2019-04-27 21:10:56 (edited by thggamer 2019-04-28 15:13:35)

I often see people in this forum wanting to learn to code and don't knowing how to start, so I decided to create this topic to centralize the information we have.
For this topic, I researched in actual topics what advice people gave and tried to compile the most recent of it here. Feel free to add or edit things.

1. Which Language Should I Start With?
Looking at the last posts, it seems the most used programming languages for audiogame development are Python and BGT.

Magurp244 wrote in this post https://forum.audiogames.net/topic/2737 … ke-a-game/ :
Its important to keep in mind that what language you choose initially doesn't really matter, as all languages share certain similarities, so learning one language
makes learning others easier.

For what its worth I would recommend starting with Python, as its versatile, easy to use, has lots of documentation, and there are plenty of people around who have
experience with it who can answer any questions you may have.

For BGT, Trajectory wrote in the same post:
I'm sure you've heard of BGT; it's a tool for programming audio games.
While it might not be the most current technology anymore, it's a great place to start. It's packed full of documentation designed for people who have never written a line of code in their lives.

2. Which resources are available to learn these programming languages?
For BGT, there is a manual that teaches from the basic programming concepts to the advanced ones, and explains how to use the functions that it provides.

Trajectory wrote in the post linked earlier:
There are resources online like code academy, which will give you specific exercises to help you learn programming concepts.

For Python, magurp244 wrote in this post https://forum.audiogames.net/topic/2741 … -to-start/ the following:
Some good books are:
Dive Into Python
https://www.cmi.ac.in/~madhavan/courses … index.html

How To Think Like A Computer Scientist
http://openbookproject.net/thinkcs/python/english3e/

or the Python Practice Book
https://anandology.com/python-practice-book/index.html

3. What libraries are available for audio game development?
For Python, according to the post linked earlier, Pygame and Pyglet are used for audio and key handling and Tolk is used for screen reader output.
However, there are more options. Amerikranian wrote in this post:
Most people use accessible output 2, another lib for communication between the app and the screen reader. However, Tolk maybe easier to set up and get going with, as it comes with everything you need. AO2 on the other hand doesn't, and may give strange errors that are misleading.
For python, sound lib is popular for sound, as well as Open Al, though the second one can be more interesting to get going with.
Lucas1853 also wrote:
For GUI, wxpython is usually used in Python. While that might (might) not be relevant to your game development, if you're looking into application development as well it is a good library to use.
As bgt is a toolkit especially designed for audio game development, no other libraries are required.

2019-04-27 23:07:56

Something to add to the third statement:
Most people use accessible output 2, another lib for communication between the app and the screen reader. However, Tolk maybe easier to set up and get going with, as it comes with everything you need. AO2 on the other hand doesn't, and may give strange errors that are misleading.
For python, sound lib is popular for sound, as well as Open Al, though the second one can be more interesting to get going with.

2019-04-28 01:56:15

You've done some research into this which I applaud. Something I'd like to add is that for GUI, wxpython is usually used in Python. While that might (might) not be relevant to your game development, if you're looking into application development as well it is a good library to use.

2019-04-28 15:17:23

Thank you for your additions. I edited the first post to add these libraries. Also, if you want to add another question or remove something, feel free to include it and I will edit the first post.

2019-04-29 03:46:01

Someone should clean this up a bit and sticky it.  It really should have been done a long time ago, so thanks for compiling it.