language in matter of months, because you already know, how computer works inside.

2) You choose the easy way, you just want to make games you don't want to know how serious programming works, and start learning flash actionscript, which means you can start making games right away, but you lack of knowledge how things work deep down, and therefore are limited to only flash, which does all the lower level things, like memory allocation, pointers, etc automatically.

[tossy]

I would say .NET, C++, VB.....will be helpful

[JCoder]

Quote

start learning real programming, like C, or C++

Flash ActionScript IS real programming, too, dude.
Besides, low level programming is much easier compared to high level.

Quote

Probably takes years to learn, but after that you are ready to learn any language in matter of months, because you already know, how computer works inside.

Nope. You know how computer works inside if you try to program something REALLY low level and you take some exercises on microprocessor design (e.g. create your own RISC on FPGA and then program it). Standard C on Windows/Linux is fairly high level, when compared to this - no raw memory access, no raw device access, hardware control only through OS abstraction layer, optimizations done by the compiler and not by you.

And this does not help learning all new languages either. Try to learn LISP or Haskell - knowing C/C++ only makes things more difficult.

To the original poster: if you are really interested in programming games - take any simple language to start with (might be ActionScript, VB or whatever you wish) and learn algorithms and data structures. It is much easier to learn the ESSENCE of programming when you do not need to fight with the language and do memory deallocation or dangling pointers tracking. Leave these things to the OS/embedded programmers.

[Natrobius]

And never worry about optimization, portability, or true control over your program. Leave what your program looks like, and what you are able to do up to someone else... You shouldn't be concerned with that anyways. You should learn the ESSENCE of programming, which is the stuff every two year grad can do... You know... That stuff there is no remaining job market for.

Here's some FACTS. Every real game that has exploited any power over a computer has been written in C/C++. (All the way back to the old Quake days) C/C++ is cross platform, is standardized, is FREE, is well documented, and has a lot of free libraries around to make your life easier. Regardless of what anyone may think, C/C++ is the accepted language of professional programmers.

[JCoder]

I work for a REAL gaming company. We employ no C/C++ programmers. The languages used are: Java (high availability, high performance server side applications), Flash (client side software), PHP (community site frontends), JavaME and ObjectiveC (mobile clients). C/C++ has no place in serious MMORPG development. Oh, there are some who actually use C++ on server in MMORGs too, but this is due to historical merits and not technical ones. Even if we were to write a real-time 3D browser game, the only 2 technologies that count would be Java 3D (e.g. with JMonkeyEngine) and Adobe Flex.

[Natrobius]

Ok... I apologize, yes C/C++ doesn't have a place in browser based games. I guess I was coming from the software application end.