[SalsaShark]

but if you give me about nine days...

DUN DUN

[thomasmahler]

Whenever I have some free-time, I like doing gameplay prototypes.

Recently I made this:


http://www.warsoup.com/builds/sein/cavedwarfs.html

Super early version of something that I thought could be pretty cool - a simplified 2d Minecraft that'd support multiplayer splitscreen support (love playing games on my couch with buddies) with crafting, monsters, etc. I used sprites from SoR to quickly block this out. Use a X360 controller to play. Already thought it's quite fun to mine stuff, collect resources, make something out of them and shooting little bombs (that you'd have to craft yourself) as well as build stuff.

Way too busy right now to do anything with it, but sometimes these smaller gameplay things can really get you going :)

[FrancisH]

This is a game myself and a friend made for a Java assignment, two weeks from scratch including learning and getting to grips with the swing library. These are screenshots from the menu and in-game. The gameplay isn't too advanced, the zombies just go towards you and it's just a survival game. We had planned for multiple rooms and other bits but never got round to it.
If there is any interest I could host it somewhere for you to have a go tomorrow :)

[Dog Problems]

Yeah, I made a couple of games with my small team. Our first one was for WiiWare, and it didn't do too well. Buuut we were able to pay back dev-kit costs and things like that, which is good. For our first try it wasn't too bad. :) Right now I'm working on another 2D game through unity, and it'll be out next year.

Just wanted to say that I really enjoyed Eduardo. Sorry it didn't do too well. :-(

[hyp]

very inspiring thread GAF! i've had a lot of free time and have been dabbling with coding so i hope the join the ranks of you soon. keep creating.

[Zeenbor]

Page is broken for me. Flashes incessantly as though it is continuously reloading for no apparent reason. Using Chrome.

Thanks for the heads up!

[Zeenbor]

Oh wow, I didn't know you posted here. Same Zeenbor behind CR? I used to watch those forums like 8 years ago for inspiration.

Been a GAF user since before CR. I don't post often but I frequent the site quite bit.

It's crazy that it's been 8 years since that project. Time flies, man. I can't believe that you remember the project, though! That's really cool. The forums you're talking about... the old official CR boards?

Anyway, hope this next project really excites people. It's a nice feeling when a game you're working on is fun to play and excites you as a gamer.

[Drinkel]

I study gamedesign so have been apart of three school projects but I also made a proof of concept in my spare time that did get me a nomination for best innovation in the Swedish Game Awards. I would really like to make it into a full game once i finish with my studies.

A crappy trailer for those interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bARK0...layer_embedded

[TheOddOne]

Cool thread! Fun to read about people's adventures and efforts. My story: Worked for some years with XBLA, PSN and some mobile stuff at a small studio. Mostly remakes, but also one original game, ilomilo for which I made the art and story.

Did you forget your hat? :p

Ilomilo was great, loved the art style and the quirky story.

[Ninjagorilla]

I've worked as the animator on a bunch of Vlambeer (http://www.vlambeer.com) games, the most well known ones being Super Crate Box and Serious Sam: the Random Encounter. They're good friends of mine, so I'm usually involved in some way in their projects. Apart from Vlambeer projects, I've also worked on both Flipper games for DSiWare and Celestial Mechanica for PC and Mac, of which the latter just got localized in Japan and was displayed at Tokyo Game Show. Overall, it's an incredibly fun and exciting job, though at times it can get frustrating and even depressing. But those times are far outshadowed by the excitement of starting and releasing a new project, and seeing how many people love your games. Also, the community is fantastic. I've met friends for life through making games, which is something I'm really grateful for.

Your art is cool, and so is Vlambeer.

Good to see this thread alive, inspiring stuff!

Did you forget your hat? :p Ilomilo was great, loved the art style and the quirky story.

Thanks! and... Hat? I'm sure that's some kind of reference (what whith the hat theme in ilomilo), but I'm not sure i get it :/

[Raonak]

I've tried making some, just in my spare time.

