how much programming experience do u need to create a simple game, something around gameboy quality (tetris, space invaders) ive recently started learning c++, and i was just wondering how many "teach yourself" books i will have 2 go through before i can get to making the fun stuff...

Well, as soon as you have a decent understanding of C++ you can start writing some simple text based games. Once you get to that point you probably want to learn the Windows API and DirectX or OpenGL. A slightly easier route may be to go with SDL or Allegro. You can use those APIs to make something like tetris or space invaders. Goodluck. This should probably be in the Beginner''s forum, btw. Check the "For Beginners" link at the top of the page under resources, it''s pretty useful (although slightly outdated.)

Well making small games is easy but you need the right resources to learn without the books. I can''t learn to program by reading a book, so I dissect other people''s programs and learn from them.

If you want to make small games WITHOUT programming then definantly try GameMaker. Its free and super easy. I made some really good games with this. You won''t learn much from this although.

http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/markov/gmaker/

Right. It shouldn''t be too hard to make the simple stuff, but you''d be surprised how much the difficulty compounds when you start making more and more complex stuff. The amount of things you''ll require increases with your ambition too. Music, sound effects, art, debugging, nasty stuff.

I think you can make space invaders no problem though. That''s one simple game (but fun).

It''s not really about books, it''s about ambition. Books can give you knowledge, but there is a difference between knowing something and mastering it. You could read all there is to know about C++, then sit down in front of a console window and just blank out. Once you sit down and try to make something, it''ll be tough at first with lots of errors (or if your like me, compulsive checking to make sure your using some statement right), but eventually all those things you read will become second nature and no longer require effort. Once you break through the effort barrier you can start to really program.

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Original post by mentalstatement
how much programming experience do u need to create a simple game, something around gameboy quality (tetris, space invaders)

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there is no an official level of knowledge in order to make a game. it''s all about your willingness. there are many game programmers, regardless of their programming skill, they still make a game. although they screw up a lot, they still do it, and they are happy, me included.

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ive recently started learning c++, and i was just wondering how many "teach yourself" books i will have 2 go through before i can get to making the fun stuff...

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same thing, there''s nothing defines how much you have to learn to make a game. there are some "pre-requisites", but you won''t notice these until you make a game by yourself.

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well... i want games to be a fun way for me to learn how to program. And i just wanted to know, how long it will take to get the skills required to make a simple game... then i look at a source code for some of those games, it looks pretty damb complicated

I agree with entivore 100%. Being a new learner to C++ myself, there have been many times where something finally clicked, and I thought I understood it when reading the book, but when I try to design something myself using that concept....I just go blank.

Theory is easy, practice is hard. Right now I''d say I''d make a decent game designer because I theoretically understand a lot of programming concepts, even more diffucult ones like most of the OOP paradigms and some of the STL. But if you ask me to code my own stuff, half the time I draw a total blank. But if you give me some code to look at, I can usually figure out what it does fairly quickly.

I can''t stress enough to practice little code snippets over and over, and then tie these in with other code blocks (speaking in that vein, I''d recommend learning two things that most beginners don''t learn till later...learning how to do project or makefiles, and learning to debug). When I first started learning C++, usually you start with procedural style programming. To me this was a very easy concept to understand, so I started thinking of my game code in those terms. When I got to Object based and Object Oriented design, it took a little while for things to sink in (especially abstract classes, polymorphism and virtual functions) but I started seeing its advantages. That doesn''t mean the procedural part is useless, because sometimes it''s easier and faster to do it that way. But in the long run, start looking at OO techniques especially if you want to learn DirectX programming (since COM objects and DirectX are intimately related...and COM is really a sophisticated compiler-modified way of doing abstract classes and virtual functions). One last thing, as another poster mentioned, I''d try looking at SDL first rather than the Win32 API (using GDI calls) or DirectX. But learning a little GLUT with SDL might be an easier route to learn (even though I haven''t taken a look at SDL myself yet...but I''m planning on it very soon).

Being a beginner too, I know where you''re coming from. I''m tackling something way too ambitious for my skill level, but I''m also breaking up my programs into different source modules. That way I can at least make sure my sub-programs work. But good luck....don''t get discouraged either. Sometimes I look at something for over an hour and simply can''t figure it out, and then when I come back the next day, it''s like some sort of epiphany happened and I go...AHHH, so THAT''S how you do it!! I didn''t chose my nick just because it sounded cool...don''t be daunted by anything in life...

You can skip a large part of core programming with a pre-compiled package like BlitzBasic, to make game with such package is a quick and dirty way, but a lot of fun.

ya, but doing that just goes against the whole point... after all, why not just skip a step, and go out and download a finished game???

but anyhows, this week ive learned enough skills to put together my first small programs. To tell u the truth, ive never realized how hard programming is, even the simple stuff takes a good long while to figure out... of well, hopefully i can get around to making pong in the next few weeks

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Original post by Impossible
Well, as soon as you have a decent understanding of C++ you can start writing some simple text based games.

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This is very good advice. Don''t shoot for Pong first thing. Think... blackjack (simple rules). Then poker. Then, say, yahtzee.

Pick games that you enjoy (or used to enjoy). Sure, Quake is fun, but if you''re just starting out, it''ll scare you away from programming. That''s kind of like having no knowledge of woodcraft and trying to build a 15-drawer dresser with secret panels without using nails. I kid you not.

I started coding when I was a wee tot, doing simple (but at the time cool) things: making change for a $20 bill. A calculator. Occasionally I would type in programs from books/magazines (like "hunt the wumpus"), and glean new techniques from them.

Then, I started simple with card games. Then clones like frogger. Then vaguely new ones, like a hot air balloon flight game (kinda like "lunar lander" in a sense). Then more original ones. (I actually managed to create something like "robotron" a year before seeing it... doh!)

Of course, there''s only so much you can do on a machine with 16K. But the concepts are still valid.

Start simple, work your way up.

Work on fun projects that you enjoy -- games or not.

Don''t worry if you''re being original or not, unless that''s what makes it fun.

Occasionally revisit old work, improving it. (especially nice in OO languages, where you''re supposedly reusing old objects?)

Don''t expect to be a world class game programmer in weeks. It will take a while -- but it will be a fun journey!