Tuesday, June 26, 2007

In the Beginning

Though game development is a not easy, some environment is more easy than another. Especially for beginners without any experience in programming this is of concern. So I think it's time to search the beginners game development environment.

The first thing I noticed is PyGame, a cross-plattform game development library based on Python and built on SDL. It is designed to make game development easy and powerfull, without the need to care about the low-level details of C/C++. PyGame seems to have a great community.

Another thing is the Blitz BASIC compiler, a BASIC dialect designed for game development. It originally came from the Amiga, but today it is cross-plattform available.

Both languages are easy to learn, and have their pros & cons. While Python+PyGame is open source, Blitz BASIC isn't and has a price of 80$ upwards. Blitz BASIC creates compiled code, while Python is an interpreter (but fast) and needs its source code to execute. However, Python is commonly used as additional scripting language for many projects.

For sure there are alternatives to PyGame and Blitz BASIC, but they are definitely a good choice for beginners.

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