Topic by Hektor 2015-04-15 00:11:11

  • Hektor
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I am trying to learn how to do game design.  One of the things I am doing to accomplish that is reading the book "Challenges for Game Designers" which includes many design exercises.  While the book doesn't require me to create any software or write any code, I would prefer to try to create my prototype designs using code.  Since the book exercises focus on non-digital game designs for practice, I have a feeling a lot of my prototypes might include the simulation of dice rolls, cards, and game boards.  Is there a game engine or programming language you all might recommend for using to create these types of prototypes based on your own experiences?  In my day job, I work on creating accessible web applications and I already have knowledge of languages like Java, javascript, python, perl, and a few others, so I've not got any concerns about trying to pick up another language.

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Reply by Ethin 2015-04-15 00:19:03 (edited by Ethin 2015-04-15 00:20:20)

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There are many, and I like the depth of information you provide. One of them is Blastbay Game Toolkit (BGT): a gaming toolkit for starters; Pygame, which is written in Python and allows you to create games; SDL, which is written in many programming languages and is a cool gaming library; etc. For simple dice stuff, you could go with BGT or something like that. Or, you could go with PureBASIC which is what several other games on this forum were written in.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
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Reply by tward 2015-04-15 00:49:56

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Hektor, it sounds like you already know the basics required for developing audio games. I'd strongly recommend starting with Python because you already know it, it is an easy language to program with, and there are a couple of decent gaming APIs such as Pygame and Pyglet provided you aren't planning anything too complex.

Ethin, LibSDL, also known as SDL, is actually written strictly in C. There are, however, a number of wrappers for SDL such as Pygame for Python, SdlDotNet for C# and VB .NET, and JSDL for Java. So it is actually written in one language, but has many third-party wrappers for various programming languages.

Sincerely,
Thomas Ward
USA Games Interactive
http://www.usagamesinteractive.com

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Reply by Guitarman 2015-04-15 02:56:29

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Hello Hektor.
Well I'm just a novice programmer but here's what I think. Avoid bgt at all costs! If you know java then this would be easy for you to create simple games in but it is overly complicated and I've never been a fan of angelscript.
That said pretty much any language you can imagine can be used to create games. You mentioned perl also avoid that it's a nasty little language and has no compiler so any projects you make will be open-source whether you want them to be or not. But python, c++, java, purebasic, c#, objective-c are all excellent languages to make games in. I would suggest if you use python to use pygame or pyglet. Both are good and note that you can use pygame and pyglet in the same project without any problems so you can create some pretty crazy and awesome stuff.
Java is good but I think overly complicated although if you want to make android apps it's pretty much mandatory.
But if your a web designer then you know the basics of programming so I would say go for it an start making games. The whole programming language thing is just a matter of preference you can use whatever programming language you want and you should be able to come up with some really nice games.
Hth.

Guitarman.
What has been created in the laws of nature holds true in the laws of magic as well. Where there is light, there is darkness,  and where there is life, there is also death.
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