Another clueless newbie.

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

I’ve been studying Java at University for 8 months now, which has basically involved a dull routine of adapting a program given to you into doing whatever is specified.

However I’ve been looking at creating games in Java for a while now and have looked up numerous tutorials and have learnt things such as using images, how to set display modes, threads, etc…

However is there anywhere that has good tutorials on what’s required to make a game? For instance I still have no clue how to make good animations etc… I’d much rather find a collection of tutorials specifically for Gaming rather than learning things that I may or may not need and get confused as to what I should be using.

I’ve looked at some other newbie topics and they’re being redirected to engines such as Slick2D… is this just so that it’s easier to create games? I would have thought you should make a game from scratch, make your own engine and whatnot? Albeit very clueless when it comes to game development and whatever I search seems to end up in the completely wrong direction.

I guess what I really want for now is a simple side-scroller, and expand from there to create different games.

Thanks and sorry if this is extremely newbie, I thought I’d ask people who know what they’re doing rather than bashing google with the same thing only slightly differently phrased.

Thanks in advance :).

#2

Space Invaders 101

Don’t forget to check out 102 etc. (link top right).

#3

Ah great, thanks. Do you think you can explain why people use engines etc. I would have thought people would create games from scratch so they’d get better control/understanding and so on? Or is there something that these engines do that is nearly always required? I don’t know if my question makes any sense…

#4

Depends what your goal is I guess - some people crave writing everything from scratch, some would rather just leave the lower level bits alone and just focus on the gameplay.

Plus different engines provide different things - lots of C++ people might use SDL for basic window creation and text drawing, but with Java you get that “built in”. Different engines/libraries usually offer different trade-offs between ease of use, flexibility, performance and compatibility.

If you’re just getting started then Java2D is a good starting point. It’s stable, well documented with loads of examples and comes with a whole lot of functionality. I’d recommend starting with that and progressing to things like Slick later.

#5

What’s the best engine to work with if you’re just a beginner? ???

#6

see my post here for my opinion on what is the best engine for java.

#7

In my humble opinion, as you’re a beginner, you should not use an engine, you should start from scratch a very simple project. Engines hide the low-level aspects, it is fine to save a lot of time if you already understand how it works underneath but if you don’t and if the chosen engine does not work as expected, you won’t be able to solve your problem. I advise you to start from scratch a very small game with plain AWT/Swing. Later, maybe you will be able to switch to OpenGL (JOGL, LWJGL). Then, once you understand these basic concepts, you could switch to JGame, Pulpcore or Slick for 2D. When you feel comfortable with 2D and the major algorithmic aspects of gaming, you will be able to switch to 3D. Once again, maybe it would be better to start with a low-level API (OpenGL) and after that you could switch to a 3D engine (3DzzD, JPCT, Aviatrix3D, Xith3D, Ardor3D, JMonkeyEngine, …). Good luck.