So I am incredibly new to making games and as a first large project I want to make a game similar to street fighter. I am currently learning python as a coding language. Is it possible to make that kind of game with python? Also, what type of program can I use to make the character sprites and animation? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Trying to do a more "complex game" as your first project may not be the best thing. Most folks end up getting very frustrated and than quitting .

I would highly recommend reading THIS free book and doing all programming exercises it has in it .

To answer your question ... there is a third party library for Python called PyGame - you still need to have a very good understanding of how to code before using it.

In my mind such a game can be made to be quite simple.

If you limit the game to one kick move and one punch move per character, two characters, and one special move per character this is within the reach of any person new to gamedev and possibly only as complicated as maybe something like Tetris or at most a simple platformer.

You could also keep the animation frames to a minimum, use existing graphics from free resource sites to get the ball rolling, and this would give you something to build off as you learn.

The main thing is to remember the age old adage "Keep it simple". You can always make incremental changes to your game after you have something working, rather than trying to do everything all at once. Big plans up-front are a dinosaur from the past for most developers and agile methodology can be applied (google it if you're not sure, Tbshirk) which makes game development much easier.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

What Shippou said....

Also, about the graphics:

SF2 is a 2D Sprite based game, so all graphics will start with 2D Drawings. That means, you can use Gimp or any other Image manipulation program (Gimp is free, but tools like Photoshop, Manga Studio or Sketchbook pro can be used as well (each has its pros and cons)) to produce your Graphical Objects. Yes, that means you need drawing skills.

Animations were done with sprite sheets back in the day, and AFAIK this is still the only way to do high quality 2D animations. That means drawing a new picture for each animation frame, combining them into a sprite sheet, which later can be imported into your engine (the engine will then need information about which animation frame is located where on the sheet, and then you should be ready to combine this into an animation).

Soooo... either you already have good art skills, you are dedicated enough to learn it, you are happy to produce some horrible looking programmer art, or you get "outside help" - free or paid stock art from the net, or looking for a like minded artist to help you out.

About the language:

Apart from using Cobol for Game dev, almost any language out there can be used to produce a game. More important is the question, what frameworks and engines are available to shortcut your way, and save you from doing low level plumbing when trying to work in an efficient way.

Shippou already gave you a good example. But I agree with shippou here, if you are not extremly resistant to the frustrations of steep learning curves and an almost guaranteed failure the first time, start with simpler things until you get more expierience.

In my mind such a game can be made to be quite simple.

If you limit the game to one kick move and one punch move per character, two characters, and one special move per character this is within the reach of any person new to gamedev and possibly only as complicated as maybe something like Tetris or at most a simple platformer.

While I agree to your general statement, I would NOT compare it to tetris.

Yes, you can make blocks kick each other without animations.... still, the game logic is not as simple as tetris. This might be nitpicking, but there is another caveat:

Most people that want to create a SF2 like game want it to look SF2 like. And stuff like graphical fidelity and animation quality, to some extent, are just as much part of a game as game logic.

So even leaving all other issues out, a game that does not look at all like the game the newcomer targetted will not motivate him as much as a simpler game, that ended up more "on target" so to speak. I am pretty sure anyone will get a decent looking Tetris running.

You can simplify the fighting game to stick men, still, without animations it will look off. Not only that, playtesting and debugging becomes a chore without visual aknowlegement of your button presses (so you will have to insert graphical helpers just to make sure you can distinguish between punch 1 and punch 2).

So in my opinion, you CAN simplify a Fighting game to Tetris level of graphical fidelity and game logic complexity... the resulting game will be nothing SF2 like though. And might still be harder to develop and playtest because you are trying to reduce a more complex game logic to a simpler one

(Tetris logic is simple: have a line? the line should disappear, your high score should rise. Blocks reach the top? Game over should be triggered. In a fighting game, even in the most simple case, you need collision handling, MOST probably different punches and kicks (because people expect that), HP bar (again because it is expected of a fighting game))

In my mind such a game can be made to be quite simple.

If you limit the game to one kick move and one punch move per character, two characters, and one special move per character this is within the reach of any person new to gamedev and possibly only as complicated as maybe something like Tetris or at most a simple platformer.

You could also keep the animation frames to a minimum, use existing graphics from free resource sites to get the ball rolling, and this would give you something to build off as you learn.

The main thing is to remember the age old adage "Keep it simple". You can always make incremental changes to your game after you have something working, rather than trying to do everything all at once. Big plans up-front are a dinosaur from the past for most developers and agile methodology can be applied (google it if you're not sure, Tbshirk) which makes game development much easier.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

I don't really agree with you here, nor do I see any advice for the OP to make this game. How do you propose a brand new programmer make SF2 clone as his 1st game?

If you're brand new to programming, then you're just not going to be able to make a SF2-type game right off the bat. You need to understand the basic of programming 1st, then understand how games in general can be programmed, and doing simple, no animation-type games with a single screen is a great start. Pong, Breakout, and then you can throw in some animations when you get an idea how animation works.

Python and pygame should be fun to program, and fun to learn to make games.

Good luck and have fun.

You're probably both right, I view game development through rose tinted glasses as I've been doing this on and off for half my life...

Come to think of it, my first games didn't even have graphics, they were text based rpgs and I spent most of the time concentrating on plot and game logic not graphics and sound. I think this helped a lot and it isn't advice given any more... People want to see graphical results on screen or to them it isn't a game. I guess I'm just oldschool :-)