The VG Resource

Programming books are legendary. I read a huge C++ one once, did the exercises in it and everything. One of my most enjoyable and educational learning experiences ever. In the end it resulted in still just making console programs though, so I decided to go with Flash for more immediate results. I plan to eventually get back to it but for now I'm sticking with AS3 since it can do more than enough for me, and I don't really have the time to learn C++.

Anyway what I want to say is you should be prepared to learn a lot and invest lots of time. As you said it's best to know what's actually going on instead of just using libraries right away. However, you shouldn't hesitate to use libraries when making a game, as long as you understand what's going on most of the time. Most people use stuff like DirectX and OpenGL to render, and even things like Box2D for physics, so there's no need to try and make everything from scratch. It's good to know how to, but ultimately it's not really practical to do so if there's already stuff that does it.

That's coming from me, so take it as you will.

read through a basic c programming book! (c for dummies book 1 of 6)
I'm starting to understand the language a little bit

I had a C++ book but it didnt help me much,
I'd go with Gors advice (its worked best for me so far)
I've learnt a lot faster from screwing up than I have from learning, seems the best way to avoid a mistake is to make it first.

I would say learning the language is the first step to becoming a programmer. Without the knowledge of the language, you will not have enough understanding to do the trial and error.

There has been a lot of great advice here, but I decided to read the books first, then when I'm done I'll take gors' advice. I find it's best to take things in steps

QT Creator is freaken amazing, way better than alot of IDE's I've used before.

(03-07-2013, 06:19 PM)Kami Wrote: [ -> ]QT Creator is freaken amazing, way better than alot of IDE's I've used before.

Qt's license has me skittish

just wondering, but would it be better for me to start learning programming with something that doesn't require me to write a makefile(like code::blocks for example), or would it be better for me to continue learning how to write a makefile before starting any sort of game?

not sure why your learning to make makefiles, even when working in C++ I never needed to touch on it. Makefiles will almost never be a problem in game development, small time you'll be trying to write easy and fast and big time you'll be using utilities completely removed from anything using makefiles.
maybe someone could shed a light on makefiles for me because as far as I can tell its an outdated concept (thought I'm probably wrong)

If you have an advanced IDE usually the IDE generates the makefiles for you so you won't have to trouble yourself with them. I think especially for beginners, makefiles are quite confusing and learning how to deal with them keeps you from learning how to program. It's nice to know about them but I wouldn't say it's necessary. I still don't know much about them and whatever I learned for the C++ course at uni has already left my brain RAM and never made it to the harddrive.
I think they're more important when you work with toolchains that have no IDE integration, like back when the PSP hacking scene was a big deal. There I had to use makefiles but I pretty much just copied an example file from a tutorial anyways so yea...

tl;dr I wouldn't bother with them (plus I guess in most cases you can get away with a generic makefile where you don't have to change anything when copying it over to another project, haha).

With programming, what I wanted to do was make a few homebrew games for the nintendo ds and so far I just used a few example makefiles.
I guess it would be best not to worry about makefiles for now, but it may be a nice skill to learn for later

No harm in learning it but I feel that learning it first might confuse you a bit.
If you are really interested in how makefiles work, make a couple of programs with an IDE first, and then try building your programs with makefiles you write yourself.

I took some time today to finaly write my first actual program in c

The game is very basic, all you have to do is sort characters in a 4x4 grid/array.
I think I abused "printf()" a bit, there's no graphics and the codes could be a bit better but I atleast got it to function correctly...

just posting the code for now though


used dev-c++ by the way

(03-20-2013, 08:01 PM)EpicEbilninja Wrote: [ -> ]I took some time today to finaly write my first actual program in c

The game is very basic, all you have to do is sort characters in a 4x4 grid/array.
I think I abused "printf()" a bit, there's no graphics and the codes could be a bit better but I atleast got it to function correctly...

