Hi, Thank you for looking at this post to help a newbie/noob. I would like to create a tbs(turn based strategy) game, but I don't have time to learn code to do it by myself from scratch, but I would really like to make one from scratch seeing there are things I don't like from every tbs game I've tried. I have searched and searched for a tutorial on this through google, but all I found was a pretty nice tutorial on a tbs game using game maker which at the least costs 100$(I use Linux so I can't use the demo). So is it possible that someone with more experience make a video tutorial on making a tbs game(preferably from scratch)? Thank you for your time and probably effort.
Can someone more experienced make a new tutorial?
As someone who teaches programming, I want to let you know you're going about this the wrong way. You will not learn anything by having someone do it for you. There are no shortcuts. If you "don't have time to learn code" then what are you hoping to gain from this?
No one is going to go through the huge amount of time and effort to create a tutorial specifically for you. That's not even what a tutorial is - tutorials are supposed to teach how to do things, and you apply that learning to your own projects. You should be focusing on learning how to code. If you want to make games, that's how it's done.
Well like I said above I had found someone do a very nice tutorial on exactly what I asked for above, except for/with gamemaker. When I said I don't have time to learn the code what I meant was I don't have the time to mess around and learn things that will not effect this style game. Like I said I'm a newbie so if there is nothing that has nothing to do with the style game I would like to make I wouldn't know that. Also I said turn based strategy but that actually is not exactly what I meant either, I meant a game like final fantasy:brave exvius or epic battle fantasy 1,2,3 or 4. thanks for the reply anyway.
You miss my point. When you're a new programmer, you don't need to learn how to make one game. You need to learn how to make game systems, player input, how to do UI, how to do animation, and a hundred other things. You can't decide ahead of time what you don't need to know, because making games is hard - it takes a lot of knowledge and experience to make what you envision.
I'm trying to help you, because I see this in students all the time. They think they can take shortcuts to get where they want to go, but it just leads to frustration. Starting out you should be trying to learn as much about programming and game development in general as you can. If you must make games, you should be making Snake, Asteroids, Tetris, Flappy Bird, etc. When you can make a simple game like that without help or a tutorial, you have the basic level of skill to start trying to make your own games.
Study. Do the work, and don't take shortcuts. You'll be much happier and more successful in the end.
As for recommendations, if you're a new programmer, and you're planning on using Godot, then you would do well to study Python (GDScript is very similar, and there's a lot more Python material out there). Take a Python beginner course (or two) so you have a good handle on syntax and logic. This will help you more than anything else you could do.
OK, I'm doing the python beginner courses from codecademy right now. BTW I am a kid so I find that you replying to me is ironic. Just so you know my parents will not buy or let my buy any coding courses so everything must be free, thus I'm using this program. Do you have any course urls that you would recommend? And so I'm mentally prepared, how long does it take to learn everything I need? Thank you for your time
@anobody said: And so I'm mentally prepared, how long does it take to learn everything I need?
Years.
@anobody said: my parents will not buy or let my buy any coding courses so everything must be free, thus I'm using this program. Do you have any course urls that you would recommend?
Don't worry, there are lots of free resources out there. Here are a few:
Python: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist (book): http://openbookproject.net/thinkcs/python/english3e/ Automate the Boring Stuff with Python (book): https://automatetheboringstuff.com/ PythonByteSize (videos): http://www.pythonbytesize.com/video-list-website.html LearnPython subreddit: http://reddit.com/r/learnpython - good place to ask for help
I'm not a fan of Codecademy's Python course - it's Python 2, which is not useful for a beginner to learn. You should stick to Python 3 starting out.
Once you have a good handle on Python basics, you can make simple games with it to boost your skills. I have some Python gamedev lessons here:
http://kidscancode.org/lessons/
And so I'm mentally prepared, how long does it take to learn everything I need?
