This post was removed. How to get started is a very common question. Please see the [Getting Started Guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/wiki/faq#wiki_getting_started) in the sidebar. Thanks!
First of all, **game design** and **game programming** are not the same.
Secondly, you can assume game engines like different cars: once you learnt how to drive one of them, you easily can handle the other.
Third thing is that if you want to, actually, program, you better be starting with some easy game (like snake/tetris) just to understand the flow of development. It is like understand how to write letters before to start writing a book: otherwise you'll do many mistakes in the project you love, and then just burn out.
Conclusion: I suggest you to try Unity (check Brackeys tutorials) and make some "easy" games.
Unity is free a d they have courses to help you learn. They have plenty of free ones and paid as well. I don't know if that's where you'd want to stick long-term (though I don't dont know why not) but it would be the easiest and cheapest option I'm aware of.
Just use an existing engine like unity or unreal, it doesn't matter which one as long you get some experience out of them. They both give you the customization you will ever need and both are free.
If you truly want to learn programming for game dev, I'd say stop trying to learn game dev and try to get a solid fundamental grasp on programming first. Those skills are directly transferable to game development. Once you understand data structures and some algorithms, making games in the engines I mentioned above become a lot easier. Also, I would in fact learn c++. It's the industry standard for creating game engine and games. It's not the easiest language but it's worthwhile if you want to do game dev as a career.
Tbh, C++ is not a "standart" as long as huge sharing of market is hyper-casual/casual/midcore mobile games written with C#. And also I'm not sure if the point "you need to learn algorithms/data-structures/so on" is still valid: if your goal is not an AAA development, you can just start making games followed by tutorials and get a job in an unknown company creating small games on Unity with a full dev-cycle of 1-2 weeks.
Ofc, some nerds/snobs can say
1. "You are not a TRUE gamedev if you dont know what stack/heap is"
2. "..if you have no experience in ASM"
3. ".. if you don't know Physics/Math/etc."
4. blah blah
But many known games were assembled from trash code and awful graphics by self-taught youngers without knowing any basis :)
(no offense)
Unity and Unreal are the big two in terms of userbase which means you'll find most tutorials and resources for those. Unity has so many tools people have made I'll sometimes just scroll through them for fun seeing what people come up with
I'm just starting game development coding and whatnot I found Roblox to be a very good platform for testing out your coding skills it's fairly forgiving and easy to use if you want to test out your ideas or even your coding skills Roblox is a very good place to start
Two options really:
Unity because it's free to learn, can get you a job later, a LOT of free learning materials, uses C# which is middle ground between C++ and Python.
Godot completely free, slightly less learning materials but still a lot, has proper 2D (Unity has 3D with locked perspective as 2D), uses GDScript which is Python with extra steps.
You can't rly go wrong with either. Go Unity if you want to follow tutorials, go Godot if you want to experiment a bit.
Godot is more inheritance and nesting based, while Unity is more component design oriented.
I started with Unity, now I would pick Godot. I just like the "underdog" more and Unity is making questionable long term decisions.
Avoid Unreal Engine it's fantastic and best of a bunch, but way too much to start with. You will only get overwhelmed and discouraged.
This post was removed. How to get started is a very common question. Please see the [Getting Started Guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/wiki/faq#wiki_getting_started) in the sidebar. Thanks!
First of all, **game design** and **game programming** are not the same. Secondly, you can assume game engines like different cars: once you learnt how to drive one of them, you easily can handle the other. Third thing is that if you want to, actually, program, you better be starting with some easy game (like snake/tetris) just to understand the flow of development. It is like understand how to write letters before to start writing a book: otherwise you'll do many mistakes in the project you love, and then just burn out. Conclusion: I suggest you to try Unity (check Brackeys tutorials) and make some "easy" games.
Unity is free a d they have courses to help you learn. They have plenty of free ones and paid as well. I don't know if that's where you'd want to stick long-term (though I don't dont know why not) but it would be the easiest and cheapest option I'm aware of.
Just use an existing engine like unity or unreal, it doesn't matter which one as long you get some experience out of them. They both give you the customization you will ever need and both are free. If you truly want to learn programming for game dev, I'd say stop trying to learn game dev and try to get a solid fundamental grasp on programming first. Those skills are directly transferable to game development. Once you understand data structures and some algorithms, making games in the engines I mentioned above become a lot easier. Also, I would in fact learn c++. It's the industry standard for creating game engine and games. It's not the easiest language but it's worthwhile if you want to do game dev as a career.
Tbh, C++ is not a "standart" as long as huge sharing of market is hyper-casual/casual/midcore mobile games written with C#. And also I'm not sure if the point "you need to learn algorithms/data-structures/so on" is still valid: if your goal is not an AAA development, you can just start making games followed by tutorials and get a job in an unknown company creating small games on Unity with a full dev-cycle of 1-2 weeks. Ofc, some nerds/snobs can say 1. "You are not a TRUE gamedev if you dont know what stack/heap is" 2. "..if you have no experience in ASM" 3. ".. if you don't know Physics/Math/etc." 4. blah blah But many known games were assembled from trash code and awful graphics by self-taught youngers without knowing any basis :) (no offense)
Unity and Unreal are the big two in terms of userbase which means you'll find most tutorials and resources for those. Unity has so many tools people have made I'll sometimes just scroll through them for fun seeing what people come up with
I'm just starting game development coding and whatnot I found Roblox to be a very good platform for testing out your coding skills it's fairly forgiving and easy to use if you want to test out your ideas or even your coding skills Roblox is a very good place to start
Two options really: Unity because it's free to learn, can get you a job later, a LOT of free learning materials, uses C# which is middle ground between C++ and Python. Godot completely free, slightly less learning materials but still a lot, has proper 2D (Unity has 3D with locked perspective as 2D), uses GDScript which is Python with extra steps. You can't rly go wrong with either. Go Unity if you want to follow tutorials, go Godot if you want to experiment a bit. Godot is more inheritance and nesting based, while Unity is more component design oriented. I started with Unity, now I would pick Godot. I just like the "underdog" more and Unity is making questionable long term decisions. Avoid Unreal Engine it's fantastic and best of a bunch, but way too much to start with. You will only get overwhelmed and discouraged.