I'm the official Newbie

[Hairball183]

Didn't know where to post this, and this looked like the most on-topic place so…
Hello, my name is Lincoln Green and I'm interested in becoming a game programmer. I have no experience in any programming software whatsoever except for a little bit of Java and a little bit of realbasic. If anyone could point me to a (Preferably free) C++ book or something I would appreciate it. I am also interested in entering the iDevgames contest once I am more experienced, so if someone could point me to previous entry's and their source code, I would be doubly obliged.

Best wishes,

Lincoln Green

[AnotherJake]

Hi HairBall, welcome to iDevGames! I'm guessing you're the same HairBall from the Cheetah3D forums right? I'm the same AnotherJake from there. :)

Also, if you are the same HairBall then you already know about Unity, but I'd suggest looking into it anyway if you haven't already.

AFAIK the best you'll find for code resources from past uDG contests would be found in the sticky at the top of the Assembly Room category (the same one you posted in): http://www.idevgames.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13951

I think Bruce Eckel's C++ books are still free: http://www.mindview.net/Books/TICPP/ThinkingInCPP2e.html

However, I would highly recommend *against* learning C++ at first, as it is quite difficult for *most* beginners to jump into. Learn C first instead, since you'll need to know it anyway. Then it might be okay to move up to C++. Even then I would personally recommend Cocoa/Objective-C instead if you plan to stay Mac-only.

We have a community project that is supposed to help beginners learn stuff about game programming too, which you might check out: http://bjoernke.com/idg/wikka.php?wakka=HomePage It's not really well organized for complete beginners yet, but you might be interested in some of it. It is kind of the `new thing' going on around here. You can find threads on the Inkubator project under the Inkubator category on the main page of the forums here.

Also be sure to search these forums for other posts like yours, which are others looking for beginner advice, since there have been many who have come before you asking the same thing. As a quick tip: I find searching the forums better to simply do the search directly through Google, such as typing in:

newbie advice site:idevgames.com

If you've never used it before, notice the site command at the end which directs google to restrict its search to this domain.

Anyway, good luck!

[Hairball183]

I'm guessing you're the same HairBall from the Cheetah3D forums right?
Yeah, that's me. Thanks for the advice, I checked into Unity3D, but it wouldn't run on my old G3, so I spent my money to upgrade, and now I can't afford it.:rolleyes: Anyway, thanks for the advice and links, and I'll check into them when I get a chance.;)

Best wishes,

Lincoln Green:cool: