Hey y’all. I’ve dabbled in programming through Codecademy, trying like 5-7 different languages and doing basic stuff like calculations and simple programs (mars weight calculator, dog age calculator, Madlibs text game etc). Every time though, I’d get stuck at the same point in tutorials (can’t remember which specific pet, some sort of culminating calculations project). I also generally found the process of learning tedious and forced, compared to the fun I had learning html and JavaScript when I was like 13 also on codecademy (I’m 24 now, and tried to learn programming again on and off for the past few years).

But when I see or interact with programs, especially video games, I love imagining how the code works. I’ve done a few game dev tutorials (my dream job outside of being a musician), and it’s fun to understand and visualize mechanisms like teleportation—moving coordinates, or maybe if on the lower level, teleporting models deletes them and remakes them at the new coordinates, or just how that movement to new coordinates works. I think about other mechanics like damage calculations too, AoE, though they’re pretty basic.

Writing this, I realize these mechanics are easy to visualize even without programming experience, so my confidence dips a bit, but it’s still fun.

I’d love to do game development, or at least software if game dev is too out of reach. It’s been a while since I learned any programming because tutorials are so tedious (Codecademy’s text and tests, Udemy’s videos for game dev). I’m also indecisive about which language to focus on. Python seems like an obvious choice for learning, but part of me wants to and did dive into many game-specific languages to build my portfolio and skills early, even if it’s harder. You might say do Python, but I find learning Python knowing that I want to actually spend most of my time in a game engine or game programming to be very boring and off putting (and PyGame doesn’t seem very attractive, idk). There are so many languages and game engines to choose from, and I can’t stick to one because they all seem appealing, so I never get far (at all, actually) in any direction. Any advice? I’m into 3D games, mixing third and first person.