Recommended Language/Development

[NEO Ness]

I bought a few books for GML for Game Maker Studio, I want to make a Rogue Like, it's a life goal/dream of mine.

I was wondering what program and/or programming you'd recommend for a beginner?  I'm very familiar with RPG Maker VXA and MV, I have probably almost 1,000 hours in those.

I see C++ and unity names flying around here.  Anyone willing to help pitch me some info/advice?

[Zireael]

Hello Neo Ness, drop by https://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikedev/ - we just started a dev-along following a Python tutorial (Python is very easy to pick up for someone who's never programmed), one part a week!

[Krice]

(Python is very easy to pick up for someone who's never programmed)

It's just a language. I think Python is quite large and complex language so it being easy, well, how you want to think about it. What even makes it "very" easy? Give some tangible examples or get out.

In my opinion easy language is something which is easy to set up/install and feels like it's easy for that person. Some people I guess feel that functional programming is easier than object-oriented programming etc.

The language is 1% of creating a roguelike. 99% is content and game design.

[NEO Ness]

Hello Neo Ness, drop by https://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikedev/ - we just started a dev-along following a Python tutorial (Python is very easy to pick up for someone who's never programmed), one part a week!

Thank you for the link.  When I have extra time later today I'll check it out!

[Camphibian]

@Krice: Give the guy a break. Apparently you know so much about programming languages that you could provide your own examples (or get out).
Anyway, that said, given the current state of the art and accessibility, it will come down to how much time you have to develop your programming skills.

1) Free development environment - a big plus as it takes a while to skill up and maybe you won't like it after a while. Most don't.
    Visual Studio is free and powerful, has source integration and other features to make writing and organising your code less painful than listening to Krice whinge.

2) Portability. This modern age has a number of quasi portable languages including Java and C#. These are interpreted (unlike C++ which must be compiled for a particular platform), and run on most (MAC, Linux, Windows) platforms. If we look at the core technology developers, such as Unity, they have chosen C# and MonoDevelop, an IDE. Everyone seems to love Unity, it's free, comes with a mind boggling array of free resources and tutorials and a massive community to support it. It is however, daunting to get into.

3) Learning Curve. You want to ensure the pain and the joy are in a balanced measure. Learning curves are painful and if you don't get your jollies from your coding quick then you will lose interest. Pick a simple project to start and finish within a month, then embellish it or make a new one.

I recommend C# and Visual Studio or MonoDevelop, all free. C# is a nicely structured language and  very easy to learn. Skills you develop in C# will be essential were you to continue and learn the unity environment as well.

Best of Luck

[AgingMinotaur]

I can echo Zireal's recommendation of Python, which I started learning some years ago by jumping in the deep end (starting on a RL when I didn't really know anything about programming). Python takes care of a lot of the low level stuff (like memory allocation), whilst retaining the versatility of a proper programming language. But it's probably true that different people will enjoy different languages for different reasons, and it's certainly true that writing a RL is >90% about design issues, which are more or less the same regardless of language. If you're more interested in finding a good game engine, Godot may also be worth a look. It's probably less polished than Unity, but completely free (as in open source), and from my limited experience easy to use (I was able to make a basic Pooyan clone in a few days, but haven't really whet my teeth on it yet).

In any case, be prepared to scrap a lot of your early implementations as you're learning. So make sure to enjoy the ride.

As always,
Minotauros

[Camphibian]

@AgingMinotaur: Thanks for the Godot reference! That looks pretty good going to give it a shot.
Camphibian

[Krice]

I recommend C# and Visual Studio or MonoDevelop, all free. C# is a nicely structured language and  very easy to learn.

C# is solving like 10% of the technical problems compared to C++ (something like memory management, strings and lists are easier in C#). It's just a language, it's not magic. One of less known problems in advanced languages is that they tend to be slower than C or C++. It's not a problem in small projects, but may become a surprising issue in large scale games.