Writing Games with Ruby
17 Apr 2015The promise of making games is what brought many of us to programming. Games are fun, and writing games is fun. Crazy fun in fact. But isn’t game programming hard? Yes. But also no. If you can code a web app you can make a game, especially with an awesome language like Ruby.
I’ve compiled a bunch of resources to get you started.
My (awesome) presentation
Last year I presented on writing games with Ruby using the wonderful Gosu library. It goes through the basics of game programming, the Gosu API, and shows some examples of what is possible. My goal for this presentation was to give folks with no game development experience the tools to build a game. So, if that is you, then this is a good place to start..
Buy the book (or read online)
Tomas Varaneckas has written a fantastic ebook on making games with Ruby. You should buy it. But if you don’t buy it, you should at least read it online for free online. No, seriously, if you’ve gotten this far do yourself a favor and read the book. It will help.
Read lots of Ruby game code
One of the best things about the Gosu community is that there are so many examples you can learn from on GitHub. Tinkering with open-source games is a great way to understand how games work. You learn not just how to write better games, but how to write your games better. I’ve compiled a list of some games for you to peruse.
Have fun!
If you’re not having fun then you’re doing it wrong. Seriously. Force yourself to have fun if you have to, but have some fun.
