Beginner Advice Wanted. Thread

Hello, IndieDB.
I am a 16 year old wannabe game developer, and I want to learn game programming, what sources and/or advice can you provide for me to start learning game development.
I started learning Java from TheNewBoston's tutorials on Java.
I also have some small experience with Game Maker, I don't know if that is useful to my overall game development life or not.

Thank you.
-Manny.

Hello Dahamonnah, welcome to IndieDB.
It's nice that you want to learn about games. Many people have asked these questions before, and there are some good answers in the forums. Just type "Beginner" into the search form on the upper left and you'll see all the threads with similar questions.

Some general notes about using forums:
a) Don't spam threads. There's no need to create 5 threads in 20 minutes like you just did, especially when they're all asking more or less the same question. Putting all the information in one thread makes it easier for us to respond properly and doesn't annoy the rest of the forum users.
b) Before asking anything in the forums, it's good practice to search the forums first. Chances are your question has already been asked - and answered - which means you respect other people's time, and you can read an answer to your question immediately, instead of waiting for days for someone to help you out (if ever).

Have a nice day.

If I had to say, start simple, because you wont be developing the next minecraft without loads of experience and knowledge.
Get your set of tool and start small. Gamemaker, infact is a good start.

Make something simple, rather something small and get it done than something great that gets added to the indie db never to be released list
A Game like tetris or ping pong you wont believe how much you can learn from that and you will have something to show.

Infact I want to see you make something simple, Im pretty sure there is a 3D version of gamemaker and will even offer my 3D services to you.
christogordonoosthuizen.foliohd.com

So get your tools and start.

If you want to get into game development quickly and start pushing out titles quickly, download Unity3D and use it with C#.
C# is also great to learn as you can use it for website and software development too if you need to expand your horizons.

C++ is the choice if you want to be a more hardcore game programmer and want to work in a big game studio one day with in-house engines etc.
Learning C++ and DirectX will give you fundamentals in game programming, the path will be a lot longer, and making games will take much longer.
C++ is the industry standard, but Unity is becoming VERY popular nowadays and more and more jobs are popping up asking for Unity skills.

I use Unity3D and C#, and have released 4 published games, and about to release my company's own first game. Unity3D is also great because it's multi-platform and you can maximise your revenue.

I started learning code through actionscript and java.

If you want you can pick up a small engine like flashpunk and build small games running off actionscript with that (that can be quite fun).

So i would recomend java most likely out of all the choices to which you can use unity to make some fun games.

You can use the following link that has a level which I put together for my school if you want.

It includes a unity project and code for a 3d platformer.

HERE

The best thing you can do as a starting out developer is pick up an engine and just dig into it and play with it.

Edited by: ENP

ENP wrote:
So i would recomend java most likely out of all the choices to which you can use unity to make some fun games.

Unity doesn't use Java. It uses UnityScript, which is it's own in-house bastardised version of Javascript.
C# is by far the better language as it is internationally recognised as the de facto language for .NET and most business applications today are built on it.
Learning Unity and C# not only improves your game development skills, but can prepare you for writing business apps in .NET.

Im gonna say, grab youself a good 3D Guy, get into Unity and build a game. Thats the best way to get into doing real game development.
If you can do the 3d models yourself even better. But having a dedicated art guy leaves you to just worry about the coding for the game so it means less hassle.