Help me name my library

Terry Aug 25, 2015 46 Comments

Hello internet! I need some suggestions!

Recently, I’ve been working on a big programming tutorial – it’s for helping total beginners get started with game programming. I call it Learn to program badly with Terry, because names are very hard.

As part of that project, I’ve also been working on a beginner’s game library. Right now, that’s called TerryLib. Because, again, names are very hard.

The thing is, it’s starting to look like this library could actually be pretty useful – a thing that might be good for more than just learning to program. A thing that others might like to use. So, it’s a bit limiting to call it TerryLib, right?

But names are very hard. What should I call it?

Hello World

Terry Jun 21, 2015 4 Comments

An image from chapter one of my programming tutorial, how to make a visual novel. The tutorial starts from scratch, and each chapter teaches you how to make a game in a new genre!

Since I last posted, I’ve mostly been working on that beginner’s game programming tutorial, and the beginner library that accompanies it. That library is already out in the world, on Github, but isn’t quite ready yet. It’ll be done when the tutorial’s done!

My main reason for writing this thing is because I’m a self taught coder myself, and when I was younger I benefited a lot from reading tutorials not unlike the one I’m writing. Writing this is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time – it feels important.

Along the way, I’ve been talking to smarter people than me, and learning new tricks to hide confusing codey ideas as much as possible. Hello world in my tutorial looks like this:

import terrylib.*;

class Main {
  function update() {
    Text.display(0, 0, "Hello World");
  }
}

This is probably going to take another few weeks, but I’m gonna stick with it until it’s done. Then, back to making my own games! Woo!

Projects between projects

Terry May 21, 2015 7 Comments

Boo, getting a little out of the habit of making blog posts again. Well, here’s what I’ve been up to!

My main project right now is my untitled stealthy action roguelike, which started for 7DRL and then got seriously out of hand.

I needed a break to do other stuff, but I’m trying to avoid my usual trap of starting lots of stuff that I never finish – so, I’m finishing stuff. I made a list of non-game stuff, and I’m working through it!

Been adding some cool new features to this over the past week or so! Things to look forward to include: new file format support, performance increases, some nice interface additions like transpose buttons. I’m also hoping to include a built in tutorial, to replace the out of date online one and make it that bit more accessible to beginners.

DONE! This was a pretty fun thing to work on! I guess at some point I might do a little more work on it so that chatbots can face off against each other…

Since it was getting pretty obvious I wasn’t going to get around to this myself, I put out a call for help. That’s going great!

I’ve been very won over by Haxe and OpenFL, which is what I’ve used for every game I’ve worked on this year. I wanna make a tiny programming library in it, aimed at beginners, which gives you a simple, BASIC like starting point for making games. That’s almost done! It’s actually part of another project I’ve been working on lately, namely:

I’m thinking of calling it “Learn to Program Badly with Terry“. Or something else, probably.

There’s this message out there right now: “you can make video games even if you’re not a programmer!“. Which is very true! But it implies something about programming: that it’s a lot of work. That’s it too hard. That it’s somehow in the way of you and the game that you want to make.

I think this message, without intending to, scares people away from programming – people who might really enjoy it! Programming can be a lot of fun, and can give you a lot of freedom to approach things in new and unique ways. The problem is just that it’s really inaccessible. Getting started from nothing is tough, and it’s getting tougher.

Programming is a big subject, for sure, but the amount of it that you actually need to know to make stuff is surprisingly small, and isn’t as scary as a lot people make it out to be. So, I thought I’d have a go at making that case – a total beginners guide to game programming. Coming soon!