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What are the best game programming tutorials for beginners?

7

Options
Considered

15

User
Recs.

Jul 27, 2018

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

7 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	-	–	–
-- MSDN XNA Walkthrough	-	–	–

Khan Academy

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Top Pro

Browser-based, no other software needed

Programs are written and executed within the webpage. 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

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

Motivates by gamifying the learning process

Top Pro

Teaches JavaScript

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

Scratch

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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

Unity Scripting Tutorials

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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

Amit’s Game Programming Information

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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

Lazy Foo SDL Tutorials

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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

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