Im currently making a Pokemon fangame on RPGmaker 2003; Super Pokemon Eevee Edition

Also im working on a 2D devil may cry clone. (because im 60% sure DmC will kill the series)

[marcurius]

I worked on a simple iOS/Android game for a few weeks during the summer, it was released a few weeks ago. It was made with the Corona SDK and I think it turned out pretty well considering the time it took to make (~2½ months). Not a fan of Lua though.

I'm also working on my own roguelike currently. I hope to have it ready by the end of january, though I'm not sure whether that's possible considering I'm doing all the graphics on my own and I'm neither the greatest artist nor have I done any pixel art before. That's the reason I've gone with 16x16 tiles, heh. I'm doing it in XNA and plan to put it up on the WP7 marketplace. Lots of fun and a good learning experience.

I'd also have to say that games are lots of fun to make, by far the most fulfilling programming I've been doing.

[TimmiT]

As someone who wants to make videogames, this thread has some inspiring stuff. Subscribed.

[Kalnos]

I'm working on something in SFML 2.0/C# but it has taken the backseat to work atm.

The forums you're talking about... the old official CR boards?

Yeah, it was a long time ago. :s

[Mengy]

I'm also working on my own roguelike currently. I hope to have it ready by the end of january, though I'm not sure whether that's possible considering I'm doing all the graphics on my own and I'm neither the greatest artist nor have I done any pixel art before. That's the reason I've gone with 16x16 tiles, heh. I'm doing it in XNA and plan to put it up on the WP7 marketplace. Lots of fun and a good learning experience. I'd also have to say that games are lots of fun to make, by far the most fulfilling programming I've been doing.

Ooohhh, you are making a tiled roguelike? Keep us updated on your progress. Many years ago I started a roguelike of my own, programmed it in Basic of all languages, lol. It never even came close to being done, but I had a good start on it and it was very playable, if not very deep. I remember the day I got line of sight to work on the graphic display, that was a huge feeling of accomplishment! I gave up on it though when I realized that the direction I was going in had been done a dozen times before by various other games that were so good. It was however a neat experiment for me, but I was just imitating other games.

That was when I realized that if was ever going to make my own game, it needed to be a game I wanted to play. More importantly, it needed to be a game that I couldn't buy that was better than anything I could ever make. Since that little Basic roguelike all of my game designs have been for games I want that I can't just go out and buy. It's what has been driving me to read and learn programming from books, to research game design, to spend my free time learning how to make a game rather than spend it doing anything more productive or even fun. I play games for fun fairly regularly, but I often play games and find myself thinking about what I would do differently if I had made the game, or what I would change to "improve" it. Many of my game designs take inspirations from other games I've played that I just didn't like, as silly as that sounds. Games that I wish had been done better.

The only way to keep the drive alive for myself is to have a goal for something I want to play that isn't already out there.

Now, finding the time to actually learn how to make these designs become realities, that's a whole different ballgame....

[GodlyPerfection]

Ooohhh, you are making a tiled roguelike? Keep us updated on your progress. Many years ago I started a roguelike of my own, programmed it in Basic of all languages, lol. It never even came close to being done, but I had a good start on it and it was very playable, if not very deep. I remember the day I got line of sight to work on the graphic display, that was a huge feeling of accomplishment! I gave up on it though when I realized that the direction I was going in had been done a dozen times before by various other games that were so good. It was however a neat experiment for me, but I was just imitating other games. That was when I realized that if was ever going to make my own game, it needed to be a game I wanted to play. More importantly, it needed to be a game that I couldn't buy that was better than anything I could ever make. Since that little Basic roguelike all of my game designs have been for games I want that I can't just go out and buy. It's what has been driving me to read and learn programming from books, to research game design, to spend my free time learning how to make a game rather than spend it doing anything more productive or even fun. I play games for fun fairly regularly, but I often play games and find myself thinking about what I would do differently if I had made the game, or what I would change to "improve" it. Many of my game designs take inspirations from other games I've played that I just didn't like, as silly as that sounds. Games that I wish had been done better. The only way to keep the drive alive for myself is to have a goal for something I want to play that isn't already out there. Now, finding the time to actually learn how to make these designs become realities, that's a whole different ballgame....

