Don't Want To Learn It All

[Jem Crystal]

I don't have classes or college. I'm self taught using freeware and youtube vids. I am not going buy a book. I already paid my internet bill that was more than enough. If I want money to eat and pay doctor bills that is as far as it will go. No college. No books. Nothing else that costs money. Just so we have that clear.

Next, I don't want to learn all programming. I don't have enough life left in me for that. Literally, I am old and will be shaking hands with the reaper long before I learn everything code.

What I do want is to build a game or two. Don't care if it is 2d or 3d or whatever.

I can tolerate learning a little bit of code. But I am not here to learn it all or even most of it.

My question is what is the best gaming development FREEWARE for someone like me? Yo Yo Game Maker Studio looks like it might be a good pick. But I don't want to waste time investing in a program if there was something better out there.

Before you ball me out with something like, "This is a java programming forum not a software review," note simply that java programming and software are the same thing. What else would you be learning code for unless it was to make software?

So I need to make a game with as little know-how on code as possible. How did I end up on your shores? Every time I mention I want to make a game everyone says, "Go learn code." But there is to much code to learn and I am not a spring chicken. I just want to learn enough to make a game. Not all of it.

Does anyone here know of a better software program than Yo YO Game Maker for someone who wants to make games and use coding in a very limited fashion?

[Stephan van Hulst]

Hi Jem, welcome to CodeRanch.

I'm afraid you came to the wrong place. What you want is antithesis to what this forum stands for. This community is for people who want to learn, and want to learn to do things well. If you don't have patience or time for that, there are plenty of programming sites out there that cater to the "question and answer" format.

You're welcome of course to pose your questions, but I imagine you'll be frustrated with the type of help our community will offer you.

For now, I'll move your question to the Gaming Forum.

[Ahmed Bin S]

Hello,

Your message made me feel sad. You seem rather down and it almost seems you are tired of everything. I can understand where you are coming from when you say you are not interested in spending too much time learning, I mean, I love learning, but I am sure that should I live to be older then there will come a time in my life when I will probably not have the energy to always be learning things and when I would just want to take the easy route.

Unfortunately I don't know anything about game development to answer your question, but if you do get your game developed, please do drop by and let us know how it went

All the best.

[Les Morgan]

Jem,

You may want to look into Flash development. It is more along the line of what you are looking for, but there is still going to be some programming involved.

Java is one of the easier languages to program in, I have used a few dozen and stay current to use about 6 to 8 languages, and some of the simplest. IMO Java GUI development is the most difficult thing, and game development is way easier, but in any case Flash may be what you are looking for.

Good luck in your endevors.

Les

[Jeff Zak]

Jem Crystal wrote:

What I do want is to build a game or two. Don't care if it is 2d or 3d or whatever.

How bout No D?

Programming By Doing's exercise # 33 is a simple text game. It doesn't have commands or anything. Its just go here or go there but technically its a game of sorts. You should be able to find other tutorials to build upon the basics and add more functionality to it.

[Chris Barrett]

You never really explained what sort of game you wanted to make, but if you don't want to learn code, why does it need to be a computer game? Lots of really good board games out there. Make the next Magic card game.

If you are willing to learn a little code, there is a great Python course on Coursera I wrote about last year. I wrote about it at that time in the JavaRanch forums here. You make around six games over the course - including BlackJack, Pong, and Asteroid. It's Coursera. It's free. You can hand in the assignments or not. Totally up to you.

Yo Yo Game Maker Studio, while easier than engines like Unity, Unreal, or Lumberyard will still require you to understand programming terminology. The course I referenced above will also help you with that.

[Winston Gutkowski]

Jem Crystal wrote:I don't have classes or college. I'm self taught using freeware and youtube vids. I am not going buy a book. I already paid my internet bill that was more than enough. If I want money to eat and pay doctor bills that is as far as it will go. No college. No books. Nothing else that costs money. Just so we have that clear.
Next, I don't want to learn all programming. I don't have enough life left in me for that. Literally, I am old and will be shaking hands with the reaper long before I learn everything code.

I hate to say Jem, but your question sounds a bit like:
I'd like to do a parachute jump, but I can't be bothered to learn how to fold one; or how to land; or go through a whole pile of stupid practise jumps from a tower. Just stick a pack on my back, show me where the rip-cord is, and take me up to 10,000 feet...

You also haven't explained what kind of game you want to write. You could write a "Guess my number" game to play with a keyboard and a character-based terminal in a couple of dozen lines; but if you want to write "Space Invaders" or a "Shooting Gallery" game, you're into a whole different level of complexity because it'll almost certainly involve graphics. And they are hard…and time-consuming, and fiddly, and verbose… - which is why I hate 'em .

There may be something out there that helps to simplify the process for you, but not - I suspect - as much as you'd like.

Programming is NOT simple. It just isn't. "Hello World" is simple, but it's not programming; and if you want to do anything more complicated than "Guess my number", you're going to have to spend a fair bit of time learning how to do it.

