My 13-year-old son and I are interested in learning how to make games for Ouya. We are as newbie as it's possible to be. Neither of us has any experience in making games and only the most basic experience programming (HTML, a little Scratch, stuff like that). I cannot stress enough just how inexperienced we are.
I've looked around and can't find anything on where to get started on the most basic level. Everything pre-supposes programming experience or a basic set of knowledge that my son and I just don't have. Can anyone help us out here?
For example: do we need to learn a programming language? If so, which one would be best? Java? Seems like the Ouya is basically an Android device, so if we find tutorials on programming for Android, would that be a good start for us?
It would be sweet to get a really basic beginner's step by step of: first learn this, then learn this, then learn this, then you'll be ready to make a basic game, etc.
Any help that anyone could lend would be greatly appreciated.
Hezekiah
Posts: 4Member
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They are working on OUYA support at the moment!
The software has everything built in: level editor, graphics creator, sound system and a drag and drop system to "program" (and more!).
It also has its own very simple programming language, but its not neccessary to create a game (however it does speed up development).
Check it out here: http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/studio
I think it costs money to publish games to android devices (Ouya included), but im not quite sure.
There is a free version though that you can try out!
I made the OUYA exclusive games Cube and Creature and Hellworm!
evgiz.net
If you want something really aimed at beginners, but based around programming, I'm working on an App that runs on the OUYA itself, where you type in program code directly (with a USB or Bluetooth keyboard) and immediately see the results. Note that the project is still in the early stages, but I intend for it to be ready before the retail release in June, at least an early version. Here's the kind of thing I'm planning (not final, but this is in general what I want):
> MyDog = Create Sprite "dog.jpg" at 960,540
> My Dog: if Controller1.Left Move Left 1
> My Dog: if Controller1.Right Move Right 1
> My Dog: if Controller1.O Play Sound "bark.wav"
The moment you type that first line, the dog would appear on the screen at coordinates 960,540. Right after you type the second line, pressing left on the controller would make it so the dog moves to the left. etc. Note that these games would require my app to run, it's not a real OUYA development environment, but it should in theory be good at teaching yourself basic game programming architecture and let you make fun simple games that run on the OUYA.
Since you have used Scratch you will probably find C2 a breeze to use and very familiar. it's less graphically fancy than Scratch, but has a similar layout of Event Sheet style coding. I personally am using C2 as a solo developer and find working with C2 sweet :) however, it's nice that GMS can have games going now and I need to wait :(
Hopefully these steps will work for you as well as it has worked for me.
1. Take this training course here: http://www.lynda.com/JavaScript-tutorials/Foundations-of-Programming-Fundamentals/83603-2.html
It will walk you through all of the fundamentals of programming, so that you gan go from there and learn any programming language you want. luckily, it also teaches JavaScript, and that will be what we will use to make games. I recommend learning one chapter from it every week.
2. Take this training course here: www.lynda.com/Unity-3D-tutorials/Unity-3D-35-Essential-Training/96677-2.html
Unity is the software that you will use to make games. (http://unity3d.com/) In this training course you will learn how to use unity, and program in JavaScript. Again one chapter every week is recommended. don't start this one until you have completed the programming fundamentals course.
In addition to this course, go here for additional training videos. http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules
3. Now that you can make games with unity, you will want to make them run on android. for that, you will need the unity android license. you can get that here: https://store.unity3d.com/
4. once you have that you will need to install the android SDK. you can find tutorials for that here: www.lynda.com/Android-2-tutorials/Android-App-Development-with-Java-Essential-Training/79825-2.html
The only ones you need from that training series is from chapter 1 videos 1, 2, and 3.
That's as far as I have gotten. Now all there is left to learn is how to use the ODK. I'm certain by the time you get here, there will be more noob friendly tutorials for that. :)