Best Programming language
- Thread starter Klaus
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Brian Boru
Moderator
I've never done anything like this, but hope to some day, so I've been researching it for years. So some general notes/comments which may help…
Will it be a mobile app, or one aimed at browsers?
Are you already familiar with some languages or some platform stacks? If so, you should probably start by using those, because actual game design is likely to be your biggest hurdle.
Your main needs/resources:
1 Database to store all the tables of info—something SQL-based like MySQL or SQLite would likely be best to start with. SQL is different to other languages, but small & easy to learn.
2 Language—if you don't know any already, try Python. It's relatively easy to learn, is very versatile, and should suit number crunching since data science is one of its main applications.
3 GUI—a library for whatever language you pick. But start simply by just printing output to console, you can spruce it up later when the overall design is clearer.
4 IDE or code editor—I recommend Microsoft's VS Code, it's got plugins for dozens of languages and is a truly fine piece of work.
Game Engine
You should check out the main ones, in case one of them might already have integrated resources which would make life easier for you.
Unity and Unreal are the big two generally available, others which might be worth a look are Godot and GameMaker Studio.
No code
Some engines have no-code environments, where you design visually while the engine writes the code in the background—very much like how WYSIWYG apps like Word & Dreamwaever work. These could be very useful for quick prototyping:
Unreal, Unity, Godot, GameMaker all have a no-code option.
Language
As far as I know, older games and many/most current AAA games are written in a variation of C language, mainly C# or C++
Difficult to learn and 'verbose'—ie need 10 lines to do what another language does in one line—their claim to fame is processing speed. This advantage has become much less important recently with the advances in hardware, so unless you're coding a high-visuals action game, you should be fine with slower easier languages.
JavaScript is another fairly easy language, used heavily in web pages, so good if you're browser based.
Whatever language you pick, check out the Frameworks and Libraries available for it—they will make life easier and save you tons of time since you won't have to reinvent existing wheels.
Examples for Python: PyGame and PyAutoGui.
Media Assets
You'll probably need some art & audio. Probably best to buy if you can afford, but if DIY have a look at:
Art—Krita, Inkspace, Blender if you need 3D.
Audio—FL Studio, Harmor.
General Advice
Keep it simplest and smallest at first. Get a tiny horrible but playable mini game working—eg 3 teams with 3 players each in 1 league run in 3 stadiums. Get the gameplay working, all else will follow easier as you'll have proved the practicality of your idea to yourself.
This will take time—many months if you're experienced, maybe a couple of years if it's all new to you.
Will it be a mobile app, or one aimed at browsers?
Are you already familiar with some languages or some platform stacks? If so, you should probably start by using those, because actual game design is likely to be your biggest hurdle.
Your main needs/resources:
1 Database to store all the tables of info—something SQL-based like MySQL or SQLite would likely be best to start with. SQL is different to other languages, but small & easy to learn.
2 Language—if you don't know any already, try Python. It's relatively easy to learn, is very versatile, and should suit number crunching since data science is one of its main applications.
3 GUI—a library for whatever language you pick. But start simply by just printing output to console, you can spruce it up later when the overall design is clearer.
4 IDE or code editor—I recommend Microsoft's VS Code, it's got plugins for dozens of languages and is a truly fine piece of work.
Game Engine
You should check out the main ones, in case one of them might already have integrated resources which would make life easier for you.
Unity and Unreal are the big two generally available, others which might be worth a look are Godot and GameMaker Studio.
No code
Some engines have no-code environments, where you design visually while the engine writes the code in the background—very much like how WYSIWYG apps like Word & Dreamwaever work. These could be very useful for quick prototyping:
Unreal, Unity, Godot, GameMaker all have a no-code option.
Language
As far as I know, older games and many/most current AAA games are written in a variation of C language, mainly C# or C++
Difficult to learn and 'verbose'—ie need 10 lines to do what another language does in one line—their claim to fame is processing speed. This advantage has become much less important recently with the advances in hardware, so unless you're coding a high-visuals action game, you should be fine with slower easier languages.
JavaScript is another fairly easy language, used heavily in web pages, so good if you're browser based.
Whatever language you pick, check out the Frameworks and Libraries available for it—they will make life easier and save you tons of time since you won't have to reinvent existing wheels.
Examples for Python: PyGame and PyAutoGui.
Media Assets
You'll probably need some art & audio. Probably best to buy if you can afford, but if DIY have a look at:
Art—Krita, Inkspace, Blender if you need 3D.
Audio—FL Studio, Harmor.
General Advice
Keep it simplest and smallest at first. Get a tiny horrible but playable mini game working—eg 3 teams with 3 players each in 1 league run in 3 stadiums. Get the gameplay working, all else will follow easier as you'll have proved the practicality of your idea to yourself.
This will take time—many months if you're experienced, maybe a couple of years if it's all new to you.
I'd personally suggest not diving into game engines for now and to start by treating it like a pure web application. Using Python for processing the data and Angular or ReactJs for making the pages would probably be the easiest.
Thank you so much guys.. yeah it would be a browser game. I'm currently learning Java and also HTML and yeah, m prepared to invest the 2-3 years of time it may take to get it up and running.. good thinks take time 
Brian Boru
Moderator
You picked a tough one to start with! Should make other languages easy to pick up though, the principles & fundamentals you'll learn will stay with you going forward.
You'll probably also need CSS and Javascript, those 3 are the basics of the front-end 'web stack'.
I assume those would need prior knowledge of Javascript?
Your app will be 2D, right? In which case Unity & Unreal would be unsuitable, if you do ever look at engines—they're focused on 3D.
Godot has a separate 2D engine, and as far as I know GMS is also 2D-focused.
Zloth
Community Contributor
Any of them. It sounds like you're just starting to learn programming. That means you're going to be getting your mind wrapped around all the basics: various loops, arrays, database table joins, subroutines, recursion... and all the major languages can do that stuff. One might have ()'s in the "if" statement while another doesn't, but it's still the same sort of thing either way. Something I have learned in my years, though, is that it's really hard to learn a language if you don't have something to practice using your new tools with. The management game should be really good for that.
Just expect to re-write parts of it. A lot. You'll be writing it, getting it to work, and then you'll learn something new that could make it work even better. Or maybe you start out with a program that just plays cricket with itself and you start adding other things, like letting you play, or getting more detailed rules, or more management options, or deal with what's supposed to happen if the league has an odd number of teams in it, or whatever.
I think it's easier to just start learning Angular or ReactJs directly than to learn Javascript first.
Games are usually being developt on one of the game engines:
- Unity.
- Unreal Engine.
- Cryteck, etc
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