programming games

[nwb]

hey what do you guys recommend for programming games? and what all would i need? for example what would i use to program, what kind of graphics program would i need, what books/manuals would i need, etc?

[blanky]

I recommend asking specific things at specific sites (www.gamdev.net). Learn how to program first, then you'll be more experienced.

You'll need a language (e.g. C++), a graphics API (e.g. OpenGL), and other stuff as much as you'd like (eg. sound API OpenAL), and other stuff. I suggest first learning how to program, and learn it good, otherwise you'll just end up hating computers.

[macgyver2]

If you don't already know a suitable language (such as C++ like blanky said) I suggest (and this is only a suggestion) that you learn python (http://www.python.org) and pygame (http://www.pygame.org/). I think python is such a great learning-to-program language. There are excellent resources like Dive Into Python (http://www.diveintopython.org/) and the Python Tutorial (http://docs.python.org/tut/tut.html). Specifically for pygame there are docs on the site and a short tutorial here (http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7694). I remember seeing a couple others, too. If I come across them again I'll post them in case you or anyone else is interested.

However you decide to go about it, keep us posted as to how it turns out!

[gord]

pygame gives you a very nice 'hey look! i did something!' style of coding too, so you don't spend hours over some code and get nothin out of it. don't expect to make Unreal Engine 3 out of it though ;)

[fct]

If you know C already, this book, although a bit outdated, can help a lot:

http://unia.ual.es/docs/sdl/plg-final.pdf

If you go for it, the updated source examples for newer versions of the libraries used can be downloaded here:

http://www.nostarch.com/plg

P.S.: when you learn the basics, you might start thinking about developing a 3d graphics engine. Unless you want to spend tons of time and learning, don't. Use one of these:

http://www.ogre3d.org/
http://www.crystalspace3d.org/
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/
http://panda3d.org/

[remin8]

Don't forget about SDL! It is a well designed library and there are some good examples on their website http://www.libsdl.org!