Hi Brad and ghorthalon,
and thanks for picking up this topic before I could notice it. I'll be interested in that guide myself, not because I need it but because I have noticed many people getting excited about the engine just as if it was another audiogame Maker, then giving up with bitter disappointment because they realized it would cost more time and effort than they either possessed or were willing to invest into the learning process. For example, I have been theoretically interested in various programming languages and programming concepts in general before BGT came out but I have never really done much. I was able to write very basic stuff in the version of Basic that the Eureka A4 8-bit computer used, LOL, then I tried to move on to its Pascal and later to some version of Pascal under MS Dos (can't remember which one it was any more) while I was still quite young, like 10 or 11 or so, but of course I inevitably failed misserably wit that attempt. Then there was HTML and Autoit version 2. As soon as version 3 came out, with the overhauled syntax which made it much more powerful but also complex in turn, I was lost again. The tutorials were written in a too advanced way for my liking, again, a problem I was constantly facing at that time, assuming way too much knowledge from the learner even at the beginning, at least theoretical one. So I gave up again, although I was still only 15 or 16 or something similar. And then BGT came out out of nowhere, and in this situation, I learned it rather quickly just from the tutorial on its own. I had the first playable version of soundfall ready in less than a week, with lots of help from Philip and the other developers and testers on the BGT beta tteam at the time, but still.
So, even now, BGT is the only programming or at least advanced scripting language that I have really mastered so far. I've seen code snippets in Autoit 3, Python and now even C++ because Philip is constantly trying to convince me to start learning that, lol, but BGT is the only thing I am actually able to code in.
So I find myself just staring in a rather perplexed way when someone asks things like what a variable is... I mean, it's such a basic thing that I can't seem to be able to think of a working explanation. Whatever attempts I make, they are just simpler and different wordings of what is already said in the tutorial but it's essentially still the same thing, so I can only hope that the reworded explanation might finally make it click into place for someone. :-)
So, a variable: the language itself is quite limited, imagine it as learning a foreign language with a limited vocabulary. So you need to express every single piece of information that the game will contain in some way which you can't do with just what the language offers on its own, but that's why variables are there. You can choose one for the player's position in a sidescrolling environment, another for his health, another for his speed (so, in programming terms, how much time has to pass between him taking two steps), and so on. Then you will use this variable name in expressions rather than just typing out "player's position", "player's health" and so on. But it's not that difficult, is it? You know that you need something to keep track of the player's health, therefore that it's going to be a numeric value. There are different types of numeric variables in BGT but for now we can use just int, standing for integer, which is the basic numeric variable type. So, to create the variable, you would just type:
int player_health;
It could be whatever you wanted though, for instance:
int xyz;
would work equally as well. The name of the variable is completely up to you to decide, as long as it does not begin with a number and contain certain special characters.
So, did this make at least some more sense than the tutorial, or not yet?
Games like Guess the number or a dice rolling program are in deed boring but you can't expect yourself to start with something bigger without having mastered the fundamental concepts first. No matter how much simpler BGT is compared to a ny all-purpose programming language, it's still programming in principle. The most important thing for a newbie is to first learn the workings of the language itself so that they become second nature eventually, and this will in turn lead you to being able to imagine how to turn ideas into actual working code, but it requires time, effort, determination and, especially, practice, practice, practice... :-D
This might be discouraging but, without intending to sound harsh or anything, BGT is not meant to replace Audiogame Maker. That thing was simple as hell so you could quickly put together small simplistic limited games of more or less the same nature with it, that lacked things like being able to set any options, difficulty levels, the music volume, saving, pausing, etc, but they would still have worked and would be at least something for the kind of creative people without the programming grain in their minds to keep them busy, if it was not so horrificly bugged... But if you want to be more serious about games, you have to treat the whole process more seriously. You don't write a best selling novel with poor spelling and grammar. you don't become a rock band frontman, standing in front of the band on stage and improvising absolutely cool breath-taking guitar solos if you can only play the C major and G major chords. You don't win the Maraton if you can only manage to run for a hundred meters without losing your breath. All of these things take lots of effort, determination and practice, so not even the clearest of all the explanations in the world will make you magicaly understand it and come up with an amazing game overnight.
Hope this helps, and best of luck! Feel free to ask any specific questions if my variable explanation made you think of any, or just try to better express what still keeps you in the dark, what's the most difficult concept for you to grasp...
Lukas
I won't be using this account any more or participating in the forum activity through other childish means like creating an alternate account. I've asked for the account to be removed but I'm not sure if that's actually technically possible here. Just writing this for people to know that I won't be replying, posting new topics or checking private messages until the account is potentially removed.
I have more questions but i don't no what to start with or where to go to get started. i no there are tutirals in bgt but they don't seam to make sence to me. i get so far then give up because i just get soo bord and frustrated.
