So, you’ve decided you want to write games, but how?

The first thing you need to consider is your current experience - do you have any programming experience? If you do, that will stand you in good stead. If you don’t, you will have some groundwork to do before you start writing games.

The next question, is how much work do you want to do? How serious are you about making games? Do you want to write some simple games just for fun? Some 2D RPG style games to impress your friends? Bang out some FPS-games, but as quickly as possible? Or are you aiming for a serious hobby, or even a job, that will keep you busy for years to come?

The answers to the above will have a big impact on the kind of things you need to learn. There are some tools out there, such as GameMaker and GameMaker 3D that have a huge following of fans, and almost as large a group of people who would advise you to avoid such ‘tools’ at all costs. There are some people who feel you should learn ‘proper’ programming, and others who think that most people are just as well off modding existing games or using dedicated game languages.

The truth, in my opinion, is somewhere in between.

Case 1: Casual Beginner

You don’t know any programming languages yet, and you have a little spare time - you think it would be fun to make a simple platformer, but you don’t want to get bogged down in anything complicated.

GameMaker is perfect for this kind of thing - it is fairly inexpensive, easy to pick up, and has a huge array of tutorials out there for it, along with an active user base who will be able to help you out.

If you decide to take things seriously, there are competitions for ‘GameMaker’ made games, and the knowledge you learn may help later if you outgrow Game Maker and decide to move on to something else.

There are other tools out there, such as FPS Creator, which are alos aimed at people who have less experience with the coding side of things, although the 3D nature of FPS games does add a degree of complication.

Case 2: Dedicated Beginner

Again, you have never programmed before. You want to make some more fancy games - perhaps something in 3D, but you’re not sure where to start. You hope one day to progress to making fully featured games, but for now you just want to learn the basics.

Dark Basic is a good tool in this case. It has the easy to learn feel of BASIC, but it teaches you a lot of the principles you need to know for more advanced languages. It will help you build confidence and understand the foundations of programming. Once you have made a few games using Dark Basic you will be ready to progress to something like C++.

Dark Basic also has a very good tutorial, and a lot of support from the user base on its web site. There is a large base of users and a lot of them share games and source code to help you learn.

Case 3: Experienced Part Time Coder

If you already have some knowledge of programming, and simply want to translate that to games, you have a number of options. If you don’t have a lot of time to dedicate, but want to get impressive results, then perhaps the modding scene is right for you.

A lot of companies release tools to allow users to extend or alter their games. Perhaps you could lend your skills to a group of people working on a mod for your favourite game.

It may take a while to learn the tools that the game companies have released, but it will allow you to get results more quickly than writing the entire game from scratch. Should you ever decide to take things more seriously, you will also have a great portfolio to show off.

Case 4: Aiming For The Big Time

If you want to make a job out of making games, then you will need to learn the most common tools and languages in the industry.

If you have little programming experience then you have two choices - start with something like Dark Basic to build your confidence, or start with C++ from the beginning. It may feel slower to start with C++, but it will give you a very solid foundation.

If you are getting started with C++ for the first time, then there are a variety of free C++ compilers out there. Including Visual Studio Express Edition or, if you are of an open source inclination, DevCPP.

Your first few programs may be ‘Hello World’, and taking someones name then greeting them with it, but it is worth learning this way, and it won’t be long until you are writing text games, and its all up from there - Once you’re comfortable with the basics of C++, then you can move on to graphics - the most common choices are DirectX and OpenGL but there are other libraries out there too.

Over the next few weeks, we will be running some tutorials for game programming - starting with explaining the basic structure of a game, and moving on to graphics, collision detection and movement.

Good luck with your games!

Article by Mark Harrison.