Building A Video Game – Part 1 (kind of)

I’ve always wanted to learn programming but could never wrap my head around it.  Back in the 90’s I bought a few “teach yourself” to program books and I’d get through a chapter only to realize that I had forgotten everything I just learned by the time I had to progress to the next chapter.

Every so often I would try again with what I would call temporary results.  Eventually, I kind of gave up on it as other interests started to take over.
Flash forward to last summer and for reasons, that I don’t even remember, I stumbled onto some different game-maker programs that use a mix of code and drag&drop.  There are a bunch of these types of programs and I tried more than a few.  

At this point in my life, I (sort of) know what I want.  I do NOT really want to grow up and become a computer programmer, but I would like to make some games based on ideas I’ve had.

This ultimately lead me to GDevelop.  A mostly free “Event-Sheet” style programming system from France.  It’s been a blast so far.

Before we go any further… I do not have any affiliation with GDevelop.

It uses Conditions and Events in a sort of Call and Response relationship.  If “X” happens, then do “Y” kind of a thing.  The whole things sort of looks like an Excel spreadsheet – which probably makes it sound worse than it is!

As always, I’ve found the best way to learn a program is to actually make something with it so that is what I’ve been doing.

I’m going to be posting updates as to my progress (and setbacks).   I would love to release the game once completed.  

I’m sure to real programmers something like GDevelop is probably seen as a toy or at worse a floodgate for poorly made games. I understand that and in no way think this is a substitute for learning the real (i.e. hard) way. However, it meets my needs and I’m going to use it.

So let the fun begin…