What are some professional programs used to create video games?

Question

I heard of C++ but isn't that a format that you don't actually use to program games on?

Answer 1

C++ is a language. The programs professionals use are text editors. Even Notepad can be used to write a game. Not only don't professionals need programs to do the work for us, we don't *want* programs producing code we don't know about. We *want* to write it all ourselves. That way, only what we write gets into the finished product. I don't want to spend a week debugging my program only to find out that the problem is some garbage code a program inserted for me.



C++ is a good language to write games in. So is C#. So is Java.

Answer 2

I can definitely appreciate the previous answer, I don't want other people writing code for me. But if you are looking for help getting your games up and running, then what you are looking for is a game engine or a physics engine. There are many engines available, either free or paid, that are fully functional and have great looking results. For example, the game "Gears of War", was created using the Unreal 3 engine. All they did was change the art, the level design, and the scripting (I guess that is a bit of work). There are free engines out there just like Unreal 3 that can be altered or added upon. You might consider just getting a game you like and then installing/downloading the level editor or SDK. That way you can start to experiment.



Let me also say that you will probably want to decide early on what it is you want to do exactly, level design, character animation, scripting, physics programming, shader programming, artwork, etc... All good games are made by a team of experts, none of which can do it all.



Thanks



joe

Answer 3

From my personal 7 years of game development.. First of all, I want you to realize that a person can't be good at everything. When you do a game, you have to be good at coding, art and story. This is difficult to achieve alone of the game is huge. So, the vision that you have of being "professional" is hard to achieve alone. But don't let this discourage you NOT ONE BIT. Who knows, maybe your will become the next Call Of Duty after some time. Second. Understanding how code works, and not giving up at learning the programming language is a challenge and not an easy one - unless it's interesting to you. The best way to learn a language is by watching youtube tutorials. Second best way is to using google search to find your answers. And then there are places like yahoo where you can post questions. So, learning might be tough but it's absolutely possible. Third. What software should you pick? Well, what you want to do games for? Choices are: desktop games, browser games, apps + other things that I am not familiar with. The software that I use: •Game Maker Studio does desktop+browser games and apps, very practical, easy to learn for beginners, games work on a ton of platforms such as windoes, mac, IOS, android. Its also free, but... has huge limitations in features. You have to pay a lot of money to unlock the best features. •Javascript + HTML this is a free way to do advanced games. These games are in browsers. The down side is that it's for advanced programmers. The up side is that you only need a notepad and a browser to make a game! And you don't even need internet. •Eclipse. This is for Java. (Note that Java and JavaScript are 2 totally different things). I do not know much of anything about Java except that it's awesome. But i do know that it is very hard for beginners. But using Eclipse software, you can make apps with it. I am currently looking into that. It seems hard in my first few days. But i can do it. Would not recommend it to you though. Java also makes games for browsers as well. •Unity. I don't know much about Unity. I know that it's also very awesome. You can make desktop and browser games with it. Has nice 3D support. It may be a bit hard for a beginner, but I believe that youtube has a lot of tutorials for Unity. I would recommend either Game Maker Studio or Unity. But feel free to explore anything else too. Because I don't know everything about every software out there.