EP0004 - Data types and keyboard input - Making a video game from scratch in C

We are going to program a video game from scratch using almost no help from any libraries or engines. Just our code. Join us!

This video game is going to be retro NES-style, evocative of the "Dragon Quest" or "Dragon Warrior" games from the '80s.

Best viewed in 1440p resolution. If the high resolution versions are not available yet, it's probably because I just uploaded the video recently and YouTube needs to finish its processing. Come back in a few hours.

Any questions or comments, please post them in the comment section below. I will either reply to your comment, or, if it's an especially interesting question or comment, I will discuss it in the next video.

Follow me on Twitter @JosephRyanRies

[ZeroHeroPlays]

You're literally my god father for learning this stuff. It's been so hard to wrap my head around Win32 until I found your channel. Like jumping into a pool not knowing how to swim and you come out of nowhere showing me how to pedal my feet.

[zanamasoud]

this is definitely the best series i have ever seen about C and Win32, never understood how that UI worked before, now im starting to figure it out! Thanks :D

[gammyhorse]

Your channel is a gem. The way you explain everything, slowly and clearly is great for a newbie like me.

[lochlanspeck]

I really like your style of teaching, Ryan: Clear, slow pace, with time to explain important concepts, which provides another dimension to this learning experience, and one seldomly found elsewhere imho. I especially like how you take time to show the effects in process explorer etc, that is pure gold

[whatmatterson]

I just started watching this series, but I can say it's a pure gold. Just a raw footage of coding and explaining stuff, you're awesome, thank you.
Greetings from Russia!

[goldenogregames]

First time catching your series on youtube and it's been really helpful. im in my 40s, love old school games and even though I got a COMPSCI degree in my 30s, I ended up getting a job in IT doing database and systems stuff. This is the type of stuff I enjoy learning about and doing. There's a ton of videos for me to cruise through, but just want to say I appreciate your process and hope to see more in the future.

[hi-nstc]

This is incredible. Thank you so much for these videos.

[CosmicDeejay]

Thanks for making simple windows applications in C much more approachable. I love your teaching style and that you're considerate enough to not make too many assumptions about what I know, while also respecting my ability to learn enough that you don't waste my time on things I should already know. I hope you continue this series and I wish you the best of luck.

[_slier]

damn, so far i have watched 3 of ur videos..im not a c programmer but rather than backend programmer.. i enjoyed ur video very much, u explained every little detail that u think maybe a source of confusion to the beginners...really appreciated it

[indi__]

I think I am too new to C for me to follow along with too many things in this series, but really I can't stress enough how useful it is to see someone craft something and put it together solely using C the language. one complaint I have about programming tutorials on youtube is that so much stuff is just kind of abstracted away or assumed so that as a beginner it seems mystifying. this series is gold purely because it does the opposite, and each video is centered around key ideas that are put to use immediately and explained in great detail. i appreciate it a lot, and i plan to come back to this when i've gained some more mileage with C. thanks again, ryan :)

[Haris-nysw]

Your videos are very interesting and informative. The way you explain by not just telling but also showing is something that I really appreciate. Thanks!

[brockolious]

Been loving the series so far. Really good pace and explanations along the way, thanks for doing this!

[astcenturyboy.]

Hey I started learning C some months ago and I found this masterpiece in Reddit. The series are well informing and the content is great. It helps a lot. Thanks
Greetings from Tunisia.

[hadja]

Thank you for this series, I am learning a ton of information. Been trying for last year to get my head around C and Win32

[Lifeless]

When you were explaining binary, i was relieved that i finally understood something and went " A haa!" I know this stuff! :)... On a serious note, ive been programming in C for a couple months, learning from K&R book, got to about half the book, and this window opening mumbo jumbo is super complicated.. but i am getting the hang of it .. I just learned how to process inputs, i know the graphical stuff is gonna be more complicated but im gonna try to make it simple . thanks Anyway, it does discourage me to know that im a complete noob after months of learning, but its the name of the game i guess. Gotta stay humble

[imtrashley]

Thanks so much for this series! Will definitely be following along during my summer break.

[joelincz]

Thanks, enjoyed this learning experience!

[cheese_crab]

I've coded for about 5 years now and professionally for 2, but it's typically front end javascript or C# running on Azure, so pretty far away from the OS. I've always found the win32 API to be hard to break into when I've wanted to do little side projects here and there, but this is like the missing link I needed. Really great job with your explanations man, hope you stay motivated to keep making these!

[ChupoCro]

I've found your series of videos a few day ago and I am now already at the 4th episode. I must congratulate you on such an attention to details and on consistency and am looking forward to watch all 60+ episodes. Started with Z80 assembler on Spectrum back in the 80s when I was 12, until 90s learnt 6502, Pascal and Fortran and since 90s and the days of 16F84 I've been designing embedded hardware devices & firmwares using assembler, C and C++ but I program for desktop computers too. BTW, 0xff is -1, not -127. If just bit 7 was used as a sign then 2 problems would arise. Problem 1: there would be two zeros which would be a waste of one of 256 combinations and problem 2 which is more important: 1 + (-1) would not be zero. Because of that changing of a sign is not just XOR 0x80 but is XOR 0xff + 1 (two's complement). So 0xff must be -1 because 0xff + 1 is zero as it should be. It is true the bit 7 is a sign bit but it is not true we can get the positive number out of negative by just removing the bit 7. The right way to determine the positive value of the negative 8 bit number n is (n XOR 0xff) + 1 meaning for number 0xff that is: (0xff XOR 0xff) + 1 = 0x00 + 1 = 1 which means 0xff is minus 1.

[Thranduil]

Hi.... any recommended c game dev book for me...pls