Beginners Game Programming
| What do you need to do to become a successful game programmer? You need to know how to program, and you should take a lot of high level math classes. You can program a game in many different languages such as Java, Delphi, etc. Believe it or not, you can even do it in DOS, but you want to be good at C++ as much as possible. C++ is the most common language for game programming. |
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Why? Because game programming is very complicated, and C++ help programmer easily manage huge amounts of code.
After you become C++ guru, you will need to learn how to use graphic API (Application Program Interface). API allows you to communicate with hardware. Two main API for PC game programming are DirectX and OpenGL. In my opinion, DirectX is more practical to learn, because it is endorsed by Microsoft, and it is widely used by game programmers around the world. You can download DirectX SDK for free from Microsoft website.
If you plan to get a formal education, nowadays you can get a degree in game programming or computer science. Unfortunately, there are a lot of college and Universities that have low quality game programming courses. Before you decide where you want to attend, you need to look at their courses. If they don’t teach your C++ programming in the first year, they may not be the best school for game programming.
If you have a chance to take Math classes, you should take it as much as possible. You don’t need to be a Math god to be a good game programmer. But, it helps, if you have some working knowledge of Math.
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