Hi peoples.I designed a city sim in excel because I realized that I can. I was never taught programming though, just syntax (as a linguist).Is there a way I can start programming games similar to dwarf fortress in a programming language like excel

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Nodev 03/01/16 (Tue) 16:26:03 e70edf No.25780

Hi peoples.

I designed a city sim in excel because I realized that I can. I was never taught programming though, just syntax (as a linguist).

Is there a way I can start programming games similar to dwarf fortress in a programming language like excel's formulas? I already have a decent grasp of how those work.

Nodev 03/01/16 (Tue) 17:05:53 c0fd9f No.25781

Just learn to program normally, it's a useful skill even if your not making games with it. There are a number of tutorials for making such games, but a city simulator is probably a littler over ambitious for your first attempt.

Although I would be interested in seeing a full fledged simulator of some sort programmed into excel just for the novelty.

Nodev 03/01/16 (Tue) 17:24:02 e70edf No.25782

>>25781

the city sim actually works pretty well. The part where I stopped is in making a newspaper that tells the player what's going on.

What language is the most similar to excel formulas? What has stuff like CONCATENATE(list one, list two)?

Nodev 03/01/16 (Tue) 17:45:14 c0fd9f No.25785

>>25782

>What language is the most similar to excel formulas?

There are none as far as I know, I know how to program in excel as well, but it's just a different mindset. I'm not even sure where to begin explaining the difference, but I guess normal programming is a notch more abstract. you might just be better off finding a tutorial and starting from scratch.

Which language you learn first doesn't matter so much, they're all similar enough that you should be able switch between them depending on needs. Maybe C# to go with the Unity engine, it's free and has a lot of support.

Seriously upload your excel city simulator, I'm sure other people would be interested in it. I don't have excel though, you'll have to get it to work on libre office.

Nodev 03/01/16 (Tue) 19:05:34 e70edf No.25790

>>25785

Alrighty I will start working on a tutorial this week and post it here when it's ready :)

Nodev 03/03/16 (Thu) 19:44:41 d0980a No.25836

Spreadsheets loosely fall under the definition of functional programming. If you want to stick to "programming with formulas", you'll probably have to learn some functional language, IIRC Haskell is the popular one.

BUT

FP is very unpopular in game development because the concept of pure function is orthogonal to mutable states that are so popular in game logic. Also imperative ("normal") programming can be considered way more accessible than FP, and for "normal programming" you'll definitely find more materials on it, larger usergroups, etc. I'm not going to say "don't go any further" but this is definitely a less popular route. You won't get away from learning a new language that doesn't look like Excel formulas just by sticking with FP and it's fairly easy to start leaning "normal" programming anyway.

Nodev 03/04/16 (Fri) 02:13:49 7e2388 No.25839

Please disregard the well-meaning Haskell anon and learn C++11 instead.

Then learn about data structures. Then you can do anything.

Nodev 03/04/16 (Fri) 04:46:28 affab0 No.25841

>>25839

As a Haskell Junkie I can confirm that learning C++11 would be a better decision.

Nodev 03/07/16 (Mon) 13:24:52 9440ed No.25907

Any declarative language is a lot like plain formulas. Haskell is one example, and you could probably make games in it, there are even tutorials for that. C++ is not at all like plain formulas.

It is not very easy to program games in functional languages though, but there are some examples of games and engines written in Haskell, so I guess if you could do it in fucking spreadsheets, you probably can in Haskell. Or any other programming language for that matter.