The Beginner's Guide To Game Programming

There are a few things that you should know before starting to write a game, which will make sure that your game is written as quickly and cleanly as possible, here are a few general rules that I usually stick to:

Go to as many other games programming pages as possible, download examples, code and look for tips - The best way to learn is to look at what works, and what would be the point in doing something that is already done?
Don't expect your first game to be great, more than likely it will take ages to write and will be crappy, but as they say 'Practice makes perfect'.
Plan as much as possible before you start to write the code, this will help you to work out some of the logic.
Document your code well, I have had many occasions where I have written a function for a game and then a week later when I want to add something to it I have to read right the way through the function so that I will know what variables to use and where to add the stuff. Comments also help other people understand your code, I have seen too many libraries and source code that don't have sufficient documentation so you don't know what the programmer was thinking at the time.(With some programmers this could be a plus!)
Write your code so that it is easy to edit, add things to and understand.
Don't copy themes, story lines, graphics or sounds from popular games, try to make your own and add things that are unique - Why would people buy a game that is nearly the same as all of the other games that are around and that they probebly already have?

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Nutter
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