In my last post I said I'd write more after I got started on my game. Well, that was a lie.. I haven't started on my game yet cause I dove into the advanced tutorials in the 'zine I mentioned. There's, I think, 4 advanced tutorials suited for people more familiar with code. I am not, but dove in anyway cause my friend told me the Particle Systems and Game States tutorials were really important. Especially the Game States tutorials! I went through them, but to be honest it was pretty hard for me to understand. I'm not a programmer and have never wrote anything in Lua. So even though I was able to go through the tutorial - copy/pasting code and trying to understand the explanation - it was still tough for me.
I tried to find other tutorials on game states, but I was searching for how to add a main menu to the tutorial games I made from the 'zine. I remember my friend recommending me this platformer tutorial series on youtube, cause I'm planning to make a platformer. So I looked at their youtube channel for other tutorials and found some amazing videos on adding a main menu that just so happened to cover game states! Going through these videos helped me understand game states and what I was writing so much better. Not that the 'zine was bad, it was just too advanced for me. Anyway, I highly recommend this youtube channel, it's called Nerdy Teachers. They even have a site. I donated to them right after I finished the game states tutorials, that's how much I enjoyed it. And I know I'll be using them for tutorials from now on so they definitely deserve it.
Anyway, after going through their tutorials on state machines, I was able to add a main menu to both tutorial games I made from the 'zine. Check 'em out 👇🏽
I haven't been writing too much about the code so far since I'm still learning as I go along. But the rest of the posts documenting my process will include more code to help me retain this all better 😅