   A friendly, helpful, super fun guide for every newbie to live by.
  Hello everyone :). I decided to share the benefit of my knowledge and create a helpful guide for people just starting out. Here it is:------------------------So you are interested in making a game! Congratulations, you are about to embark on a long journey! Although the road is long and hard, it is exciting because you never know where you will end up!This guide won’t teach you how to make games, but it will crush your hopes and dreams. I can hear your thoughts right now, and I know you are wondering why I would do such a cruel thing. I can assure you that it is for your own good. Now before I get accused of dealing someone a crippling emotional blow, if you can’t stand the truth then just turn your computer off now.Still here? Ok let the crushing begin!If your first thoughts as a new programmer are that you want to make a commercial quality game like you would find in stores, perhaps the next World of Warcraft or Half-Life 2, then I am here to tell you that you are naive and ignorant. Half-Life 2 and World of Warcraft were made by teams of people with YEARS of experience. If you even utter the acronym “MMORPG” and you haven’t already created a network game, then you are doomed to fail.Now that I have removed your dreams, the healing can begin. You see, trying to make an impossible project is a road block on your path to becoming a game developer! The sooner you can realize that you need experience before you can do something completely insane, cool, and massive, the faster you will be able to gain the knowledge and skills required to eventually complete your dream projects!You must start with a project that is practical. Arguments can be made that completed projects are more valuable then uncompleted ones, and I agree with that. However the key to learning anything is to actually START on something. In order to start on something, it needs to be within your skills. Picking a small, relatively easy project is the best choice for most newbie programmers, as it allows you to set a realistic goal, and people can actually help you if you run into problems!When you start a project, you should plan it completely BEFORE you start. Not planning a project is a great way to fail miserably at it! If you find yourself recoding your engine more then five times, it is a good bet that you failed to plan your project effectively!To highlight what we have learned so far:A. Commercial games are created by teams of people with years of experience.B. “MMORPG” is something you should never attempt as a beginner programmer.C. Pick a project that matches your skills, and don’t try to make an impossible project.D. Plan your projects and you will save a ton of headache later on.So far I have crushed your dreams and given you advice on picking a project. I suppose you want to know which language is the “best”. It is a matter of opinion, and in reality the reason there are many languages, is because they each have their uses! There is no perfect language, and some languages may be better then others depending on what you intend to do. Everyone has different tastes and there isn’t really a clear answer. The best advice I can give is to consider your options and if you are totally unsure just pick one! Just remember that learning a programming language requires effort on your part. Don’t just expect to wake up one morning and be a master programmer! Programming in my opinion is more about mindset then syntax. The ability to logically break down and solve problems is key to being a good programmer!  With this in mind once you learn how to program in one language, you can generally apply the same techniques to other languages! I hope this guide has enlighted you a bit and will help you on your path to becoming a game developer.Thanks for reading, and good luck creating your games!------------------------Questions and comments are welcome :).   
  How will you ever learn something new if you always pick projects within your skill? :) I always tend to start projects that are way beyond my skills, this forces me to read and learn new things that are required to complete it.;  What exactly qualifies you to give such advice?   ;Quote:Original post by ronkfistHow will you ever learn something new if you always pick projects within your skill? :) I always tend to start projects that are way beyond my skills, this forces me to read and learn new things that are required to complete it.I'm also like this, but I recognise that there is a difference between not knowing anything about lighting and deciding to implement per-pixel Phong shading and well as HDR, and not knowing anything about programming and asking for a team of people for you to manage while they create your MMORPG.There's nothing wrong with starting projects that are beyond your skills, but I believe the point of the OP was that you have to be realistic. Unfortunately that's a problem because the people being unrealistic have so little experience that they don't know what realistic is.   ;  Your guide assumes that everyone wants to program games.  What about all those interested in asset production?  How about those who aren't interested in programming or getting into the industry who just want to make a game.I would say that no beginners guide is really complete without a mention of using authorware solutions such as Adventure Game Studio or Game Maker which can allow the creation of very good games with little or no programming.  A mention of modding is probably also worth mentioning as another way of producing a game with a reduced amount of technical knowledge; working on mod projects can be an excellent way to get some experience and build up a portfolio without having to go through all the work of programming a game from scratch.Quote:Originally posted by shadowisadogIf you find yourself recoding your engine more then five times, it is a good bet that you failed to plan your project effectively!You've assumed there that a beginner will be creating thier own engine, and while that's probably true for the first few very simple games (such as pong or asteroids, etc) I believe more of an effort should be made to encourage the use of existing engines and middleware solutions.  Things such as Haaf's Game Engine, the Popcap Framework or BooGame can make it a lot simpler and faster to develop a game.Quote:A. Commercial games are created by teams of people with years of experience.Not always, there are cases where succesful commercial games are made by much smaller teams.  Generally what you've said is true, but you're also assuming that people actually want to make a commercial game; many are happy to instead develop as an indie or hobbiest, and there are loads of great games out there developed by small teams or individuals, not neccesarily with all that much experience before they started.Quote:B. “MMORPG” is something you should never attempt as a beginner programmer.Again, generally true, although failing at a large project can be an excellent learning experience as long as it doesn't make you give up.  I would still say this is a good piece of advice though - you can certainly work towards an MMO of some sort, but you'd probably do well to start off with either a MUD or a non-online RPG beforehand.   ;Quote:Original post by shadowisadogI hope this guide has enlighted you...This tutorial has certainly enlighted me. *cough* Uhhm, slightly rude but it seems to me that originally you hoped to be able to create a commercial game and then a few people on this board shut you down and perhaps called you a noob. So now to show that you've grown up and are no longer noob you wrote this "guide".So... shut up and actually start learning [rolleyes][oh] If you stopped wasting your time you'd be a lot further on the journey yourself.   ;Quote:Original post by Anonymous PosterWhat exactly qualifies you to give such advice?QFE.Really, as if we hadn't enough "experts" flaming "noobs", now we have "noobs" pretending to be "experts" flaming "noobs"?shadowisadog, just invest your time learning and working on your own projects, there's no need to try to pretend you're something you're not and attempt to "crush the hopes and dreams" of your peers. You'll be better off this way. Not that your advice is totally off, but we've been through this a million times in other threads, we don't really need a new one, and you certainly don't need wasting your time with this. The beginner's FAQ already has an extensive list of languanges and tools beginners can use to start creating games, something your "guide" lacks.[Edited by - mikeman on July 23, 2006 8:09:36 AM];  What qualifies me to write this advice is that I have made commercial projects before. Speedy SolitaireI decided to write this guide to help people, if you don't agree with the advice then that is fine.Additionally, I specifically tried to leave any specific reference to languages out of the guide. I use the PopCap framework myself and it is great...Anyway hopefully some people will find it useful :).   