Learn Beginners Game Development For Free With Microsoft.

[kingofdragons]

Here's a very good free entry level course into programming and gamedev:

Microsoft MakeCode Arcade

Develop your programming skills by quickly creating and modding retro arcade games with Blocks and JavaScript in the MakeCode editor

arcade.makecode.com

Microsoft has always had very good programming and education guides and courses over the years, Its a really well done course and surprisingly very underrated.

 

[Lokgamer]

Nice. Thaks for the info.

 

[Samatonic Samatonic]

 

[SpaceCadetGenocide]

my school cheaped out when hosting AP computer science so we were stuck using that trite, I would not recommend make code arcade, for a visual block-based game engine I implore you to use scratch instead

 

[kingofdragons]

my school cheaped out when hosting AP computer science so we were stuck using that trite, I would not recommend make code arcade, for a visual block-based game engine I implore you to use scratch instead

Its not meant to be a game engine, its great for what it is, a beginner level introduction into programming for game development. And I know kids who grew up with it use it as such, but even Scratch itself is junk if you want to use it as a game engine, Scratch was also designed as an educational tool not a professional development environment and should not be used for the things I've seen it used for.
We had these issues long time ago in the age of Basic and later Visual Basic, with people insisting on using it to make real apps and games instead of what it was designed for, toy projects for beginners and maybe some simple automation of tasks. So you eventually had dozens of ''pro'' basic derivatives trying to sell people what were in essence broken tools.

 

[Graw]

Its not meant to be a game engine, its great for what it is, a beginner level introduction into programming for game development. And I know kids who grew up with it use it as such, but even Scratch itself is junk if you want to use it as a game engine, Scratch was also designed as an educational tool not a professional development environment and should not be used for the things I've seen it used for.
We had these issues long time ago in the age of Basic and later Visual Basic, with people insisting on using it to make real apps and games instead of what it was designed for, toy projects for beginners and maybe some simple automation of tasks. So you eventually had dozens of ''pro'' basic derivatives trying to sell people what were in essence broken tools.

Tools like scratch and simple visual based learning tools are ok for kids or people who have never been introduced to any kind of programming whatsoever and who don't have a decent math or abstract thinking background. I feel like once you figure out the general flow of logic it's ideal to try and move on to something a bit more capable because those tools will become frustrating fast. They're a great aid in learning about things like control flow, loops, subroutines and how data works but I don't really think those tools have much value once you've learned those things and personally I'd argue that's better to learn those things with a real programming language or something like beginner Godot tutorials. You'll advance in your knowledge faster.

It's like trying to learn to build a house or a shed with kids tools or something. Sure you might get the basics down but you'll be frustrated when you actually try to build something.