Since my last post, I did a little more browsing (although I really shouldn’t have!) and experimented with Defold, a game engine that is said to compete with Godot, or Construct. I was very impressed with the one-click build workflow, and the amount of tutorials and resources. The build size was also really small, and that’s a huge plus for web games. I would highly recommend Defold to anyone who wishes to start 2D programming quickly and easily, although I may be a little biased (I have not tried Godot or Construct yet).

But coming back to myself, I still preferred traditional coding. Although I enjoyed using Defold, I found myself looking up videos on SDL2 and C++ programming… and I ended up spending the entire yesterday afternoon following a tutorial by javidx9:

And I managed to complete the tutorial, after stumbling through a lot of C++-related issues. I felt like an absolute noob, but it was nevertheless enjoyable. I had never imagined that the command prompt could be used like this until I tried it out myself.

img

But more excitingly, completing the tutorial made me realise that I like programming more than making games after all. I mean, I like tinkering with tools, and reinventing wheels. I enjoy the process of learning rather than creating something worth commercializing. I know it’s not the best decision in the world, but I think I’m happier this way, and perhaps one day I can move on to build upon my interests.

My next exercise is to start getting familiar with SDL2 and drawing some pixels on the screen. I can’t wait for next week to come so I can code for fun again.

And what about Ebiten and Love2D? Perhaps some other time, when I have an idea of a game I’d like to make. :)