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[IT 000]

I plan on creating a game with C++. It will probably end up being a rogue-like, or a fallout-type game (1 and 2). Any tutorials for beginners? Or other videos you recommend I watch?

[Gatleos]

How experienced are you with C++? That is to say, when you ask for a tutorial, do you mean a roguelike tutorial or a general C++ tut?

If you're planning on making a roguelike, I'd say Roguebasin is your best source for tutorials.

[IT 000]

Not much I'm afraid, I just got into it a little while ago. So any links you can supply will be greatly appreciated.

[Gatleos]

Object-oriented programming is very important for procedural games like roguelikes, where the game is made of a jumble of randomly-selected elements rather than one hard-coded block. So, it's important to learn C++ concepts like classes, structs and such. It'll make things a lot easier later on.

I think the best place to learn C++ from the ground up is... well... cplusplus.com. They've got an excellent tutorial, and plenty of reference pages for individual functions.

Once you feel confident in your C++ skillz, the next step would be to choose a rendering method. Are you planning on using ASCII, or more complex graphics?

[Reelyanoob]

If you want any help with general c++, openGL or terrain generation, I'm the guy. Also, I'm good at debugging

[Lectorog]

I'm just going to drop this link off here.
I started the tutorial a few days ago. I'm learning C++ well through it, and really easily.
It gives directions specifically for the programs it recommends, which is great (unless you can't get them).

If you want to get directly into making a roguelike, I'd recommend dissecting an open-source one and fiddling around with it while going through C++ tutorials, as you will.
It'll take longer to learn C++, but you'll have more experience with roguelikes by the time you finish.

[Max White]

Is there a specific reason you want c++ for your roguelike? Without graphics, I doubt it will require that sort of heavy lifting, thus might I persuade you to instead try c#, or perhaps Java?

[SeaBee]

Or Python! Python is both object-oriented and procedural, so you can do both (or either). The learning curve is a bit more gentle. The Rogue Basin has a Python tutorial for making a decent Roguelike using the libtcod library (awesome).

In fact, even if you stick with C++, the libtcod library might be of interest. Here's a link to it.

I'm no expert programmer, but I do have on small bit of advice: for your first project, think small. Roguelikes are often surprisingly complex, despite the otherwise simple presentation. Oh, and good luck! I'll play it when you finish.

[IT 000]

I've heard of Python and C#, I just had C++ lying around, are they notably easier to learn then C++?

And I appreciate the high hopes but if I ever produce anything worth playing it will be more Nethack then DF. 

[malloc]

Hi IT000.

I would not recommend using c++ for game creation before you feel VERY comfortable using it.

Actually I would not recommend using c++ for any small time game creation, the reason is quite simple, c++ is a very hard language to use fluently, and is static beyond belief so you have to be able to see the big picture at all time, which might be hard without some practice in software design.

That said, c++ offers a lot of control (Pointer arithmetic and the likes) , also the program produced is lighting fast, if these aspects are very important to you, then I say, go ahead, but expect it to be hard (If you are not experienced with c++).

For beginners I would actually recommend Java (While python is easier, Java is actually more portable since most people have the runtime installed.), it should not be a problem to set up some base code for a rogue like.

Hope this helps.

[IT 000]

So it looks like Java or Python would be the way to go, anything special I need to download for Java?

[Max White]

For Java, you will need to download the JDK (Java development Kit) but... I know all the indie kids out there love Linux and hate Windows, but c# is a faster and easier language. Sorry but it just is. Java is pretty damn easy as it is, but c# is one up on it.

IDisposable is fucking awesome. Use it!

[nenjin]

Having now dabbled in Python to create a simple text adventure game, and a little Java....I've decided I want to learn C++. I do this knowing that it's the tougher language to learn to get to the end result of a game. But it's foundational and I feel like that's really important in the long-term for the kind of games I want to create. Memory management, garbage collection, these are all things you have to learn to manually address in C++ and that's what makes it harder....but it's what gives you greater control. That and I don't want the language to be a means to an end....I want to actually learn to code and a game is the best way I know how to express it.

So anyways, here's what I've been using to get started on C++.

http://www.cprogramming.com/
http://www.cppreference.com/
http://www.codecademy.com/#!/exercise/0 (This is a really simple java introduction to coding for people who understand absolutely nothing about it.)

[Reelyanoob]

If you grab Visual Studio Express CD image from MSDN, it's got VC++ and Visual C#, Visual Basic

[SeaBee]

The best thing about Java is the JVM. The worst thing about Java is Java the language  Scala is pretty good, though! (Disclaimer: my use of Java is only via the free computer science courses from Stanford University and some fun with lwjgl.)

Python makes it easier to get something up and running, and comes pre-installed on most (all?) Linux distros and Mac OSX. For Windows distribution, most people use py2exe or PyInstaller to give their users a single EXE that does everything, even if they don't have Python installed.

C# is a very good language, and .NET is very powerful on Windows. You can use C# on Mac and Linux via Mono, but it will not have the same performance as it would on Windows. Nor is it 100% compatible, yet. But it's used for serious apps on many Linux distros. It's a lot like Java in several sense, though Java has very good third-party libraries and C# has somewhat better language features. This, however, is a Holy War that I try not to get into much.

I really like C. I don't know enough C++ to comment on it, though, only what I had to learn in school. I tend use Python + C for most things on Linux.

All the languages are good in different ways, though. Learning about programming is the important thing, the syntactic sugar you use is up to you. The important thing is to choose one and stick with it until you learn it well. After that, learning other languages will be much easier and faster.

I recommend the Stanford and MIT computer science classes. They're free. Stanford starts with Java and moves on to C/C++, MIT uses Python and C/C++. Both are fantastic.

• Stanford School of Engineering - check the Computer Science section.
• MIT Intro to Computer Science and Programming - direct link to the intro's starting page.

(Additional note: learning Python or LUA is a great idea if you're ever interested in offering a scripting platform for your game in the future. Many commercial games use one of these for game logic, interfaces or mod APIs, such as Civilization or World of Warcraft.)