just posting the code for now though

Spoiler

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    int control=1;
    char select='0';
    char gameGrid[4][4]={
        '2','1','2','4',
        '1','2','3','2',
        '3','4','4','3',
        '4','3','1','1'
        };
    char a;
    char b;
    char c;
    char d;
    int turnNum=0;
    int level=1;
    char YorN='0';
    int win=0;
    for(;;)
    {
          
           if(control==1)
                         {
                                control=2;
                                printf("\n Sort the characters!\n");
                                printf("\n Game %d...\n" ,level);
                                printf("\n    a b c d\n");
                                printf("\n 1  %c %c %c %c\n",gameGrid[0][0],gameGrid[0][1],gameGrid[0][2],gameGrid[0][3]);
                                printf(" 2  %c %c %c %c\n",gameGrid[1][0],gameGrid[1][1],gameGrid[1][2],gameGrid[1][3]);
                                printf(" 3  %c %c %c %c\n",gameGrid[2][0],gameGrid[2][1],gameGrid[2][2],gameGrid[2][3]);
                                printf(" 4  %c %c %c %c\n\n\n",gameGrid[3][0],gameGrid[3][1],gameGrid[3][2],gameGrid[3][3]);
                                printf(" So far, you spent \"%d\" turns.\n" ,turnNum);
                                printf("\n\n Please select from numbers \"1-4\" or letters \"a-d\" to move the the grid.\n\n\n\n\n");
                         }
           if(win==0){select=getchar();}
          
           if(win==0)        
           {
           if(select=='1')
           {
                          printf("\n You selected \"1\"!\n\n");
                          a=gameGrid[0][0]; b=gameGrid[0][1]; c=gameGrid[0][2]; d=gameGrid[0][3];
                          gameGrid[0][0]=b; gameGrid[0][1]=c; gameGrid[0][2]=d; gameGrid[0][3]=a;
                          control=1;
                          turnNum++;
                          select='0';
           }
          
           if(select=='2')
           {
                          printf("\n You selected \"2\"!\n\n");
                          a=gameGrid[1][0]; b=gameGrid[1][1]; c=gameGrid[1][2]; d=gameGrid[1][3];
                          gameGrid[1][0]=b; gameGrid[1][1]=c; gameGrid[1][2]=d; gameGrid[1][3]=a;
                          control=1;
                          turnNum++;
                          select='0';
           }
          
           if(select=='3')
           {
                          printf("\n You selected \"3\"!\n\n");
                          a=gameGrid[2][0]; b=gameGrid[2][1]; c=gameGrid[2][2]; d=gameGrid[2][3];
                          gameGrid[2][0]=b; gameGrid[2][1]=c; gameGrid[2][2]=d; gameGrid[2][3]=a;
                          control=1;
                          turnNum++;
                          select='0';
           }
          
           if(select=='4')
           {
                          printf("\n You selected \"4\"!\n\n");
                          a=gameGrid[3][0]; b=gameGrid[3][1]; c=gameGrid[3][2]; d=gameGrid[3][3];
                          gameGrid[3][0]=b; gameGrid[3][1]=c; gameGrid[3][2]=d; gameGrid[3][3]=a;
                          control=1;
                          turnNum++;
                          select='0';
           }
          
           if(select=='a' || select=='A')
           {
                          printf("\n You selected \"a\"!\n\n");
                          a=gameGrid[0][0]; b=gameGrid[1][0]; c=gameGrid[2][0]; d=gameGrid[3][0];
                          gameGrid[0][0]=b; gameGrid[1][0]=c; gameGrid[2][0]=d; gameGrid[3][0]=a;
                          control=1;
                          turnNum++;
                          select='0';
           }
          
           if(select=='b' || select=='B')
           {
                          printf("\n You selected \"b\"!\n\n");
                          a=gameGrid[0][1]; b=gameGrid[1][1]; c=gameGrid[2][1]; d=gameGrid[3][1];
                          gameGrid[0][1]=b; gameGrid[1][1]=c; gameGrid[2][1]=d; gameGrid[3][1]=a;
                          control=1;
                          turnNum++;
                          select='0';
           }
          
           if(select=='c' || select=='C')
           {
                          printf("\n You selected \"c\"!\n\n");
                          a=gameGrid[0][2]; b=gameGrid[1][2]; c=gameGrid[2][2]; d=gameGrid[3][2];
                          gameGrid[0][2]=b; gameGrid[1][2]=c; gameGrid[2][2]=d; gameGrid[3][2]=a;
                          control=1;
                          turnNum++;
                          select='0';
           }
          
           if(select=='d' || select=='D')
           {
                          printf("\n You selected \"d\"!\n\n");
                          a=gameGrid[0][3]; b=gameGrid[1][3]; c=gameGrid[2][3]; d=gameGrid[3][3];
                          gameGrid[0][3]=b; gameGrid[1][3]=c; gameGrid[2][3]=d; gameGrid[3][3]=a;
                          control=1;
                          turnNum++;
                          select='0';
           }
           }
           if(gameGrid[0][0]=='1' && gameGrid[0][1]=='1' && gameGrid[0][2]=='1' && gameGrid[0][3]=='1' &&
              gameGrid[1][0]=='2' && gameGrid[1][1]=='2' && gameGrid[1][2]=='2' && gameGrid[1][3]=='2' &&
              gameGrid[2][0]=='3' && gameGrid[2][1]=='3' && gameGrid[2][2]=='3' && gameGrid[2][3]=='3' && win==0)
              {win=1;
              printf("You win!!! Want to play level 2? Y/N\n");}
              
