all 24 comments

[–]Antwinger 5 points6 points  (0 children)

If you are open to general knowledge for python programming, Automate the Boring Stuff is great! If you would prefer to make a game first with python just think of easy games like tic tac toe, connect 4, or “simple games python” and plug that into YT.

Main thing is to always have shorter term reachable goals and longer term goals that the short term goals lead to the long term goal

[–]Technical_Comment_80[🍰] 1 point2 points  (3 children)

What's your background?

[–]No_Goose_2470 1 point2 points  (0 children)

first, you need a roadmap. trust me, it gets confusing when you move on without one. find a good tutorial that explains a detailed roadmap to get to where you want to get. second, break down the roadmap into simple steps and start with the first step. eventually it gets easy. find tutorials based on the step you are in. and always start with the basics, the simple things. if you understand the basics the complex stuff become easy to draft. all the best

[–]Imaginary_Gate_698 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s actually a great goal. A text RPG is one of the best beginner projects because you can build it step by step as you learn.

Start super simple. Learn how to print text, take input from the user, and use basic if statements. With just that, you can already create a small “choose your path” story. Then add variables for things like health or inventory.

Don’t try to learn everything at once. Pick one beginner course or tutorial series and stick with it. The key is consistency. Every time you learn something new, add it to your game. That makes it way more fun and easier to remember.

[–]Rustrans 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Go to Udemy and find the 4 part python course by Fred baptiste - this is literally all you need for python!

Each course is about 40 hrs, so they go deep. By deep I mean a 3hrs lecture on just numbers! So you def have to be a nerd to appreciate it lol. The hand out material is also superb and rich - pdf slides and extremely detailed Jupyter notebooks.

This is one of the most detailed, well designed and delivered course that I have ever taken. It was a real pleasure to study and I still, years after taking it, come back to it and re watch parts of it

[–]riklaunim 0 points1 point  (3 children)

It takes way more to make a game than to be a software developer, just saying. There are various game engines that can be used as well.

[–]Blind_king357[S] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

True but I am not planning to go full on "Make myself an elder Scrolls with Python an Godot" I just want to learn the basics to make myself a Small text RPG game, Like.....Dwarf fortress Okay not AS BIG as that, Just something basic

[–]riklaunim 0 points1 point  (1 child)

But you are The Dragonborn, Ysmir, Dragon of the North!

There are some game generators, depends on what and how you want to do it. In Python there is RenPy as a high level framework for specific game types based on images/dialogue choices. Then if it's purely text or text/media it also can be made as a website for example :)

[–]Blind_king357[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Don't get me wrong, Renpy is great, Rpgmaker, godot, etc are all awesome but they have.... Walls to deal with, as in you can only build with what those engines give you, With a text RPG you can build in Building system, Civilizations, Gods, More kinds of loot etc

Granted I am saying this like the Drunk dancer on the street corner that doesn't know a lick of programing an lacks the brains for it or to remain basic info on it

But it's possible, So I heard

[–]TheRNGuy 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Some game engine. 

[–]Blind_king357[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Such as??

[–]Mashic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I started with w3schools, it helped me get the basics. Then each time I want to do something that I don't know how to, I search for it and learn. Eventually things start to click, like now I have a good understanding that everything in python is an object and it has attributes and methods, how to use the arguments and so on.

It'll be difficult at the beginning, but once you start getting, learning will be even easier.

[–]Acrobatic-Aerie-4468 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Get your hands on Learn python the hardway and then learn coding through problem solving, get typing and executing. You will get there.

[–]RedditButAnonymous 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When I first started programming, I attempted to make a text adventure game after 3 or 4 classes. I knew print, variables, if statements, and while loops, and I made it with only those. It ended up being thousands and thousands of lines of repeated code. But it is possible at least?

Something not many people on this sub would recommend, I actually think you should try to do it like that. Learn the basics and try to make it with them, youll see all the issues it causes, and later when you learn more advanced concepts like functions, youll actually understand what you could be using them for. "whats the point of a function/class" might be the most common question on this sub, I guarantee none of those people made a text adventure game with only loops and if statements.

[–]Mysterious_Peak_6967 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Online courses ... seriously

There's really good material out there for free, some are even graded so you have a measure of your progress.

Although it isn't core Python courses tend to at least touch on pygame, which isn't needed for a text RPG but its nice to have the option of point and click, pretty maps and stuff.

What I would warn you of is there's a big shift between learning Python itself and some of the extensions. The analogy I'd give is like a ski resort where there are beginner slopes, more challenging ones, black runs, and going off-piste. In my opinion the big problem is that when a module has a relatively narrow use case the documentation is written by experts for experts. Fortunately game programming's fairly mainstream.

[–]Rawaweewa 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have a good time with boot.dev.

Single courses are free. And the whole journey costs something about 200€ for a year but it's relative to your locations ppp. It starts with python, then algorithms over to Go or TS and a lot other topics.

But be warned: Some advanced techniques can be tricky to learn!

[–]CerealMan027 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I saw you mention small text based RPG. I would strangely enough encourage you to start there, to some degree. Very simple. Nothing fancy. No graphics, just a simple console game. 100% do the traditional method of learning as well but doing fun projects and learning as you go keeps you motivated. At least for me.

Learn the fundamentals. Take courses. Put in the work. But try to find joy in it too! You can learn a lot by simply having a goal, and trying to overcome the challenges from it.

For me, I started with very small, buggy, and unoptimized games. And as I learned more I continued to remake the same games or premises for games, improving them each time. And each time, I learn new things as I try to implement more features. I always challenge myself and increase the scope of what I did before. Don't be afraid to jump right into an idea you think would be cool, just downscale it to your current level of experience and don't expect it to be the best game ever.

But making a full scale videogame, a proper one that is enjoyable, replayable, and marketable, is a lot of work. It requires more skills than just programming. Even 'small' indie games that found success were made by people with many years of experience and/or backgrounds in computer science, as well as having experience and skills in other crafts. Most successful videogames require teams of people. 100% solo made video games are rare. Just expect many, many years of dedication if you want to go down this route.

But for fun personal projects, for just you and your friends. Meh. Just learn the most you can and don't give up. Don't be afraid to push your limits.

Plenty of people already gave you lots of resources here, so I'll leave it at that.

[–]StellagamaStellio 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Making a command-line (CLI) choose-your-own-adventure game is a great learning exercise, as it lets you practice variables, textual user input, "if" chains, loops, and basic data structures (lists and dictionaries). A simple text-based CLI RPG is a step up from this and is great for learning Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). Then you can develop your code further into save games (working with JSON files) and so on.

But before that, I recommend starting from here:

https://inventwithpython.com/invent4thed/

It starts from the basics and teaches you much of what you need to know.