Adviced for a no code exp?

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1

Godot Version 4

Question,

Hello and I hope i dont get deleted or ban for this. Im extremely new to coding but also I wanted to be able to create my own game. I am a 42 years old veteran and I was wondering if its too late for me to even touch coding and game development? Its always been my dream to be a game developer. Im trying to learn the very basics of coding and also godot engine but it was overwhelmingly too much to absorb. I dont know how or where to even begin with. Do you just type whatever you want on the scrypt? Or memorize things? get good with math? Or need to have at least a bit of coding exp? Im just curious, how did you guys learned and managed it? It seems like theres too many to memorized. Ive seen tutorials and I know theyre helpful but right now totally im burned out. Just slap me with the truth if I can still make it or not. Thank you very much

-Very Respectfully,

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If you haven’t already I’d recommend following the getting started tutorials in the official docs Your first 2D game — Godot Engine (stable) documentation in English

They will teach you the basics of the engine and the editor.

From there the next steps kinda depend on how you like to learn and how much time you can dedicate to learning.

Some possible suggestions (I know others will chime in with other great suggestions):

  • Try modifying the tutorial games to add something extra
  • Build some little prototypes of features you’d like in “your” game
  • Try and recreate some classic games, like space invaders or pacman
  • Read these forums! So much useful info and common problems already ysolved
  • Find other tutorials that sound interesting to you (but be warned many tutorials exist for older Godot versions)
  • Ask questions on these forums! So many friendly and help people here
  • Learn some general programming, Python is generally a recommendation here as GDScript is very similiar

Game development is indeed very overwhelming, there are so many things you could learn and specialise in, but like any skill in life; practice makes perfect!

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One thing that a lot of newcomers get wrong is that they think a “true programmer” knows everything, or that they memorize all the functions and syntax. This is not true at all. If you don’t know something, do not be afraid to google it, look up how to do X and Y thing. Just because you don’t immediately remember something or don’t know some specific names / keywords, it doesn’t mean you’re not learning.

Basically, my biggest advice is, do not be afraid to look information up. Either from Google or the Godot Docs directly.

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Yeah, knowing math is essential. You can learn to program, but if you don’t know math, it won’t be very useful. It’s never too late to learn, but success depends on the individual. After all, it’s also a form of entertainment.

The Godot documentation has already been recommended here — that’s the best place to start. There’s also the very basics of programming

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Thank you very much for the guidance. I was kinda lost and was everywhere. I will piously heed your advice. Im very grateful.

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Thanks. I was actually about to lose my mind.i really thought programming all about memorizing. I wasnt really a good learner too, I have this Dyscalculia which makes it difficult for me to understand numbers and calculations but i wont give up because people in this community are very helpful and understanding. I got alot of advised at FB too. I was crying earlier because of my deficiencies. Now my mund is clear. I am grateful for your guidance and advice. Thank you very much

-Very Respectfully,

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I will heed your advice. Thank you very much for grounding me back to reality. I was all over the place and was totally lost. I just dont know were to start.

-Very Respectfully,

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As someone who is almost formula dyslexic, I actually learned math by reading algorithms as expressed in programming languages, which made a lot more sense to me

So I’m not convinced knowing maths up front is a prerequisite. But you’ll have to be prepared to study a lot of maths if you want to do game development.

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I disagree. I was pulled out of school at an early age and my mother didn’t know math so I didn’t learn much aside from basic order of operations stuff. When I started teaching myself to program, it was before I learned algebra, and my code still worked. You can get a lot done with just the basic principle of “if X is true, do Y” in programming, without needing to know any algorithms or math concepts.

Sure, it was easier after I moved out of my mom’s house and had the time and freedom to teach myself algebra, but it wasn’t necessary to get started learning to code.

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For game dev it’s important to know math though

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I mean, yeah, it’s important. But the discussion here is what’s necessary to get started. Advanced math isn’t 100% required to learn to program; Marc does not need to “get good with math” first, and then learn programming and gamedev. Even if his math skills aren’t up to snuff, he can do it how I did it and learn math during or after learning to code.

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With modern game engines it’s definitely not straight up required, but it’ll help A LOT when you need to come up with a clever solution to a problem that isn’t immediately trivial.

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I never said so, but having a good basic knowledge of mathematics is important to be good at game dev, to not have to constantly look things up, or to be able to tell if something makes sense

Knowing how to compute the points of a circle for example, or know how to offset a vector, or how to estimate certain things computationally

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I would just keep doing simple and easy things while slowly getting used to it. In the beginning even simple things like using == to check if something is equal to something else can at times be confusing. No reason to throw other things to get confused by into the mix before you have gotten to know some more of the basics.

About remembering everything or not, i think it is as much that you remember where to find something or get better at guessing where to find it. Like ok, i want a slow motion effect to happen, probably i need to access Engine. Then type “Engine.” and scroll through the list of various options. Finally, you find Engine.time_scale and decrease it a bit for a slow motion effect.

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This is critical: building an intuition for where things might be, and what to use for what. You don’t have to keep everything in your head, but you should be able to figure out where to find it relatively quickly or it’ll take a lot of your time

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I know older people learning to game dev. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
I agree with the docs tutorial recommendation.
BTW this may be interesting:

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OK thanks I will look into it. Been watching tutorials lately and I did learned alot. Specially with the very basics of coding python and gscripts. Hopefully ill be able to make a ping ping or snake game this week .

Very Respectfully,

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Go slow dont learn evrything at once.
you dont have to watch and learn the whole video :slight_smile: I just learnd interpolation jesterday even thoe I published a game 2 days ago wich got played 109 times LOL.

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Hey Marc,

I was touched reading your post, and understand the predicament you’re in. No doubt many here started out in a similar situation (0 XP), and had to work their way to understanding how to code.

I’ve been coding since I was about 6 years old. The problem is, I hate doing it (my twin brother went on to study telecommunications software engineering, whereas I chose ancient languages and archaeology for my university degrees). People are probably going to pour scorn on me for saying this, and I know, well, that it is unprofessional, but I am ‘vibe coding’ at the moment. This basically means asking Ai to spit out the code for you. This is pretty dodgy because it is conducive to laziness, is not good from a legal standpoint (the code belongs to the company which produced the Ai) and it is better to do it all yourself.

Equally, you’ve got to start somewhere, and after two months of studying GDScript from books, I’m now making much faster progress vibe coding, then tweaking that code. CPM. Copy. Paste. Modify. (The modify being the most important of all).

Certain Latin scholars have speculated, with supporting evidence from philology, that some medieval scribes may have learned Latin this way. Their task was to copy out manuscripts, faithfully, and it appears as though some of those clerks did not understand what they were copying out (symbols, effectively). Yet, over time, familiarity came to them, and they would learn, by copying.

As for the math thang: so long as you understand the logic, you don’t actually have to crunch numbers, since the computer does it for you. It’s like trading: mathematics is preferable (essential for the big companies) but for independent day-traders it is only advantageous, not necessarily essential.

Hope your dream game becomes a reality, after much graft.

Max.

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Programming is about manipulating numbers and algorithms. Mathematics is about manipulating numbers. If you can’t add 2 and 2, you’ll find it very difficult to program. The better you master mathematics, the more complex programs and games you’ll be able to create with fewer problems and in a more elegant way.

I just received a fairly complex piece of code written by AI. I pretty much understand it, but I clearly don’t have enough math knowledge right now to modify it.

Simply copying isn’t the most reliable or best way to learn. It’s better to try to understand it. You can make changes to a program and immediately see what the result will be, which helps with understanding.