I should add the following recommendations to game design quests:

• Run Linux -- libraries are free, compilers are free, help is usually free ... on Windows, it's more likely you'll be stuck with DirectDraw and cryptic documentation.
• If you want to try OpenGL, it's not great, and it is hard, but you can do stuff that will work in Windows & Linux this way. Get a generic OpenGL book that does not pose as a "games programming" book -- these books typically use a lot of prewritten engine code, have bad examples, and only run on Windows.
• I'm not a huge Python fan, but PyGame looks pretty sharp in comparison to what is available in Perl for making simpler games. I'd rather work with OpenGL myself, but that is because I like C and C'ish kinds of things.
• Graphics are 'hard' to do in a whiz-bang way, but this is what most corporate games spend money on. As a stylistic tip, gameplay is sooo much more important, which is why Atari 2600 games are still fun today -- remember to spend time on gameplay before you worry about graphics!

I should also add, that graphics programming, 3D modelling, and game/level design are traditionally done by seperate people in the real world, and it's hard to find jobs in any of these... but it's a great hobby, so explore, have fun, and enjoy it.

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.