You never know, you might even enjoy the process; but it ain't going to happen overnight. And my advice, if you're not prepared to spend that time, is to go learn a new game like Bridge or Chess or Go. Or, if you like computer games, what about Dungeons and Dragons?

My 2¢.

Winston

PS: Welcome to JavaRanch.

[Stevens Miller]

I use GameMaker, Jem. You can do as little or as much as you want with it. Complete games can be constructed using its graphical development tools, though you will be writing programs with it (you just won't feel like you are). If and when you want to do more than the graphical development tools allow, you can write code, but you only need to code for those things the graphical tools don't allow. Usually, that means writing most of your game graphically, and adding code where you need it.

The free version is somewhat limited, but, again, you can create complete, playable, fun games with it.

One word of caution: there are some good books out there that can help you learn on your own, but many of them were written for GameMaker 8, an obsolete version, GameMaker 8 included a "sleep" instruction that could delay activity for a number of milliseconds. That instruction no longer exists in GameMaker. To replace what it did, you need to understand how timers and multithreaded code works, which is pretty advanced, even in GameMaker. If you buy a book, make sure it is for the current version of GameMaker, and does not rely on "sleep" instructions.

All that said, let me also add my own "welcome" and pass along that we have a "be nice" policy here. Almost all of the replies you've received so far have come from moderators, a class of users who are good at showing patience and tolerance. But a lot of our regular participants are also good at giving advice and assistance when asked. As the moderator of this forum, and in the spirit of hoping you get the most out of our community that you can, I'd say you might want to tone it down just a wee bit when you delineate what you want and what you don't. We get a fair number of people who say they aren't looking to drink from a fire-hose, but would like some help in developing a few basic skills. No problem! We're glad to give the kind of help a person wants (with the exception of doing people's homework for them, but that's obviously not what you are seeking).

Go ahead and give GameMaker a try. It's not Java, but we're not the United Nations here. If you want to talk about game programming in general, we won't accuse of you breaking some international treaty or anything like that.

Good luck.

[Jem Crystal]

Thanks guys.

I don't want to learn Python atm but I'll keep this bookmarked. I do respect Python because Blender gives it a good rep.

I think Flash costs $$$ but idk how much. Might check it out later.

I will probably stay with GameMaker free vers. It is old but man all the youtube tutorials sometimes old is a good thing you know?

I'm eager for Spark to come out (http://spark.tools).

I enjoy learning programming but the obsession with making beginners come up with answers on your own is annoying. My mind does not work that way. First I need to see how everyone else came up with the answer then I start to come up with answers of my own. To me people teach programming backwards forcing us to think before we're ready for it. If I was back in medical school I would not expect my teacher to tell me to learn how to cure someone's ear infection by reading a book and figuring it out myself. I would expect to follow an older doctor around watching how they treated the patients and only AFTER I observed the results many times come up with my own agenda.

[Ahmed Bin S]

Jem Crystal wrote:
I enjoy learning programming but the obsession with making beginners come up with answers on your own is annoying. My mind does not work that way. First I need to see how everyone else came up with the answer then I start to come up with answers of my own. To me people teach programming backwards forcing us to think before we're ready for it. If I was back in medical school I would not expect my teacher to tell me to learn how to cure someone's ear infection by reading a book and figuring it out myself. I would expect to follow an older doctor around watching how they treated the patients and only AFTER I observed the results many times come up with my own agenda.

I think learning by looking at how someone did something can sometimes be quite beneficial. I used to find it particularly useful in calculus where you'd have a set of questions and solutions provided, and then the teacher would work through this set to show you how it is done, and only then were you asked to do it yourself.

[Paul Clapham]

Jem Crystal wrote:I enjoy learning programming but the obsession with making beginners come up with answers on your own is annoying. My mind does not work that way. First I need to see how everyone else came up with the answer then I start to come up with answers of my own. To me people teach programming backwards forcing us to think before we're ready for it. If I was back in medical school I would not expect my teacher to tell me to learn how to cure someone's ear infection by reading a book and figuring it out myself. I would expect to follow an older doctor around watching how they treated the patients and only AFTER I observed the results many times come up with my own agenda.

That's why the web is full of tutorials with example code. Those are good things and as you say, they contribute to the learning process. I use them all the time when I want to learn something new. But our opinion here is that doing people's homework questions for them doesn't contribute to any learning process and so it's a bad thing.

As for how people teach programming these days, I can't make any comments about that because I haven't been subjected to the teaching of programming for nearly 50 years now.

[Jem Crystal]

Okay I will consider my thread answered. Thanks for all your help guys you are awesome.

It is a pretty site also. Bit distracting with that smoking chimney gif of the house down in the corner. I could drink coffee and stare at that for to long.

I do not think I will be posting here anymore. It seems the staff has difficulty believing anyone would name their child Jem Crystal. I guess they never heard of hippie parents. Lolz.

Oh, well, honesty I have so many leads right now and a teacher who has given me some sprites to work with. I am still going to study code every day but I think the real answer to my problem is I need to get back into the artistic end and away from the programming end for a while. I seem to get antsy when I cannot "see" what I am making.

I will recommend these forums even if the staff doesn't like my name, lol.

Take care!