Amateur Game development tools

Originally Posted by anusbacon09

on a scale of 1-10, how difficult would you say Python is to learn?


because all this stuff seems very interesting and i would like to try my hand at it

If you don't have any programming experience, I would start with BASIC or Pascal if I were you. At least I started with Pascal at school (I had Informatics that times) some years ago, because that is a good "beginners' language". It is not really of this time, but comparatively simple compared to more powerful languages as C(++) and languages based on that.
If you wish to program for game engines, I suggest that you combine learning to program with "playing" with Game Maker. The latter is a 2D game engine that is developed is such a manner that it trains you in certain skills you need to develop games. It comes with "interface programming" and a simplified programming language called GML.
So: Pascal or BASIC first (before C++ or Python) for regular programming skills, and Game Maker to learn some basics of game development.

Game Maker

Good luck!

I wouldn't really bother with basic or pascal in 2008. I started with those languages, but that was about ten years ago. Visual Basic will let you actually make something you can actually use. I suggest Java as the second language, but you could start with it (that's what's done at quite a few universities). VB will let you at least make some simple algorithms, and java will let you make proper data structures and mess with 3d if you get Java 3D. After that you should get started with Visual C++ and OpenGL (or DirectX if you want to invest more time)... Getting basic stuff going in OpenGL isn't really that much work at all, but once you're going past the basics it gets hairier

I've never used a game maker, and I assume it reduces some of the linear algebra needed, but if you're going to make anything half-decent you need to learn the following: syntax, algorithms, data structures, math (mostly linear algebra and discrete math), and advanced algorithms...