I was in that boat a couple years ago. I've been studying game design heavily for the past few years. I was able to take Halo 3 and Halo: Reach and apply some aspects of game design into my level design using forge. Thanks to my heavy studying I've got first hand experience with creating content, creating first impressions, utilizing game features to your advantage, getting criticism, advertising, making connections, polish, etc. Thanks to all that I've got three of my maps in the current official Team Slayer playlist; Affinity, Think Twice, and Chateau.

Having a very specific medium works great for perfecting skills because you have less to consider and can be more focused about it. So I highly recommend looking into something like this to get good experience with certain aspects. It definitely increases the rate at which you learn.

Now I've taken what I've learned and starting to grow that knowledge and apply it to our TCG for the xbox.

[The Lamonster]

Dammit I thought this was about Indiana Jones. It's spelled "indie"

[Cromulent_Word]

I started Capy a long while back with a bunch of my friends and other folk from the local IGDA chapter. None of us had ever done a job half-related to games, let alone made one.

For 1.5 years we all worked day jobs and spent nights making a couple cell phone games. We taught ourselves how to make games as we went, and ended up with a couple pretty neat little games. We turned those games into some contracts, then we turned that experience into making our own games like Critter Crunch, Clash of Heroes and #Sworcery.

my advice: MAKE GAMES.

[Dolla Dolla]

before knowing these two guys that are helping me making this game I was a one man army and tried to make a whole game by myself .. the idea was to make a simple RPG in a medieval setting here are a couple of graphics I started sketching. this gave me an idea of what I can accomplish with my limited art skillset here are more stuff I made for that game now cancelled...

Love this style, it reminds me of old school police quest, king's quest, space quest character designs. I've always been interested in making games, but the most I would ever be able to contribute would be ideas/stories/concepts rather than actual coding/graphics.

[DownLikeBCPowder]

Clash/Capy

Clash of Heroes is so amazing, please do keep up the excellent work..!


Great thread and great replies within, really enjoying reading all of this.

[Gustav]

Angry Business Man for iDevices

[flkk]

As has been said before, amazingly inspirational thread. Was great reading through it. Here's my very modest contribution...

Seeds is the first game I ever finished programming (partner did the art). Now we're just looking for a flash portal to sponsor it, and hopefully if all goes well I can post again when it's released in a month or two.

CLICK FOR TRAILER


Treasure Sweeper is going to be the second game I finish programming. Same partner did the art, we're in the last week of development at the moment.



Get Mad! is something stupid I made in a day for fun. I wanted to make a game in a day but didn't like the Ludum Dare theme so I created my own: 'the only gameplay mechanic should be mashing the keyboard as fast as possible'. And this was the result. Lol.

CLICK TO PLAY


I wish we had more time, or could start each project over and there are a million things I would do different, but then I think fuck it I'm actually going to earn >$1 for a game I programmed 100% from start to finish that's awesome! Super-excited-can't-wait to get started on the next game!!

[snoopeasystreet]

I asked V_Ben this on twitter and he wasn't sure so I might as well ask here. Does anyone know a way to get into contact with sony in regards to the pub fund? For the game I'm working on at the moment, I could really do with an artist and could do with the extra dough.

