Programming Language

All this talk of Indie RPGs recently has me thinking about trying to come up with a prototype for a few ideas I have. My question is what sort of programming languages and development tools are you indie developers using?

I used to be pretty proficient with basic back in the days of tooling around on my old 8088, and then moved on to some C/C++ but I never gained any real proficiency. And of course this was long before I had any consideration of programming for a windows environment. So whats a good place to start?

We've had these questions here before. Depends on what you are planning to do.

But for the, just starting hobby programmer who want to make a game. Unity is probably your best bet. You could also check out torque.

If you're not going to bother with graphics and just make a text prototype or some such a thing I'd say java, c++, or C# or whatever... doesn't matter.

dot.net languages =

Visual Studio Express - using C#.

It's free, it's powerful, it's well documented.

I found that Eschalon was coded entirely using Blitzmax (A Basic derived language). Anyone have anything to say about it?

Since you've had experience with C/C++ I would recommend either C# or Java. There are tons of libraries for both of them and a lot easier to work with than C/C++. If you want to use Java there is the java-gaming.org forum where everything from 4k to fully fledge games are discussed.

Best Rad-platform: Delphi or Free-Pascal with Lazarus

Best Compiler for Windows: C++ and Vb6

Best Basic Compiler: Pure Basic & Power Basic

Best Ansi C-Compiler: LCC

I found that Eschalon was coded entirely using Blitzmax (A Basic derived language). Anyone have anything to say about it?

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Yes you can use Blitzmax too if you want....

Seriously, for rapid prototyping: C# or java as mentioned before.

I am C++ programmer myself but I think if I am going to do a game for the first time, I will go with either Java or C#. They are much easier get going.

I've dabbled a little bit, and the thing I found was that most languages don't have good tutorials on game making. I'm not saying that the languages aren't well documented, or have high traffic forums, but for instance, I learned C# back in '04 and have used it on and off for work since. However, I could never find a book (or series) that really guided you through the process of making a game. I read through the following:

Beginning C# Game Programming - unfortunately it never was updated for DirectX9.0c and so about 2/3 through the book, you're basically screwed. (I bought the book just before 9.0c came out).

Microsoft C# Programming for the Absolute Beginner - Good intro to C# using really basic games. I actually used this to figure out what I needed for work.

There are some others, but they don't seem much more thorough. Obviously, you could go the route of a full scale school, but those are very expensive and most aren't self-paced.

I've been learning C++ using the books from 'The Game Institute.' A friend of mine had bought the first two courses and never finished them, so he passed them on. I'm halfway done with the first, but what I've done so far is far more in depth than anything I saw in the two listed above. Really the strength seems to be in relating the concepts of programming to the concepts of games.

I'm impressed enough that I'm considering signing up for the courses myself. My thought is to go through at least these two modules, maybe more, and then take the concepts I've learned and apply them to the languages I am more familiar with (C#, maybe some Visual Basic as well, etc.)

C++ is very powerful language and many commercial game engines are written in C/C++. However I won't bother with it for your first game or if your are fairly new to programming in general.

If you want to write games to run on windows then C# is what you should be using. Microsoft have nice and easy to use libraries which will allow you to worry less about the "under the hood" stuff and concentration more on the game itself.

I once tried to write basic user interface for a game using C++ and Win32 API and I can tell you it takes LOT of time to get the basics right.

@lost I agree with everything you say. One addition, though: C++/Win32 API=FUN!!!!

Totally agree, I just could never find anything with C# that really went through the game making process. I'm certainly able to figure some things out myself, but I need an overall structure to work within.

pibbur said:

@lost I agree with everything you say. One addition, though: C++/Win32 API=FUN!!!!

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haha, you must be glutton for punishment :lol:

blatantninja said:

Totally agree, I just could never find anything with C# that really went through the game making process. I'm certainly able to figure some things out myself, but I need an overall structure to work within.

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I am pretty sure you will find lot of stuff on the web if you search for XNA and C#. Its been long time since I looked into this but the link below seems like good starting point

http://www.bluerosegames.com/brg/xna101.aspx

Thanks. I did some searches before and never game up with anything comprehensive. Will definitely check that out.

Well, just to get this thread back on track. If you are doing anything with graphics, use one of the excellent game engines availiable, such as Unity, Torque for example. It is a huge waste of time to not use them, I mean you'll literally waste 1000's of hours if you don't use them.

Can you expand on those? Do they each have their own language?

I don't know much about it, "RealBasic" (nowadays under the name of "Real Studio" seems to be not bad.

And then there's the XNA thing, also.

Me, I found Java as very easy to learn (well, everything's relative).
Apart from Basic, of course.