Wolfire Games Forums

Jeff is right, usually the engine part in 2D games is pretty much most of the game.
Take Tetris as an example. You'll most likely end up intertwining movement algorithms and game logic for obvious reasons. The pure engine part (concerning graphics at least) boils down to about 10-20 lines of OpenGL statements then (initializing stuff, showing background pic, painting cubes in display lists, painting letters..).

I think the best advice is: Just get started! And make a simple game. I don't know, something on the level of Pong.
You'll make mistakes anyway and a big part of the learning is of course done in the process. Don't think too much about weird stuff like shaders, GJK or Carmack's Reverse, that'll just confuse you

If you know how to initialize an OpenGL window via C++ and how to paint texture-mapped cubes that move when you press keys, you can already make an awesome game.

Edit: Oh, if you like Java, you could check out http://lwjgl.org/ - OpenGL available from Java via native interfaces. Even with OpenAL for the sound and support for custom controllers. It's a good starting point imho. And there's also NeHe tutorial code available for it.

um... I was looking at the nehe tutorials, and none of the code works for OSX . I thought it was OSX specific.

So what? Go ask in their forums. That's what they are for

I recommend REALbasic.

What about dimension 3? You can make some cool stuff with it! www.klinksoftware.com

Jeff wrote:For a 2d game, you seriously should roll your own.

Well, that depends. If, for example, you wanted to make a side scroller with physics... well, there's already an engine to save you alot of the work.

_Nik

GreenAlge wrote:

Jeff wrote:For a 2d game, you seriously should roll your own.

Well, that depends. If, for example, you wanted to make a side scroller with physics... well, there's already an engine to save you alot of the work.

_Nik

Still disagree. That's not really how it works. You will save yourself a ton of time in the long run if you make your own. Sure, using an engine will let you have a playable game in a few minutes while rolling your own engine may take a couple of days, but when you are working with your own engine, the possibilities are endless, while a prebuilt engine is going to be extremely limited.