[reedlaw]

This is a good list of what not to do. Can anyone recommend what to do to make a simple game? I thought I'd give Unity a try because of the vast learning resources. Turns out it's pretty kludgy to get things done. Unreal Engine seems to have a steeper learning curve but is of somewhat better quality. I had the most fun trying to write my own OpenGL renderer in C++ but of course that's a rabbit trail off of making an actual game. What is the most productive environment for beginners?

[coderjames]

For developing 2D games, I've found the combination of Love2D [0], Bump.lau [1], anim8 [2], and Gamera [3] to be extremely productive for me. This is a Lua game engine with additional libraries for collision detection, animation, and moveable/zoomable camera.

I'm an embedded C++ programmer by day so I've almost certainly done many of the things on the OP's list. It wasn't until I set C++ aside after 15 years or so and gave Lua a chance that I finally started making real headway on my Secret Agent Sam remake.

[0] http://love2d.org/ [1] https://github.com/kikito/bump.lua [2] https://github.com/kikito/anim8 [3] https://github.com/kikito/gamera

(Note: I'm not kikito, just an appreciative user of his work)

[coldnebo]

I liked DarkBasic: https://www.thegamecreators.com/product/dark-basic-pro-open-...

Unlike other environments where everything is an integration with yet another library or tool chain, DarkBasic is refreshingly monolithic. Everything is simply in the language.

This makes it really easy for beginners to get started. Take a look!