Author: by Dave Voyles, Sr Tech Evangelist, Microsoft
This article is brought to you by Microsoft
You need an IDE, or Integrated Development Environment, to write code for your games. Visual Studio Community edition is FREE from Microsoft, and allows you to use a multitude of languages.
Full-featured Integrated Development Environment for building Web, Windows Desktop and cross-platform iOS, Android, and Windows apps
Ecosystem with thousands of extensions to choose from in the Visual Studio Gallery, or create your own
There is even a plugin that allows you to debug Unity applications from within Visual Studio.
Free Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) e-course: – What’s new in Visual Studio jump start
Free MVA course – Cross platform development with Visual Studio
Unity
Free MVA course – Developing 2D & 3D Games with Unity for Windows Jump StartUnity is a game development tool that has been designed to let you focus on creating amazing 3D games. Unity supports three languages: JavaScript (or at least their own version of it), C# (Mono), and a flavor of Python called Boo. The biggest selling point for Unity is the fact that it works across virtually all modern platforms. Best of all, they’ve recently switched to completely free model, too.
Free MVA course – Porting Unity Games to Windows Store and Windows Phone
MonoGame
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MonoGame is an Open Source implementation of the Microsoft XNA 4 Framework. MonoGame allows XNA . It currently supports Mac OS, Linux, iOS, Android, Playstation 4, and the OUYA console. Two higher profile titles include Bastion, Skulls of the Shogun, and Fez. At GDC 2015, Microsoft showed it off on Windows 10.
Bob Familiar recently wrote a 3 part blog series on MonoGame that takes you step by step through the process from getting your development environment setup to getting your game Windows 8 Store Ready.
SunBurn Engine
At the moment SunBurn supports Windows, Win8, Win Phone 8, Xbox 360, OSX, and Android, although more platforms are in the works.Similar to MonoGame, SunBurn is an abstraction of XNA 4, which allows developers to easily target multiple platforms. A free version is available, but if you want to use the editor to do things like drag-and-drop 3D models onto a scene, then you’ll need to pay for the premium versions, which are priced well.
GameMaker
A free version is available, but you’ll need to pony up a few bucks for additional platforms. Keep an eye out on Steam as well, as they frequently have flash sales for the framework. I managed to nap a professional license for $100 not too long ago!Who said drag-and-drop was dead? GameMaker proves that you can still make commercially viable games, without needing to use AAA engines and knowing how the ins-and-outs of memory management in the latest programming language. Often seen as a prototyping tool, GameMaker is responsible for some big hits in recent years, and more on the way, including: Hot Line MiamiNighogg, and Death Ray Manta.
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Construct 2
It can be overwhelming when you are starting off, because there are so many options available to you. I mean just look at plethora of game making tools at Pixel Prospetor, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. If you have zero programming experience, then I’d suggest starting with Construct2.“I want to get started with making games, but I don’t know how. Where should I start?”
Construct 2 allows you to create HTML5 games without ever having to write code. Everything is handled in the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) which has a GUI (Graphical User Interface) that anyone could use. You simply drag-and-drop objects into your scene, and can make changes to the objects properties by right clicking.
Even better, it’s free! There are premium versions available, but if you’re just starting off, then the free version offers more than enough to get you going.
Moreover, there are tons of resources to take advantage of:
I’d suggest starting here, though:
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