non programming skills
Spider Mycron
JordanMember Posts: 20
Hello everyone,
i feel that im very lucky to join this great family and i have some questions please:
1. im not a coder or programmer, am i still able to use this engine t make my own games ?
2. Does the Education section enough for me to learn how to make games ?
3. does it support only 2d graphics or 3d also ?
Thanks all for great help and support
Comments
Hi @Spider Mycron Welcome to the Forums and GSC
A tip for you : it'd be better to run on your avatar name or put an underline between the words, like this: @SpiderMycron or @Spider_Micron - that way you'll be emailed/flagged when you've got an answer to any questions.
For interest (or not...)
Spider was my "hippy" nickname for many years (mainly from the '70's - a bit before your time, I'll guess... 
Your questions:
Sure thing, in fact that's the main selling point of GameSalad Creator, that there's no coding... there's programming tho' using pre-made "lumps" of code called behaviours that are placed logically in rules, etc., so some past experience of programming in a BASIC-type language would be advantageous, but not essential.
Do you mean buying the discounted Education GameSalad Creator? It's identical to the Pro version so no difference there.
If you mean the free version of GSC then there are Pro features/behaviours missing but the engine is identical so you can learn/use/make games with that no problem.
The engine only supports 2D although there are a few tricks to simulate 3D (to an extent...)
Hope that helps.
""You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike." - Zork temp domain http://spidergriffin.wix.com/alphaghostapps
thanks a lot for response, well , how can i start ?
im going to buy ten official book and read then what next how can i pay for paid tutorials or classes please ?
also pleaser i really wish to see a demo or trailer for games made by game salad if possible.
Thanks
Hi there,
Welcome! For learning the engine, I recommend checking out or site and the free demos \tutorials section.
GSHelper. Com
My GameSalad Academy Courses! ◦ Check out my quality templates! ◦ Add me on Skype: braydon_sfx
Also a great start for someone new to GameSalad Creator is to run through the official Manual:
http://gamesalad.com/manuals
and after, maybe run through the lessons in the Cookbook:
https://help.gamesalad.com/hc/en-us/categories/200134158/
both of those will give you a good grounding before you head off into specific tutorials, etc. (except those tutorials on GSHelper.com, of course, as prev. mentioned....
""You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike." - Zork temp domain http://spidergriffin.wix.com/alphaghostapps
thanksa lot guys
Funnily enough, GS will actually help teach you how to code. Sure, you don't have to write any code, but designing a game in GS IS coding, just doing it through a GUI.
I did a course in game development (C++/DirectX) in 2011 and without my GS experience I would have found it a heap harder. All the stuff I was doing at the start of the course, I'd already done in GS
It's a great tool and I recommend GS to EVERYONE, whether they are starting out in game dev and want to move on to lower level languages, or they are designers who have no interest in learning to code in the future.
@POLYGAMe @Spider Mycron
Hi, I can't see how GS teaches you to code, personally, - I believe you can learn from it how to program more efficiently (learning logic) - but this is the constant argument all over the place (not just here, concerning GSC).
There are at least two experienced GSC users here in the forums who call making a game i.e making a program with ready-made behaviours and rules) as coding , not programming. This is despite GameSalad themselves pushing an advantage to non-coders with the byline: Create Games Rapidly, Drag & Drop No Code.
As I mentioned in another post somewhere in the Forums, it doesn't matter to me that some other people call creating a game in GSC as coding, when I believe it should be called programming - and it doesn't matter to a lot of other people either, some thinking the words are interchangeable, some defiant in their choice, some giving an explanation of their choice...
Here are just 3 places I found where the same question is asked/answered - what is the difference between coding and programming?
http://www.nairaland.com/755214/what-differences-between-programming-coding
http://workfunc.com/differences-between-programmers-and-coders/
http://www.gamedev.net/topic/392174-difference-between-programming-and-coding/
I believe the guys and gals who write the lines of code in Lua/Objective C, etc or whatever is used are the coders, writing the code.