[smuttlegiaco]

me and my friend ralph talked about making games since childhood. we worked on a hardcore strategy PC-game for almost 6 years in our spare time. it's nearly finished, but last year we thought: now or never! and started our own little company "smuttlewerk interactive" and so the game (it was to be called "Titanomachy") was put to rest for some later time.

our first game Companions (iPad only) was finished this may after working 10month full time on it and sometimes I still don't really believe that we've done this...it's a good feeling.

like Cromulent_Word said: make games, but I would add: please let it be good ones. :D

prototype:



finsihed version:

[Bufbaf]

Since EL didn't answer my PM (asked about opinions on a Gaming topic) for a month now, I'll just leave it here:
PonyGAF IRC did rally up and actually start to make a game!

About 1-2 months ago, we talked over the idea of creating a little fangame (over the MLP:FiM franchise, of course), and decided on a Lucas Arts-style adventure game. Close second was a Rainbow Dash Bullet Hell shooter, if i remember correctly. Anyway, unorganized and amateurish as we are, we quickly set up a Google doc with lots of ideas in it. We started drawing, MykeGreywolf fooled around with Python and Pygame, then Orcastar came in to write dialogue and stuff. A lot of people over there wanted to contribute, sadly only few of them actually had time and motivation enough to do so.

Long Story (a bit) shorter, we're now having a 62 page document, for the Demo and general stuff alone, and our "cast" section (credits where credits are due) looks like this right now:

Project Lead: Buf, Myke
Programming: Myke
Music: Buf
Animation: Myke, Buf, OMGAero
Sound effects: Myke,
Graphics: Buf, Myke, Wulf Magnusson
GUI gameplay design: Thnikkaman, Captain Fish
GUI graphics design: Buf
Writing: Orcastar (and everyone who comes up with witty stuff)
Proof-reading/Editing: Orcastar
Document design: Orcastar
Guy who does things sometimes, and he eats all the donuts in the break room: Xzeon
Coming up with awesome puzzles and story bits: Everypony!

As you see, we're not THAT many people, and no one involved so far has done his work professionally before.


Now, as I know GAF doesn't like Ponies at all, I'm not sure if this post is a good idea. I'm hoping you manage to appreciate the tons of work that went into this so far (and will go into it) as we progress. Please don't overdo the Pony hate on our sites, and keep it in here, if you must. We're all Gaffers, you know.

Anyway, here's a teaser video for the Demo, coming out in the next few days. I'll update you here, if you're interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgsckvtE8V8

TL;DR: Ponygaf is now game devs.


Stealth Edit: The game will be absolutely free, of course.

[BadSanta]

Here's mine.

Still working on new levels...

[Mengy]

Man, Indie-GAF is much more active than I originally thought. Lots of good work in this thread.

Myself, I'm currently trying to decide if I want to focus on learning Java or C++ as a language to start messing with. I'm leaning towards Java right now and installed Eclipse IDE this weekend. Bought a Java for Dummies book and started reading it a few weeks ago. I've also got an old edition of C++ for Dummies, but I'd want to get an updated edition to learn from today. So far Java seems a lot like C++, just a bit different syntax. Even a bit more verbose somewhat, didn't expect that. It's still early in the book though.

[Somnid]

I've done a couple of 2D engines but I usually stop my games once I get out of the concept phase. There's only so much one guy can do and then the next big idea to chase comes along. I must also say that doing software development for a living really makes it hard to come home after 8 hours of programming and do more programming. I think it's crazy I actually like it enough to put a little work in here and there.

[LeleSocho]

Get Mad! is something stupid I made in a day for fun. I wanted to make a game in a day but didn't like the Ludum Dare theme so I created my own: 'the only gameplay mechanic should be mashing the keyboard as fast as possible'. And this was the result. Lol. CLICK TO PLAY

just destroyed 2 letters of my keyboard :(

[nicoga3000]

I've always wanted to get into programming and shit, but I've been stuck using Game Maker 8 for now. I have no idea where to start learning a language to the level required to program any sort of games.

Anyone have suggestions for others out there like myself who are interested in diving into this "hobby"?

Also, kudos smuttlegiaco on Companions. I own it and REALLY love it. You did a superb job on that title!

