How to learn game development? [closed]

Answer 1

One thing that is probably worth being familiar with is multi-threading. For example, with the "load screen", you might have one thread displaying the progress bar, while other threads simultaneously load data.

Similarly, much of the interactivity will happen by dispatching multiple threads to do many things at the same time (move different characters on the screen) or to handle interrupts by user input.

Answer 2

Responding to question 3. If you are really keen to start developing games, I recommend you read this short article by Jeff Howland.

Answer 3

Since I can't add a comment, I'll add an answer. I'd recommend NOT using threads for moving characters, etc. For file loading, playing sounds, and even server side networking it works well but any sort of AI/Graphics, it tends to cause endless headaches.

Also, as other people have mentioned, Java may not be the best choice. The simple reason that people say this is that it's difficult. The amount of support/tutorials for Java game development is rather lacking when compared to C++ (GameDev.net is great resource, but it's moved its focus more towards professional development over time), Flash (decent tutorial on Kongregate as well as being a spot that could host the game for you), or even C# (using XNA). Java game development has improved over the years and you can do some amazing things with it, but it may end up being more difficult going that route. No matter which language you choose, definitely look into using a graphics/game engine as it will cut down on the amount of work on your end and allow you to hopefully create a better game.

Answer 4

Q1 = 1% of your time.

Q2 = 40% of your time.

Q3 = 59% of your time.

You might as well be asking how could I write Halo3 for a web browser.

Aim a little lower to start with....

Answer 5

Don't go the java applet route.

If you want to make a quick casual game, make it Flash; else, develop a full-blown java app and run it via java web start.

Try Tower to see how far you can go using java as a platform, and also how Java Web Start works.

As for progress-bar thing, I recommend you to implement those files' loading and actually use them before you go for progress-bar eye-candy :)

Answer 6

If you're looking for a gentle entry path to game development and don't mind learning C#, XNA has an entire community built around learning how to write games. It has samples of all sorts of things -- the Game State Management sample shows a good way to implement screen transitions and loading, and there's a similar Network Game State Management sample for networking stuff. They also have entire games available as source code to download.

Whether or not your long-term goals are to make a Java applet, Flash game, or you want to work in C/C++ with OpenGL, XNA is a great way to ignore all the hairy implementation details of rendering/sound/etc. That's very very helpful when you're just trying to make your first game, believe me.