Question

What are some good engines and languages to learn for developing video games?

Answer 1

XNA. C++.

Answer 2

Unity3D has a free version that I have used several times at Game-Jams to make small games quickly. It would be a good way to get started, though I don't know how well it scales up to larger projects.

Answer 3

It really depends on what type of game you want to develop. If it is a 2D type game for a mobile device, then you can use HTML5 and Javascript. If you are talking about complex 3D gaming engines used on gaming platforms, then the language used is usually C or C++

For HTML5/Javascript:

Good list of Javascript game engines
http://www.appmobi.com/?q=node/181

and

http://www.appmobi.com/?q=HTML5-game-dev-engine

Wikipedia also has a great list of various game engines as well as some very insightful information about each engine in a table format

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_game_engines

I also suggest you do a search engine query for "game engines" or "3d game engines" or "HTML5/Javascript game engines", etc.

I hope this helps!

Answer 4

You should look into C/C++ for console video games. XNA is C# only, but most projects outside of XBLA games are developed primarily in C++. As for engines, I'd recommend taking a look at Unity and especially UDK.

Answer 5

Don't forget Objective-C for programming on the Cocoa framework (Mac and iOS platforms).

Answer 6

You could use Python and PyGame

Answer 7

As mentioned above - it really depends on the scope of what you are trying to accomplish. Adobe Flash is another good alternative, although it appears to be fading (certainly in the mobile space...) and has a steep learning curve.

I keep hearing good things about Unity but haven't worked with it yet.

Answer 8

If you are a student and you have an .edu email account you can join dreamspark.com, which is owned by microsoft and you can get XNA Game Studio for free and use it as long as you want. You can also get a lot of other cool software too, such as Microsoft Server full addtion KODU Game Lab, Express Studio Ultimate and a lot more. Have a look at dreamspark.com

Answer 9

DoodleTech,
That looks like a very cool resource! I am a university instructor, do you know from experience if there is a way to verify instructors who may want to use materials from there in instruction?

Answer 10

There's an OGRE engine: http://www.ogre3d.org/

Answer 11

There is also processing (processing.org) which is not specifically for games, but for prototyping and quickly experimenting with graphics code both 2d and 3d. It's really java underneath. :)

Answer 12

@ darrinm, If you have a .edu email account, which instructors normally do, you can down load the software. Although you can down load the software, I do not believe the license that is granted to you will allow you to use the software at a University.

Now, if you want to use the software at your University, your school can join the MSDN Academic Alliance by Microsoft. There is a fee for MSDN Academic Alliance but it is not that high for a school and you get a lot more software made by Microsoft than you would at dreamspark.com.The link to MSDN Academic Alliance is below.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/academic/bb250591

Answer 13

Yeah DreamSpark is way cool. I got Expression Studio, Kodu, Visual Basic, Visual C #, Visual C++, Visual Studio 2010 Pro, Server 2008 R2, XNA, and WindowsPhone (to produce phone apps). I also got SmallBASIC and Microsoft Mathematics for my kids (okay, I fool around with them too, busted). All for free. These are full versions to not just trials. Now if Adobe would just hurry up and do something like that before I graduate, I'd be set.