[Crazymoogle]

I've always wanted to get into programming and shit, but I've been stuck using Game Maker 8 for now. I have no idea where to start learning a language to the level required to program any sort of games. Anyone have suggestions for others out there like myself who are interested in diving into this "hobby"?

I like GM. It's reasonably visual and you can eventually do complex games. But it's definitely a language of its own.

If you want something even more visually-oriented (read: farther away from actual programming), I gather that the best tool to use these days is GameSalad. It's Mac only, but it seems to be a very robust tool for making quick iPhone/iPad/HTML5 games and it really is meant for non-programmers.

If you want to learn coding but are totally intimidated by C and the like, (and I'm repeating myself here...) Corona SDK is the answer. It uses LUA, but with quite a few game friendly calls, a helpful community, and tons of little tutorials to help you get on your way. (This page is particularly good.)

There are other reasonable tools for PC development but their difficulty varies a lot based on the type of game you want to make. These iOS tools, by comparison, are very good at handling just about anything 2D, and you get to actually try it out on-device (trying your very-own app while sitting on the couch is enormously motivating!)

[disap.ed]

Now that's the question *lol*

[nicoga3000]

I use GML and enjoy it a bit, but I feel like I'm cheating myself by not trying to learn C/VC#/etc. I've done a BIT of programming in VC# for some basic work applications, and I do Matlab programming all the time (but that doesn't really count, haha).

I haven't even heard of CoronaSDK, but it seems kind of neat. And it looks to be Mac friendly. I'd love to be able to put my MBP to more use, and it WOULD be sweet to play something I made on my iPad. :P

Is it miserably difficult to learn in your (or anyone else who uses it) opinion?

[wrowa]

DudeBro?

What happened to Dudebro anyway? The thread kinda died some months ago.

[kingschiebi]

I've always wanted to get into programming and shit, but I've been stuck using Game Maker 8 for now. I have no idea where to start learning a language to the level required to program any sort of games. Anyone have suggestions for others out there like myself who are interested in diving into this "hobby"?

There is unfortunately not a lot difference between programming a game and programming any other application, which means that you'll have to learn "a language" and more importantly some programming paradigms. The latter ones will prove more useful over time as they tend to apply for multiple languages and it makes things a lot easier if you know what you want to do it and simply need to look up how it is done.
I started by reading "Progamming Perl" (O'Reilly) back then and just experimented with some CGI. In hindsight, I think that starting with an interpreted language made things a bit easier as you can change code on the fly and directly see the changes without recompiling.
Then again, if you know that you'll get into games, you might want to try at least to go for a language that supports object-oriented programming and learn how that concept works.
Whatever you'll start with, make sure that the language has support for drawing things on screen (except you are going for a text adventure). The big hitters like C(++/#) and Java can truly be a bit intimidating, because there is a lot going on just to produce a project that can be compiled. But they still offer some features like strong typing that is annoying at first, but saves you a lot of trouble in the long run.

In fact, why not try to start off with something like a text adventure. I know that it sounds incredibly boring, but it defines a good set of challenges to start off (branching structures, maybe a timer that ends the game, handling user input, loading/saving data...etc.).

Assuming that you don't have a lot experience with programming at all (never looked at GM and don't know how much is done there), the best way is always to get some literature. Try to stay away from specialized game programming literature at first, though. Most of that assumes that you already know a lot about programming in general and it is not really helpful if a render-loop is explained in excruciating detail, but you don't know how threads work and how they might communicate to each other.
When I say literature, I actually mean "a book". There are tons of resources on the web, but to find something that is written in a consistent way is actually pretty hard and even then there is generally more "bad" literature than "good". Luckily the internet makes things a bit easier there, so read up a couple of reviews and then go for one.
Depending on your style of learning, a cookbook with some sample applications or specific algorithms to solve problems might be a good companion book.

