Tools/libraries for beginners

[jefferytitan]

I haven't written any games in a long time (and that was just mucking around). I'm thinking of doing something suitably match-3ish just for fun. What would the established people out there recommend? I'm comfortable with C style languages, although I've been using managed code for the past few years. Sprites and sound effects are a must, probably some music, particle effects might be nice.

Any advice appreciated. :)

[svero]

For a nice simple game oriented language, I'd recommend BlitzBasic or BlitzMax. Although, if you're happy in c++ you should also consider the Popcap game engine. Another good choice is PTK game engine. All of the above have been used to produce commercial games, so it's really a question of preference.

[jefferytitan]

For a nice simple game oriented language, I'd recommend BlitzBasic or BlitzMax. Although, if you're happy in c++ you should also consider the Popcap game engine. Another good choice is PTK game engine. All of the above have been used to produce commercial games, so it's really a question of preference.

Thanks. I'm just curious... I've played some Popcap games, what relationship is there between the site and the engine? Is the engine proprietary?

[illume]

Hi,

pygame is nice for beginners.

http://pygame.org/

Cheers,

[Jeremy Chatelaine]

You are always welcme to use my C++ libraries.

http://gi.kamron.net

They are made for professional PC Windows games (due to my background) but they feature an easy to use 2D graphics engine within

[Rubs]

If C++ is ok, then I recommend PopCap framework (http://developer.popcap.com). It's free, it's powerful and easy enough to learn. And you will be able to write full-featured commercial games once you're comfortable with it (for which writing a simple match-3 game is perfectly enough). Except particle effects everything you've mentioned is supported on a very professional level.

[svero]

Thanks. I'm just curious... I've played some Popcap games, what relationship is there between the site and the engine? Is the engine proprietary?

Popcap decided to make their engine freely available for use. It's the same code they used for their own games like Zuma, Bejeweled etc... The terms of the license are on their developer site but they're quite liberal. There aren't any major restrictions to using the engine.

[voxel]

pygame is nice for beginners.

http://pygame.org/


I second Pygame - for starting out. It's basically a Python wrapper around SDL.

[luggage]

Use BlitzBasic or BlitzPlus. One of the things to keep in mind when you're starting out is to keep everything as simple as possible. The easier it is to setup, print "hello world" and display a sprite the easier you'll find it is to get into programming.

For this reason I recommend Blitz. Once you can code a simple game in Blitz moving the ideas behind programming to another language is a snap. Don't run before you can walk.

[jefferytitan]

Use BlitzBasic or BlitzPlus. One of the things to keep in mind when you're starting out is to keep everything as simple as possible. The easier it is to setup, print "hello world" and display a sprite the easier you'll find it is to get into programming.

For this reason I recommend Blitz. Once you can code a simple game in Blitz moving the ideas behind programming to another language is a snap. Don't run before you can walk.

I am already a programmer, but I take your point. I might stay tangled in header files and compiler settings until I give up. ;)

[impossible]

Because I am one of the only Processing adovacates... http://www.processing.org.

[HairyTroll]

Because I am one of the only Processing adovacates... http://www.processing.org.

I'm a fan of processing as well.

[jankoM]

I did some things in processing too.. I liked it very much, but stopped working with it because I had problems with all the sound libs (in applets). Do you know if those problems were solved - can you use sound well (it didn't work in one browser and worked in another and so on back then)