Category Archives: Gamedev

New prototype every month

I have committed to doing one game a month in 2016, both to challenge myself to be productive and to think and plan within the confines of this relatively tight deadline, but also to produce a number of prototypes to build on, when it comes time to pick a new game.

You can find all our prototypes on our site, but if you want to see the ones created for this project specifically, take a look at our new itch.io page.

In January, I made COMBATIVE, a turn-based fighting game. You can earn rewards, upgrade your champion, and such goodness.

In February, it was dotSprinter. I found myself running low on time and ended up going with a simple dot-matching game, where you are racing the clock.

There is no plan ahead of time, so what we will see in the months to come is unknown at the time of writing. There are many more ideas than there is time, which ties in nicely with the challenge of working within the deadline.

If you’d like to know more about the one-game-a-month thing, check the #1GAM hashtag on Twitter. I hope you’ll follow along on this journey throughout the year. If you find that you like one of the games more than the others, do let me know.

Choosing a Coding Language for New Game Developers

One of the questions I see repeated every so often by beginning game developers is “which language should I learn?” or “what is the best language for a new gamedev?”, often followed by a bunch of people debating why their favorite language is the best one.

Typical arguments include

  • Choose C# because it’s friends with Unity.
  • Choose C++ because it’s friends with Unreal.
  • Choose Java because it’s great for Android.
  • Choose Objective C/Swift for iOS.
  • Choose HTML5/Javascript for web/mobile!

While there is some validity to these answers, take it with a grain of salt. If you know you’ll be working in Unity, then sure, C# might be the best place to start. But if you are just learning to code, chances are you need to practice the basics first. And for practicing purposes, starting out in Unity may be a bit overwhelming.

The basics of coding; variables, loops, if/else, switches, functions and so on, are pretty much the same regardless of language. Once you pick up these basics, and learn how to plan and structure your code, the rest is mostly syntax.

So, here is my suggestion. If you are new to coding, pick the language that feels more appealing to you, because it really doesn’t matter too much. Find a Python tutorial that sounds interesting? Try it!

I would argue, that once you learn the basics of programming in one language, you can pretty quickly adapt to another one. Mostly, it comes down to understanding the principles behind the code, then getting used to little differences, like whether to use curly brackets or square ones, or whether you need to end each line with a semi-colon or not.

So, if you are learning to code, and not sure if you are learning the right language, don’t worry. Just keep learning. If you ever do need to switch, it will probably be easier than you think.