Whatever it'll be, choose one language and stick to it while starting slow. Do something with text-only first, then take a look at some backend things like networking, managing data, etc. and then go for graphics. Programming is about engineering and a game is not that much different than building a car. You might be tempted to start with the fancy paint, but it is a lot more easier to start with one wheel first and go for an engine second.

[Minamu]

I made this thread and game as a school project earlier this year:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=419323

Haven't tried selling it though, maybe for obvious reasons :)

Trailer here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANzsGfe0Y3k

Seems like the download link is still working in the thread.

[Baconbitz]

I have been working on a concept/story for a few months for one game. I did also finish writing down the idea for another game. The problem is I don't know where to go from here. I mean I don't want to do the coding if at all possible. I just want to sorta be the supervisor.

[Andrex]

I have been working on a concept/story for a few months for one game. I did also finish writing down the idea for another game. The problem is I don't know where to go from here. I mean I don't want to do the coding if at all possible. I just want to sorta be the supervisor.

Unfortunately everybody has ideas, even programmers who would rather do their ideas than some random guy's. Believe me, I wish I could just come up with the ideas and have the rest be done for me but it's not going to happen, unless you're willing to shell out some money.

[Baconbitz]

Unfortunately everybody has ideas, even programmers who would rather do their ideas than some random guy's. Believe me, I wish I could just come up with the ideas and have the rest be done for me but it's not going to happen, unless you're willing to shell out some money.

Well I have a job so...?

[nicoga3000]

Stuff and things

I agree with this from my stand point - I need to get more familiar in general, but I guess I was just unsure where to start. A text adventure would be fun to be honest - learning how to jump around functions, classes, etc.

But again, I just have no clue what language to jump into and what environment works best for "end-result" game programming. Thanks for the super informative post!

[Blizzard]

I have been working on a concept/story for a few months for one game. I did also finish writing down the idea for another game. The problem is I don't know where to go from here. I mean I don't want to do the coding if at all possible. I just want to sorta be the supervisor.

You have a career in management ahead of you!

Seriously though, as a programmer I have a hard time coming up with ideas for games. I would love for someone else to come up with the art and design and idea! A big problem, however, is that if someone is coming up with the ideas and doing the work, they may change their mind a lot, or ask for certain things that they do not realize are very work-intensive or technically challenging for the programmer.

[Baconbitz]

You have a career in management ahead of you! Seriously though, as a programmer I have a hard time coming up with ideas for games. I would love for someone else to come up with the art and design and idea! A big problem, however, is that if someone is coming up with the ideas and doing the work, they may change their mind a lot, or ask for certain things that they do not realize are very work-intensive or technically challenging for the programmer.

Would you mind me PMing you?

[Crazymoogle]

I haven't even heard of CoronaSDK, but it seems kind of neat. And it looks to be Mac friendly. I'd love to be able to put my MBP to more use, and it WOULD be sweet to play something I made on my iPad. :P

That's particularly why I think it's a great tool. It's free (at least, until you want to publish or use the daily builds) and you can either output to either an on-screen simulation or prep it to test on your own device. Like I said, you'll feel way more motivated to improve your game/app when you actually can play around with it.

Is it miserably difficult to learn in your (or anyone else who uses it) opinion?

Some of the first tutorials out there are literally 30 lines or less to make a game. A brutally simple physics game, not interesting for very long, but simple nonetheless. I'd say LUA is easily the most user-friendly language I've run into as a non-programmer. There is certainly still a learning curve (you're still writing code in a text editor, not dragging command blocks around like in GM) but you are writing what directly happens - there's no big frontloaded amount of code to write before you work on the actual game. The SDK differs from LUA mostly in that it has a bunch of built in functions to handle things like displaying text, images, etc - most of your code is about working with that.

[Andrex]

Well I have a job so...?

Then go for it, obviously. I have an idea for a Flash series but I suck at Flash so I'll be paying out to get that made. :P

[Blizzard]

Would you mind me PMing you?

