2019-01-31 07:28:29

Hello all,

I was wondering what, if any, is the best coding language for coding audio games?

Also what are good resources for that language?

My mother is looking to pursue coding an audio game as a hobby.

Thanks in advance for any answers, big_smile

2019-01-31 08:06:59

You can begin with python. it's got tons of documentation on-line, the best ones would be... Dive into python, Think Python, how to Think like a Computer Scientist, and Python practice book. Alternatively, if you decide to go with it, you can go to: www.python-course.eu as well. Why did I mention Python? Because it's easy to learn, of all things, one of the most helpful thing would be this. Second, We got an many audio-game developers working with Python, so you should have no issues if you come across any problems in the course of your learning or development.

2019-01-31 16:18:08

there is no best language, the decision should be made by the developer.

2019-01-31 18:16:43

That's a subjective issue. Had you posted a question like that on Stack Overflow, well I doubt anyone there knows about audio games, but the question would be flagged as such.

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2019-01-31 19:47:02 (edited by angel_diva22 2019-01-31 20:02:17)

Yeah I was posting on behalf of my mother, cause she begged me to. Anyway, thanks for the answers.

She is new to the whole concept of coding audio games and was bouncing questions off of me like wildfire hitting a wall 2000000000 times and getting nowhere fast ! .

I kept telling her it was up to her, but yeah. She was just like, ask.

Lol. You gotta love parents sometimes, tongue

2019-02-01 15:08:14 (edited by defender 2019-02-01 15:10:36)

I'm not a coder my self, but I think the idea as a beginner is to pick a common language like BGT, C++, C# .net, Python, or Javascript and get into it some, make a few successful basic test programs, complete several exercises from a book ETC.
If you find that you can get the logic part down, then you can try some other languages for a bit to see if you find their syntax more enjoyable for you personally.
Then you can start worrying about what libraries are available for that language, and if the game/games your planning on making actually require any that you can't use with it.
Generally your going to get better answers if you specifically ask about learning resources, coding methods/tools, and libraries than you would by asking such an open ended and historically divisive question like (what language is best)
Keep in mind also that your question may already have been answered here, and feed the advanced search some keywords just to make sure you aren't beating a dead horse by accident.
For non audio game specific questions, your also going to find allot more professional assistants in a place like stack overflow, even if the rules are much more strict.
Good luck with your efforts!

2019-02-01 17:01:17

Hi, as a third year Software Engineering uni student I whole-heartedly agree with @2.

Python is in my opinion the best starting point for someone that has never done programming and all those resources he mentioned are free and very good. I recommend she goes to python 3, since python2 is slowly being phased out.

The best strengths of python are that you can learn it very quickly and get started on a project quickly as well. It has an absolute ton of libraries that you can use in your projects and it is super popular and if you ever run into trouble you can find an answer to your problem super easily on the internet.

Also, if your mom wants to ask, she should just register for the forum and ask herself wink

Lastly, for the love of god, don't let her touch BGT! She is much much better off by starting with a real programming language and python is very friendly.

2019-02-01 17:27:03

The only negative about Python is that when you look up things over 60 percent of them are python 2 specific. I have [never] liked that. It's literally Python 2, python 2, ... maybe python 3... python 2, python 2, .... definitely python 3... and so on.

"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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2019-02-01 17:53:28

places like stackoverflow have been getting better about saying this is python 2.7 or python 3.x specific but there are getting to be more and more python 3.x answers out there.

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2019-02-02 08:14:21

Here's a take on it, why create an audio game. Think about it this way, are audio games even all that great? O, so all the kids like 10 to 20 probably will start screaming after that last sentence. Here's the thing though, audio games really aren't that great, and here's why. Even the best of the best, the most advanced audio game I've ever seen, A Hero's Call (abbreviated AHC) still missed some things. They really tried, they put forth a valiant effort, and it took 5 years to get that out. Now think about that, it took 5 years to put that out, but in 5 years Rockstar was able to develop GTA V after GTA IV. The point I'm trying to make is that your mother could be an indie developer of a game anyone could play. It could have graphics, and it could have well done sound design, as well as elements that make it playable to blind folks. Now, AHC was a good game imo, it came very close, but there's no feeling like having a controller in your hand, over at a friend's house and whooping some serious ass in MKX. There's no feeling like playing through a story, or playing COD zombies. UFC, WWE, Madden, all those games have such rich experiences that you will not find in an audio game. We don't need more audio games, we need more games that we can play. I honestly think that audio games are on their way out. Not that I think they will go away, but I see it going down like this. As more companies are forced into CVAA compliance, and companies like EA, who already have taken initiative in accessibility, others will start to see that if they have put the framework in for chat accessibility as dictated by CVAA, why not extend it to the rest of the game. Once they've started, why not take it the rest of the way and unlock that other market. They're not just ignoring blind folks, they're ignoring deaf, and otherwise disabled folks as well. When those barriers start crashing down, people will move away from audio games, as mainstream games are just simply more enjoyable.

So your mom wants to code an audio game, OK, but she could usher in a new era. She could bridge the gap, or help to bridge the gap between us, and the other gamers out there. We do have a browser MMO called Tau Station, which was built to be accessible from the ground up. It's a shining beacon for other devs who think you can't have good graphics, and decent visuals if you have accessibility baked in. They feel the two are mutually exclusive. All you have to do is go there, and you will see that a screen reader user has no trouble with it, and a sighted person will get their graphics, and fold out panels and the like.

If she wants to code an audio game, of course, it would be appreciated, I'm just looking down the road a bit and seeing what could potentially be around the corner.

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End division
Become united

2019-02-03 07:48:09 (edited by defender 2019-02-03 07:49:22)

Tend to agree Brandon but unless she's got some sight, how much can she help bridge the gap really?


Isn't bgt just fine for most offline audio games though? the antivirus issue is pretty easy to get around for most users.
I know it generally stunts growth as a coder because so much is done for you, but if all your wanting to do is make simpler stuff anyway than that's kinda your choice right..

2019-02-03 09:48:25 (edited by angel_diva22 2019-02-03 09:49:28)

@Defender,

Yep, knew this whole thing was pointless, but again, sarcastic comment in post five, you really gotta love parents and their way of getting you to do something. big_smile tongue

2019-02-23 08:29:24

Hi,
I consider if she just want to code an audiogame and is new to coding the best choice would be BGT, for sure. Like it or not, Python has nothing like specific modules to do tasks related to audiogames like BGT already includes. And that is an important consideration if you're talking about coding an audiogame. Of course, everyone can argue that we have lots of libraries In python (bass, fmod, openAL for audio, SDL2, Pygame for graphics and keyboard handling and so on), but still you have to write everything to handle audio, keyboard and stuff like that by yourself, and that's something BGT already has done for newcomers. So, if what she wants to know is coding an audiogame, and don't plan to start coding other applications (like desktop apps or multiplatform games), I think BGT is more suitable to do the job easily because it was created specifically for audiogames.

2019-02-23 08:49:45

I mostly code in java for school, but I have dabbled in python some too and I think it's pretty cool. The only issue with coding audio games that I can see, as stated above, is managing the audio files yourself. I person ally have not really  found many libs that I know would work, yet a lot of audio games have been written in Python and I think that some of those devs should open source their work on audio management on something like github. I know Mason Armstrong did so with AGK but I don't know how good it is yet or if it's even being worked on. I would love to find out about Python audio game libraries though. I'm starting a new game and right now BGT is the best choice for me just because of all of the built-in audio stuff already. If anyone can point me in the right direction in terms of libs for Python and maybe some audio management tips, I would appreciate it. I may consider using Python instead.