Hi,

I'm studying artificial intelligence and in these days I will have to decide about topic of my master thesis. I'm new in game development but I'm really interested in it :) I'm using mostly Java for my projects but I'm capable of learning any object-oriented language if needed.

I'm looking for any advice how to start. I'm not very good at FPS games so I would prefer to develop AI to some other genre of games.

I was thinking about Unity engine but I'm not sure about a game yet. Also when I read some job offering in game industry it's all about C++, not C# :(

What do you guys think? Which engine should I choose? And which games do you suggest for beginner?

Thanks for any advice :)

Tereza

Unity is the obvious answer, for your case.

It can be used to develop any kind of game, it comes with fairly complete support for all the low-level stuff you don't want to have to deal with (FPS controls, graphics, etc.), has a very complete store with add-ons for anything else you might need, and its primary development language for end-users is C# so it's very similar to the Java you're already experienced with.

Many commercial (and successful) games have been written in Unity. You don't need C++ to be a game developer. If you only learn Unity and C#, that just means you need to target one of the many, many Unity-focused game developers out there when you start looking for a job.

If you want to be a serious engineer in certain segments of the game industry, it's all C++, but games these days are written in C++, C#, Java, Objective-C, JavaScript, Python, Flash, and an assortment of other languages. It all depends on which platforms you want to target, which kinds of games you want to make, and which companies you want to work for.

Check out the Godot Engine (Completely free and feature rich). It uses a custom programming language that resembles several languages (mostly Python), but you can use C++ if you want.

http://www.godotengine.org/wp/

Update: If you happen to go with Godot, I have found a good compilation of tutorials.

The best one to start with is this one:

M ving to F r Beginners .

Hi guys :)

Thanks for response. These engines seem awesome:) I'll explore both of them.

I have one more question. Does exist some open source game for Unity or Godot which can I use for AI programming? I'm not sure that I'm able to create whole game myself. Some RTS game, like AoE or Battle for Middle-Earth, would be great.

Crawling before walking before running?

You could check out the classified section of this site to see if any existing groups would want to take you under their wing, so to speak...

Hi guys

Thanks for response. These engines seem awesome:) I'll explore both of them.

I have one more question. Does exist some open source game for Unity or Godot which can I use for AI programming? I'm not sure that I'm able to create whole game myself. Some RTS game, like AoE or Battle for Middle-Earth, would be great.

At least for Unity, there are "tutorial projects" or whatever they are called... basically finished game projects created or sponsored by Unity itself, that are available to download for free from the asset store.

There was a military shooter some from the early 4.X release cycle, some stealth game created later on, AFAIK there was a newer project created just before the 5.0 release, and there might be others still available (the Island project from 3.X might still be around somewhere).

Don't expect too much. These might be playable, they will compile and build fine and give you a starting point with all the needed art and code, but they hardly qualify as production ready games. But if you are just looking for a starting point to develop AI scripts for, they might be what you are looking for.

Check out the "complete projects" section in the Unity Asset Store.

Godot does have demo projects on the website. Once I learn the interface, I will try to implement an AI system of my own.

Can any1 advise me game CONSTRUCTOR for games like Life is strange, Walking dead, etc, - means that solution must offer nice 3d with rich natural animations (and of cource with samples for models, textures, and motions). Or such animations can be done only by big studios with motion-capture? I remember times when they (constructors) had appeared. Many years ago... Maybe there are now already such ready solutions?

Thanks.