Then GSC users use that code as ready-made "lumps" in an Object-Oriented environment by creating games by programming.
So I call it programming in GSC you and a few others call it coding; and I suspect, neither side will budge, and will continue to insist their term is correct!
Right, I'm off to carry on programming my latest game...
""You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike." - Zork temp domain http://spidergriffin.wix.com/alphaghostapps
I meant it helps when learning to code. It teaches the basics. And, as far as I'm concerned, coding IS programming. It means the exact same thing. I guess you could argue that with GS you're technically programming the computer through a GUI and that with coding you need to write code but... semantics... I think we all understand what I meant in my post. lol.
EDIT: You could also argue that you are indeed writing code, just through a GUI, not text.
I would highly recommend going over to deepblueapps.com and downloading all their free templates which they provide. it will give you a big boost in learning gamesalad.
also check out http://www.gsinvention.com/free-demos.html
we have over 30 free templates for you to download and play around with.
I also highly recommend @jamie_c and @The_Gamesalad_Guru tutorials, check out their youtube channels here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/jamiecross01/videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/dsouza41/videos
GSINVENTION FREE TEMPLATES
@POLYGAMe Ah you see, that's where we beg to differ...
I could add that if someone is the type of person to call a sandwich a baguette, or a car a truck, then by all means call coding - programming ...
I'm not "trying to be clever", just pointing out "2 sides of a coin"...
""You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike." - Zork temp domain http://spidergriffin.wix.com/alphaghostapps
Let's meet in the middle. Coding is programming but with text :P
Haha! Sounding good to me!
""You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike." - Zork temp domain http://spidergriffin.wix.com/alphaghostapps
@POLYGAMe @gyroscope -- words, words. If you tell someone you are a programmer, they will most likely ask you what language you write in. But it doesn't matter, the thing about language is that it is very flexible and to each of you what you are saying makes absolute linguistic sense.
About the whole idea you are discussing, no matter how you call it:
It is absolutely true. GameSalad will obviously not teach you to write code in a specific language. But on the other hand, the most crucial part of any programming is constructing the logic, there is a certain mind-frame that you need to get into, and the same can be said about GS.
Once (and if) you decide to start writing code, you will still need to learn the programming language, but you will already 90% be there with how you need to approach building logic that makes a game work well. In GS, you need to wrack your brain and engage in lots of low-level problem solving, unless you are just swapping graphics in a template and publishing that. Al of that will transfer with you to a new environment.
So yes, I would recommend GS to anyone, even if their ultimate goal is to start writing code in the future.
Exactly what I meant
I did a six month course in computer programming a few years ago. They covered five languages, it was a joke learning one would have been hard enough and to top it off the teacher didn't know what he was doing.
I didn't learn much as you can imagine but I did learn the structure of coding and the basic stuff common to all languages like If Else, For, Case, Do While, Do Until, etc. The hardest part was finding the information in the text books. When I finished it I couldn't write anything but I could read and get a rudimentary understanding of what was going on.
Later on I had to setup some spreadsheets for a business I was starting and I couldn't do what I wanted with formulas so I stared using VBA. I loved it and it was all possible because of the internet. When I got stuck I could post a question in a forum and get an answer in an hour most of the time. If I'd had to do it with a text book I wouldn't have been able to.
That bit of experience made learning GS a lot easier. As has been said earlier structure and logic are the keys to good programming. You can definitely learn that in GS and it will make learning to write a language (Code) a lot easier.
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GS is what is called logic programming very similar to the old basic language only wrapped in a GUI. This is why people get tripped up when they start to get into functions and vector stuff. There are some pretty complex aspects even with GS. The GUI only makes it easier to relate not build great logic and functions. You think single game logic is hard wait until you make an asynchronous multiplayer game! You have to track logic trees on two to eight devices. I've been coding one and I can already tell most basic users are going to find it very challenging. You really need an advanced grasp on logic trees.
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