           if(gameGrid[0][0]=='a' && gameGrid[0][1]=='b' && gameGrid[0][2]=='c' && gameGrid[0][3]=='d' &&
              gameGrid[1][0]=='a' && gameGrid[1][1]=='b' && gameGrid[1][2]=='c' && gameGrid[1][3]=='d' &&
              gameGrid[2][0]=='a' && gameGrid[2][1]=='b' && gameGrid[2][2]=='c' && gameGrid[2][3]=='d' &&
              gameGrid[3][0]=='a' && gameGrid[3][1]=='b' && gameGrid[3][2]=='c' && gameGrid[3][3]=='d' && win==0)
              {win=1;
              printf("You win!!! Want to play level 1? Y/N\n");
              level++;}
          
          
           if(win==1)
           {
              YorN=getchar();      
           }
          
           if(YorN=='n' || YorN=='N')
           {return(0);}
           if(YorN=='y' || YorN=='Y')
           {  
               if(level%2==0)
               {
               gameGrid[0][0]='2';gameGrid[1][0]='1';gameGrid[2][0]='2';gameGrid[3][0]='4';
               gameGrid[0][1]='1';gameGrid[1][1]='2';gameGrid[2][1]='3';gameGrid[3][1]='2';
               gameGrid[0][2]='3';gameGrid[1][2]='4';gameGrid[2][2]='4';gameGrid[3][2]='3';
               gameGrid[0][3]='4';gameGrid[1][3]='3';gameGrid[2][3]='1';gameGrid[3][3]='1';
               }
               if(level%2==1)
               {
               gameGrid[0][0]='a';gameGrid[1][0]='c';gameGrid[2][0]='b';gameGrid[3][0]='a';
               gameGrid[0][1]='b';gameGrid[1][1]='d';gameGrid[2][1]='d';gameGrid[3][1]='c';
               gameGrid[0][2]='d';gameGrid[1][2]='c';gameGrid[2][2]='a';gameGrid[3][2]='d';
               gameGrid[0][3]='a';gameGrid[1][3]='b';gameGrid[2][3]='c';gameGrid[3][3]='b';
               }
               win=0;
               YorN='0';
               control=2;
               turnNum=0;
               printf("\n Sort the characters!\n\n");
               printf("\n Game %d...\n" ,level);
               printf("\n    a b c d\n");
               printf("\n 1  %c %c %c %c\n",gameGrid[0][0],gameGrid[0][1],gameGrid[0][2],gameGrid[0][3]);
               printf(" 2  %c %c %c %c\n",gameGrid[1][0],gameGrid[1][1],gameGrid[1][2],gameGrid[1][3]);
               printf(" 3  %c %c %c %c\n",gameGrid[2][0],gameGrid[2][1],gameGrid[2][2],gameGrid[2][3]);
               printf(" 4  %c %c %c %c\n\n\n",gameGrid[3][0],gameGrid[3][1],gameGrid[3][2],gameGrid[3][3]);
               printf(" So far, you spent \"%d\" turns.\n" ,turnNum);
               printf("\n\n Please select from numbers \"1-4\" or letters \"a-d\" to move the the grid.\n\n\n\n\n\n");
           }
    }
    return(0);
}

used dev-c++ by the way

Very nice first project! I do recommend you tidy your code up a bit.. My OCD is making me want to tidy it up already..

(03-20-2013, 08:01 PM)EpicEbilninja Wrote: [ -> ]I took some time today to finaly write my first actual program in c

The game is very basic, all you have to do is sort characters in a 4x4 grid/array.
I think I abused "printf()" a bit, there's no graphics and the codes could be a bit better but I atleast got it to function correctly...

just posting the code for now though
-snip-

used dev-c++ by the way

Neat! Glad to see you're making progress!

I'd recommend use of functions to cut down on code duplication, though.

Here's a bit of what might be an interesting question, if you don't mind.

Is this subforum strictly limited to digital software?

After all, there may be some who work on tabletop games such as card games, board games, RPGs, wargames, and such. There are also several different free virtual-tabletop programs out there for these kinds of things, so playing them digitally would not be an impossibility.