What are the best game programming tutorials for beginners?

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9

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Considered

22

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Recs.

Jul 6, 2021

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

8 Options Considered

Best game programming tutorials for beginners	Price	Languages	Features
-- Khan Academy	-	HTML, CSS, JavaScript	Editor, progress saver, video tutorials, written tutorials
-- Scratch	-	-	-
-- Unity Scripting Tutorials	-	-	-
-- Stencylpedia	-	-	-
-- W3Schools	-	-	-

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score 7 · Answer 1

Khan Academy

Top Pro

Motivation through gamification

Users collect badges and points through completing missions, watching videos, adding comments and more. See More

Top Con

Some topics are not covered in-depth enough

Complex subjects aren't always covered to their full depth. Due to the short length of the videos and some topics that might not be as familiar to Sal Khan, the only presenter on the site, some concepts and ideas get just surface coverage. See More

Specs

Languages:HTML, CSS, JavaScript

Features:Editor, progress saver, video tutorials, written tutorials

Top Pro

Free

Khan Academy is 100% free and does not require you to sign up in order to access the courses. See More

Top Pro

Browser-based, no other software needed

Programs are written and executed within the webpage. See More

Top Pro

Learn by example from others' projects

Learning how to do something by seeing how others did it is strongly encouraged. Any project can be shared with other Khan Academy users, who can examine the source and leave comments. See More

Top Pro

Teaches JavaScript

Khan Academy's Computer Programming course teaches JavaScript and the ProcessingJS library, skills which are directly useful elsewhere. See More

See All

score 6 · Answer 2

Scratch

Top Con

After the introduction, learning is unguided

Scratch walks you through the basics of its interface and how to snap together code blocks, after which you are expected to learn by experimentation and/or by looking at other peoples' projects. See More

Top Pro

Browser-based, no other software needed

Scratch runs in Flash, and works in all major browsers. An Offline Editor is available for Linux, Mac and Windows. See More

Top Con

No text-based coding

Scratch teaches core concepts and techniques which are essential to any language, and uses a block-based visual scripting system which strongly resembles the format of mainstream languages, but is not directly based on any language in particular. Learning another language is still required to use these skills elsewhere. See More

Top Pro

Learn by example from others' projects

Learning how to do something by seeing how others did it is strongly encouraged. Any project published through the Scratch portal can be loaded into the Scratch editor, to examine its source. See More

Top Pro

Developed by MIT

Scratch comes from the MIT Media Lab, which has also been instrumental in such projects as Lego Mindstorm and One Laptop Per Child. See More

See All

score 3 · Answer 3

Unity Scripting Tutorials

Top Pro

Teaches C#

Unity's tutorials use C# as the default language, a skill which is directly useful elsewhere. See More

Top Con

Video tutorials

Unity's entire tutorial series is presented in video format. For some, this is is a harder way to learn than text and screenshots. See More

Top Pro

Video tutorials

Unity's entire tutorial series is presented in video format, with associated source code provided in text. For many, this is an easier way to learn than text and screenshots. See More

Top Con

Scripting tutorials assume general knowledge of Unity3D

Scripting is not the first topic presented in the Unity tutorial series, and it is assumed that you are already familiar with Unity's basic operation. For those who are just starting out, this could mean some extra study before getting into programming. See More

See All

score 2 · Answer 4

Stencylpedia

Top Pro

Based on the MIT Scratch teaching system

Stencyl's visual scripting system is directly based on MIT Scratch, designed for accessibility and ease of learning. See More

Top Con

Text-based coding gets minimal coverage

Visually-constructed code is translated to the Haxe language and can be inspected as text. Direct Haxe code entry is also supported, but other than a single appendix on the "Code Mode" this is not covered in the Stencylpedia tutorial. See More

score 1 · Answer 5

W3Schools

Top Pro

Easy to learn

All the tutorials are written in a straightforward and easy to understand way. See More

Top Pro

Great source from Google search's perspective

Top Pro

Well organized tutorials

All of the lessons are separated into their own pages, which makes it easy to learn about specific concepts. See More

Top Pro

Built in editor

Almost every example has a "try it yourself" button which opens up an editor in a new tab. It allows you to play with the example code and see how it works. See More

See All

score 2 · Answer 6

MSDN XNA Walkthrough

Top Pro

Starts at the very beginning

Takes through the whole process of creating a game from scratch using XNA. See More

Top Pro

Covers multiple XNA versions

Tutorial available for XNA 4.0 as well as 3.1. See More

Answer 7

Lazy Foo SDL Tutorials

Top Pro

Comprehensive walkthrough

Explains the complete process of making a cross-platform game written in C++ and using SDL. The tutorial starts from the beginning by setting up the environment and goes through the motions to eventually create a cross-platform game. See More

Answer 8

Amit’s Game Programming Information

Top Pro

Huge amount of information

The resource covers a lot of topics in depth including AI, game design, scripting, adventure, economics and others. See More

8 Options Considered

My Recommendation for Khan Academy

My Recommendation for Khan Academy

Motivation through gamification

Some topics are not covered in-depth enough

Free

Browser-based, no other software needed

Learn by example from others' projects

Teaches JavaScript

My Recommendation for Scratch

My Recommendation for Scratch

After the introduction, learning is unguided

Browser-based, no other software needed

No text-based coding

Learn by example from others' projects

Developed by MIT

My Recommendation for Unity Scripting Tutorials

My Recommendation for Unity Scripting Tutorials

Teaches C#

Video tutorials

Video tutorials

Scripting tutorials assume general knowledge of Unity3D

My Recommendation for Stencylpedia

My Recommendation for Stencylpedia

Based on the MIT Scratch teaching system

Text-based coding gets minimal coverage

My Recommendation for W3Schools

My Recommendation for W3Schools

Easy to learn

Great source from Google search's perspective

Well organized tutorials

Built in editor

My Recommendation for MSDN XNA Walkthrough

My Recommendation for MSDN XNA Walkthrough

Starts at the very beginning

Covers multiple XNA versions

My Recommendation for Lazy Foo SDL Tutorials

My Recommendation for Lazy Foo SDL Tutorials

Comprehensive walkthrough

My Recommendation for Amit’s Game Programming Information

My Recommendation for Amit’s Game Programming Information

Huge amount of information

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