@Haplotyper is not wrong. How old are you? What level math are you studying now? Game programming is very math-heavy, and a lot of advanced things (especially 3D) are going to require math that you haven't seen yet. For example, if you haven't had Precalculus yet, you probably haven't seen Vector math, but it's super important in games (Godot uses it extensively). Don't worry, it's really not that hard, but be prepared to go to Khan Academy and watch their videos on vectors ( https://www.khanacademy.org/math/precalculus/vectors-precalc ). As a side benefit, you'll probably see an improvement in your math grades, because you're using applied math outside of class and understanding it a lot more.
Above all, don't look at any of this as a bad thing - it's a good thing. If you're passionate about making games, then you have a lot of fun learning ahead of you. Enjoy the process and try doing lots of different things.
- Edited
I'm fourteen and I got the basics to pretty much everything, I did a little bit of everything, Although I mastered vectors. Plus your video series say to install python, but I use Linux and I checked the Python page for Linux and it seems that the only Linux version is not free.
There's no such thing as a paid version of Python, so I don't know how you could possibly have seen that. Show me the link, I'm curious.
In fact, if you're running Linux, it's likely that Python is already installed, since it's a base package in most Linux distributions. You may not have IDLE, though, so you'd have to install that. Just look in your package manager (I don't know which flavor of Linux you're using).
Yeah I'm downloading the required stuff straight from the repository, I didn't think it would be there, however you were right about python but I did find pygame in there so thanks!
@anobody said: Yeah I'm downloading the required stuff straight from the repository, I didn't think it would be there, however you were right about python but I did find pygame in there so thanks!
Awesome! Good luck, and make sure to share your progress!
@kidscancode OK, I'm following your series, and I am at pygame shmup part 8, and at the end of the video you put in pygame.mixer.music.play.(loops=-1) but if I do that and run it I get this error:
File "/home/mrs-schmidt/Estan/python/shmup.py", line 149 pygame.mixer.music.play(loops=-1) ^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax
now if I just put:
pygame.mixer.music.play()
it will work just fine, but wont loop the music. Any suggestions?
@anobody said: File "/home/mrs-schmidt/Estan/python/shmup.py", line 149 pygame.mixer.music.play(loops=-1) ^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax
Are you sure you didn't have a typo in there somewhere, because that doesn't look like a syntax error to me. Was the cursor position of the error at the beginning of the line? When that happens it usually means the error is at the end of the previous line (for example if you didn't close parentheses).
I'd have to see more of the code than just that one line to say for sure. Try it again and take a look at the line above that one as well.
- Edited
OK, I copied your code and pasted, saved it as a .py and a similar error came up (in my previous comment I was also getting this error): Traceback (most recent call last): File "/home/mrs-schmidt/Estan/python/testingloop.py", line 212, in <module> pygame.mixer.music.play(loops=-1) TypeError: play() takes no keyword arguments
also, on your page http://kidscancode.org/blog/2016/09/pygame_shmup_part_11/ the download for the images is gone, the link is there but dropbox doesn't seem to have the images. Can you either fix that or give another place to download from? I tried to find it on open game art, but I'm not sure what package you got it from... I put in the search sonic explosion and nothing came up.
@anobody said: File "/home/mrs-schmidt/Estan/python/testingloop.py", line 212, in <module> pygame.mixer.music.play(loops=-1) TypeError: play() takes no keyword arguments
Not sure why this would be. Can you check what version of Pygame you're running? Try the following code:
import pygame
print(pygame.version.ver)
@anobody said: also, on your page http://kidscancode.org/blog/2016/09/pygame_shmup_part_11/ the download for the images is gone, the link is there but dropbox doesn't seem to have the images. Can you either fix that or give another place to download from? I tried to find it on open game art, but I'm not sure what package you got it from... I put in the search sonic explosion and nothing came up.
I updated the link - Dropbox has changed their linking policy recently. FYI, all the art I'm using comes from an OpenGameArt artist named "Kenney".
Lastly, we're really getting offtopic for the Godot forums, so we might want to move this discussion elsewhere. You can use the Discus comment section at the bottom of each lesson page if you have a question about it.
OK, thanks the link is working now and the out put of the print version came out with: 1.9.1release. Ok, I will move the Q's to your site.
@anobody said: 1.9.1release
This is really old. You need to upgrade to 1.9.2. Just do:
pip3 install pygame