By all means go ahead, just be aware that depending on how complex it is, I probably will not have time for it. I certainly won't share your idea with anyone else, however.

I agree with this from my stand point - I need to get more familiar in general, but I guess I was just unsure where to start. A text adventure would be fun to be honest - learning how to jump around functions, classes, etc. But again, I just have no clue what language to jump into and what environment works best for "end-result" game programming. Thanks for the super informative post!

Python, Java, and C/C++ should all work for text adventures, I'd say. Compilers and development environments are free (such as the nice Microsoft Visual C++ Express, maybe Netbeans for Java, not sure what for Python). I am guessing that Python would be easiest for learning text stuff, but Java might provide a more structured/object-oriented experience. C/C++ works just fine for text stuff and there is a ton of information available, but it is lower level (more complex) than Python/Java. I'd say you have to do more work on your own with C/C++, while Java might already have something implemented by default.

I have honestly never dealt with LUA, but it sounds like there is some interesting stuff there.

[Jocchan]

What happened to Dudebro anyway? The thread kinda died some months ago.

Lots of people left, including important contributors, leaving us severely understaffed. Things slowed down more and more, deadlines started getting missed (the most blatant being a gameplay trailer for E3), so changes had to be made to keep everything manageable with one tenth of the staff.

These changes are not public yet because the best way to introduce them is to show them in practice, so we're keeping a low profile mode until that time comes.

The official thread, specifically, was abandoned because the sporadic bumps didn't last long and often went with very few replies, if any at all. The website is still having regular weekly updates every Monday, though (and the one from today is actually a cutscene running in real time in your browser with Unity Web Player, and is coincidentally planned to be posted in the OT too later today).

[TheExodu5]

Yep. = D Sequence I won third prize in the 2011 Dream Build Play contest, which was cool. Sales on XBLIG weren't great, or good, or whatever, but I don't really mind too much. I want to say more about sales and success and whatnot, but if you give me about nine days... Says you, man. = D

Sequence was great. It's a shame XBLIG is such a terrible place to sell games.

Steam still ignoring you? :(

If Steam continues to ignore you, I hope you can find other avenues to bring the game to PC.

[kingschiebi]

But again, I just have no clue what language to jump into and what environment works best for "end-result" game programming. Thanks for the super informative post!

I was about to say that you could start with Java and get Eclipse or NetBeans as an IDE, but that ultimately comes down to the fact that I do feel comfortable with that.
A good thing to try is to look at some simple code examples from potential interesting languages with some annotations on the web. If you can read and understand the flow of the language without reading up on every operator symbol, you might want to go ahead with it.

For the first steps it is more important that the language feels natural to you and not how powerful it is in one environment vs. another. (most programming classes start with pseudocode for that reason)

Whatever it'll be, try to go with one that has an IDE available with auto-complete features. I found it incredibly useful for Java and C# just to hit auto-complete and see what methods are available in a library/object and have a starting point from there.

If you really want to start out with text stuff first and don't mind to switch over to another language later on, I'd almost recommend to start with something like PHP. The base library is pretty small and comprehensible, while the language also allows you to dabble into object-oriented programming without forcing it upon you.
You could just run it from the CMD line or even download something like XAMP (webserver + php + stuff) and use your webbrowser.
Even JavasSript can serve that purpose to some extent and also has a somewhat similar syntax to Java.
In terms of IDE, I'd recommend to use Eclipse or Visual Studio as both have support for multiple languages and pretty much everything is documented very well.

[barkers crest]

I've put out some top sellers on the XBLIG platform. Even have an official thread for the latest game here: http://neogaf.net/forum/showthread.php?t=431483

It hasn't always been easy but it has been a lot of fun.

[TheExodu5]

If I were to start with any language for game development, it would definitely be C# using the XNA framework. I'm a Java developer by trade and I love Java, but it's just not a language that should be used for making games.