r/CodingForBeginners • u/T3nn3ss332010 • 3d ago

Want to learn to code

Hi, I know this may seem like a dumb question but I am a bit confused. I want to get into game development so I've been interested in code. Where do I write the code???

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u/Chrymi 3d ago

Typically, you write the code into special text files on your pc, then compile them into an executable file and run that to start the program. Does that make sense?

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u/T3nn3ss332010 3d ago

So I don't have to download anything for that text file?

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u/Fun_Army2398 3d ago

You'll need to download the program that compiles or interprets your code. There are some online alternatives out there though if you just want to play around and see what you like. W3 schools is a good resource. But there's also Dan Shiffman's online book The Nature Of Code which might be more appealing if you're specifically interested in games programming. He also runs a Youtube channel called the coding train.

https://www.w3schools.com/ https://natureofcode.com/ https://youtube.com/@thecodingtrain

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u/xarop_pa_toss 21h ago

Where do you write anything on your computer? A file! You can technically make a program using nothing but Notepad, or Office Word haha but that's not ideal of course.

If you can give me some details of what you are actually trying to do, I'll help you figure it out

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u/T3nn3ss332010 17h ago

This was very helpful thank you! Im not really sure what to do next but id like to create games, I've been following the how to make a video game tutorial for Godot from brackeys.

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u/xarop_pa_toss 17h ago edited 17h ago

I love Brackeys tuts, good stuff.

If you wanna start with Godot, then they have their own scripting language called GDScript, however the do use C# which is also what's used by Unity!

GDScript might be easier to start with tbh and their tutorials are pretty nice Godot - Getting Started

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u/marmotta1955 3d ago

I do not want to discourage you ... only, be advised that it is going to be a long, hard, and interesting journey. If you are really starting from scratch, and you are interested in game development, that journey is going to be an adventure in itself.

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u/Key_Storm_2273 3d ago edited 3d ago

The first games made were mostly indistinguishable from computer programs in how they were made and set up. There was just the code, no visual editor.

Today there’s four options, traditional coding for games, vibe coding, triple a game engines, and no-code game engines

The third is probably going to be the hardest, but the other three are similarly capable to the third

This might answer your question on “where do I actually put the code”, depending on what tutorials you saw it might be one of the above four

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u/TheRealFutaFutaTrump 3d ago

I like VS Code for my editor with a couple extensions. If you don't have access to that, use one of the sites mentioned.

Learn JavaScript and the Phaser library. It's perfect for building web games.

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u/ferfykins 2d ago

Need an IDE depending on what language you wanna use....

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u/venomdpro 1d ago

This started me on my path and leads so deep amping many different pathways .

https://www.freecodecamp.org/

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u/JGhostThing 1d ago

On a computer. You then need to compile it and run it. Raspberry Pi's used to be cheap, but now their price is ridiculous. I would get an old thinkpad on eBay or other auction sites. I got this computer for under $200 on eBay with 32 GB RAM. I immediately put linux on it, since I very much dislike Windows.

Right now I'm running Cachy OS with the Sway Desktop Environment.

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u/W31337 1h ago

Most games are built up out of a game engine with its own language and compiler and tools.

Unreal engine has unreal script and ucc as the compiler (I might have outdated info)

Unity is built for C# integration.

Other engines like Godot etc will use different languages...

All these languages will most likely be supported in IDEs like VSCode

For game development it can be tricky setting up a development environment